They don’t call them growing pains because they feel good. When the Avalanche last won a playoff series, Jose Theodore was backstopping them past the Minnesota Wild, who was were still in just their seventh season of existence. Nobody really knew at the time Colorado was on the verge of collapsing into irrelevance in the NHL for the next decade.…...

Avalanche fans have waited a long time for what came Friday night in Calgary

SAN ANTONIO — It looked like pregame layup lines, the way Derrick White was going to the basket unencumbered. Any time the second-year guard decided to get to the rim, Denver’s defense cracked like an egg. By halftime of Thursday’s pivotal Game 3, White, who was slated to be a backup before Dejounte Murray tore his ACL in the preseason,…...

His ice time in normal situations is, well, normal. His ice time when the Avalanche needs a big goal is: however much he wants. J.T. Compher lives for the clutch moments. In his DNA, he’s got that gene that stays cool and calm in emergency situations, while others get jittery and panicky. When the Avs needed a tying goal in…...

From pumpkin to prince. A week ago, Mikko Rantanen was skating around on his own wearing an orange non-contact jersey and the world wondering whether or not he’d be healthy for the playoffs. The Avalanche had managed to clinch their postseason berth with Rantanen on the shelf after he suffered an undisclosed injury against the Dallas Stars on March 21.…...

Von Miller has three players he would love to see the Broncos draft in the first round.

An hour after Jamal Murray roared to life in the fourth quarter to lift the Nuggets to an improbable Game 2 victory, he admitted that it wasn’t close to being his hottest shooting night of the season. “Boston, Phoenix, Sacramento,” Murray said, talking through a grin that grew wider and wider as one renowned offensive performance after another from the…...

Greetings from the Pepsi Center, where Game 4 happens tonight (8 p.m.). The lineup stuff: Derick Brassard (ill) and Sam Girard (upper body) again will not play tonight. Girard did skate in a non-contact jersey, while Brassard was nowhere to be seen. Jared Bednar also said that there could be a change or two in the forward lines from the…...

On Tuesday, Fangio played off the severity of Harris Jr.’s absence from the team's offseason workout program.

Clay Riddell and N. Murray Edwards are listed as the co-owners of the Calgary Flames. Add Nathan MacKinnon’s name temporarily to the list. From the overtime session of Game 2 in Calgary, through the three periods of Game 3, MacKinnon has claimed dominion over a Flames defense that looks like a bum steer stuck in the mud at the Calgary…...

Eight days after signing a contract extension for five years, $43 million, German Marquez showed exactly why the consensus around these parts was that, despite him being just 24-years-old, the Colorado Rockies got an absolute steal. He is already the owner of some franchise and even MLB records for strikeouts and on Sunday, he may well have pitched the best…...

If someone off the street who didn’t know Cale Makar went up to him and made some small talk like, “So what did you do this weekend?”, the newest member of the Avalanche would have said: “Oh, nothing much. I was in Buffalo, where I played two NCAA Frozen Four games. On Friday, I won the NCAA college player of…...

With one swing of the bat, Nolan Arenado reminded the Colorado Rockies what success looks like. With a pair aboard in another tight game in the fifth, he jumped all over a fastball and crushed it into the left field bleachers for a three-run jack. And you could feel the entire squad exhale. It was his first home run of…...

Fresh off the 48-point season the organization will never be able to forget, they watched in horror as their draft lottery luck was about as it bad as it could be, dropping from the well-earned first pick all the way to four. In the 2017 NHL Draft, that tumble seemed significant at the time. The class was considered weaker than…...

CALGARY, Alberta – It was all drawn up nice by Jared Bednar on his waxy chalkboard. His Avalanche team would win a faceoff and score the tying goal in a playoff game against the Calgary Flames, then hope to go on and win from there. That’s exactly what happened – except none of it really went as planned. “It was…...

It was the moment Jamal Murray dreamed about as a young hooper growing up in Kitchener, Ontario. The lights were bright, the crowd was packed, the stage was international. He had finally arrived in the playoffs. His first defensive possession developed exactly to plan. Murray opened the game guarding Spurs’ guard Derrick White and his outstretched left hand poked the…...

First off, a Faustian Bargain is: damned if you do, damned if you don’t. The Avalanche, it would seem, have one on their hands. If they DO sign Cale Makar to a contract tonight or tomorrow, and he DOES play one minute for the Avs in these playoffs, the phenom defenseman prospect automatically burns a year off his entry-level contract…...

Here’s the likelihood of Denver going after each position with their oh-so-valuable No. 10 overall pick.

CALGARY, Alberta – When the NCAA championship game finishes between the University of Massachusetts and Minnesota-Duluth Saturday night, the Avalanche plan to try to immediately sign top prospect Cale Makar to an entry-level NHL contract, BSN Denver has learned. It should be an easy sell. The most Makar can make for his first three years, excluding bonuses, is $925,000 per…...