After another Game 7 disappointment, how close is Avalanche to returning to top of the mountain?

Bruce Boudreau is the wrong guy to ask for solace after losing a Match He s not going to tell you that it gets better or that the feeling goes away Boudreau lost seven Contest s in an otherwise wildly triumphant NHL coaching career At least three times with the Washington Capitals and Anaheim Ducks he had a squad that was talented enough and deep enough to win the Stanley Cup Each of those teams had a winnable series end in Challenge heartbreak I go over this in my head all the time Boudreau mentioned I still scratch my head at the Montreal series in I think we really had a good chance of winning the Cup How the expletive does that unit beat us The pain is not going away for the Colorado Avalanche anytime soon either Colorado has its own sordid Competition history seven straight defeats is an NHL record Various of those don t matter to the current Avalanche but the one that happened last weekend sure does This was a tumultuous roller coaster of a season for the Avs So multiple injuries So multiple trades But when everything settled into place the remolded roster looked like a million war machine There were times during its opening-round series with the Dallas Stars when the Avalanche took apart a Stanley Cup contender with ease But then faster than you can say Mikko Rantanen was traded twice in six weeks this season was gone Just prior to Rantanen s first goal there was like nothing going on There was no threat stated Ray Ferraro who was on the ESPN broadcast crew for Challenge And then he scored and then all of a sudden it just flipped It was stunning They traded Rantanen to their equivalent of the moon a club you play two times and you don t worry about it Then he gets traded into your backyard It was the worst viable scenario So now what after another Cup-or-bust season ended in disappointment for the Avalanche There s plenty of statistical facts that says the remodeled Avs were an elite squad There s also the weight of latest history The losses to the Stars are piling up The losses to Pete DeBoer-coached teams are piling up Are the Avs thisclose to emerging through and delivering a second championship with this core group Or are they in decline a club that couldn t topple its nemesis even when it was missing two of its best players Are they six inches away or six miles That s really the question Ferraro stated Let the dust settle Emotions ran high after Rantanen rampaged through the Avalanche There were calls to fire the coach There were calls to fire the general manager A scant days after the collapse in Dallas assistant coach Ray Bennett was the only immediate casualty He was done in by a power play that was No in the league from the day Rantanen was traded until the end of the regular season but then went for against Dallas and failed to deliver late in two overtime losses A first-round loss for a Cup contender elicits emotional spikes It also means there is more time before the biggest roster decisions for next year and beyond are made You don t have to do anything right now Ferraro declared I was happy to see Chris MacFarland came out and commented Jared Bednar is our coach That takes away all that noise And I think he really should be I think it would be foolish to move on from him So now you don t have to do anything until the draft There s no rush So for the first week I wouldn t do a thing Get all the departments to file their post-mortems And then just take a week to let the dust settle There s no need to bang your head against the wall right now If you came up with a great answer in the current era what are you going to do with it Avs president Joe Sakic was clear about where he lands on the current roster He revealed at the club s end-of-season news conference that he d run it back with this same group next year The salary cap isn t going to allow that Colorado has five pending unrestricted free agents including forwards Brock Nelson Jonathan Drouin and Joel Kiviranta plus defensemen Ryan Lindgren and Erik Johnson Defenseman Sam Malinski also necessities a new deal but he s a restricted free agent The Avs have million in space with the cap ceiling rising to million next season There s a little more wiggle room because Keaton Middleton has a two-way contract but that s only more Moving Rantanen opened up more flexibility for this offseason but new contracts with raises for Mackenzie Blackwood and Logan O Connor have already taken particular away The goal might be harder to achieve but it is to be a deeper club Ferraro commented The teams that win are not sometimes the most of razzle-dazzle but they ll constantly have that with Cale Makar and Nathan MacKinnon But the goal with trading Rantanen was to build a deeper company and we ll see if that happens It s hard to be individual Boudreau s teams in Washington and Anaheim resisted making major overhauls in the immediate aftermath of a great unit losing a Tournament But when the Capitals hit a midseason slump in November removing him was the change That didn t improve the club s postseason fate It took six more years and two more coaches before Ovechkin Co broke through for a title It s hard because owners are impatient Boudreau commented Dallas could very well win the Stanley Cup So do you sit there and make a lot of changes when in reality you were that close to winning You really have to judge like OK what do we have to do differently Maybe it s nothing Maybe it was just the odd break in a third period Do you want to try something different if the formula was so close The only thing you d say is it didn t work so do something different But that s a gamble in itself It s really tough to know what s right Colorado Avalanche President of Hockey Operations Joe Sakic left and General Manager Chris MacFarland speak with media at the Family Sports Center banquet room in Centennial on Tuesday Photo by RJ Sangosti The Denver Post Related Articles David Carle in no rush to leave DU Pioneers Specific guys in the NHL would pact with me Nathan MacKinnon Sidney Crosby back together for Canada at ice hockey worlds after years A simple yet tricky question What if Colorado had just kept Mikko Rantanen Avalanche Journal Avalanche stars Nathan MacKinnon Martin Necas to play in world championships Keeler Mikko Rantanen hopefully taught Avalanche Joe Sakic lesson Don t contract Stars for scrubs If the Avs want to retain Nelson and possibly others like Drouin or Kiviranta while finding a suitable replacement for Lindgren they will likely need to shed salary elsewhere If Nelson leaves the Avs could wait on finding the next in line at No center behind MacKinnon until someone is available in a commerce before the deadline next season Even if Nelson leaves the Avalanche could return with a formidable and familiar lineup especially with captain Gabe Landeskog back in the fold Let it settle and then try to answer that question Ferraro stated To me it s closer to six inches You ve already made key changes It s hard to be person It really is And I don t know if person is the correct word but this is a very good unit How can you make it six inches better Is it resigning Nelson Someone else there Is there anything they can do health-wise Maybe all of the work done on the roster this season will coalesce better in the postseason There s a bit of historical precedent there in Avs history The - Avalanche had a strong roster but it was an injury-filled season Sakic Peter Forsberg and Adam Foote all missed major time They got healthy and traded for legendary defenseman Ray Bourque That season ended with a Battle loss in Dallas The glory came the following year Just having more stability in net for a full season could help the Avs collect a meager more points Landeskog Valeri Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen have all had injury issues but when that trio is in the lineup with MacKinnon Makar and Devon Toews the Avs are going to feel like they re still fighting for another championship I think they re closer than they are farther away ESPN analyst Kevin Weekes declared The Dallas product doesn t reflect that and I know the pain and the sting of losing doesn t reflect that But I think there are a lot of teams that would be envious that are envious in terms of a lot of people would love to have that Avs roster So that tells me that they re way closer and I agree with them Want more Avalanche news Sign up for the Avalanche Insider to get all our NHL analysis