Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar absences hurt, but there's a silver lining for Avalanche

Avalanche will find out a lot about where their team is without Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar

Hockey teams need superstar-level players to contend for, and win, a Stanley Cup, and the duo of MacKinnon and Makar certainly fits the description for the Avalanche. 

They are not just Colorado's best players. They are two of the best players in the entire NHL. MacKinnon is a yearly contender for the Art Ross Trophy (scoring championship) and Hart Trophy (MVP), while Makar is an annual contender for the Norris Trophy (best all-around defenseman). Makar has already won it twice, and been a finalist six years in a row. The only year of his career that he was not a finalist was his rookie season. (He finished ninth, while also winning the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year.)

There isn't anybody who can step into those lineup spots and replace them. Not on a long-term basis, and not on a short-term basis. 

The good news for the Avalanche, is that neither injury is going to cost either player their season. They should both be back before Christmas given the timelines. The Avalanche should still be in a great position to make the playoffs, and that is really all that matters for them at this point. They need them fully healthy for April, May and potentially June more than they need them healthy now. 

What it also does is it will give Avalanche management a good opportunity to evaluate the rest of their team.

As important as star-level players are in hockey, it is a sport where one or two players are not going to be enough to carry a team. Your best players are only going to play, at most, a third of the game, and that is going to leave two-thirds of it for everybody else to have to fill in the minutes. Those minutes add up. Sometimes the playoffs are determined by your weaknesses more than your strengths. The best sense for how good a team actually is, is how it does when its best players are not on the ice. 

This season, the Avalanche have played 528 minutes of 5-on-5 hockey without MacKinnon or Makar on the ice, and they are outscoring teams by a 23-20 margin. That's an OK number, but during the 2025-26 season they outscored teams by a 94-69 margin when neither player was on the ice. Significantly better, and a tremendous indicator of their depth. 

Colorado lost a significant part of that depth over the offseason with players like Valeri Nichushkin, Jack Drury and Ross Colton all being traded. The Avalanche could be missing some of that depth, and if the team struggles over the next few weeks it will probably be a good sign that some moves will need to be made to strengthen their depth before the trade deadline and before the playoffs begin.