Makar Gone, Hakstol Out, Depth Exhausted: Colorado's Margin for Error Has Vanished
The Avalanche built their season on the premise that elite production at the top could absorb structural weakness below it. For 60 wins, that premise held. Now, with Cale Makar out awaiting the birth of his child, assistant coach Dave Hakstol reportedly finalizing his exit to Arizona State, and the forward group already thin before L'Heureux's absence, the premise is being stress-tested in the worst possible window — the playoff stretch, where every variable that was merely inconvenient becomes potentially decisive.
Start with what Makar's absence actually costs structurally. He has logged 24.4 minutes of ice time per game this season, more than any other skater on the roster, and his 55 points at plus-29 represent the largest single production share among Colorado's defensemen. Devon Toews and Brett Kulak are capable professionals, but the depth chart makes the drop-off visible: Makar accounts for 31 percent of defensive production by the numbers behind him. That's not a role you redistribute — it's a role you survive without.
The coaching staff disruption compounds this in ways that don't show up on a stat sheet. Hakstol's reported departure strips Bednar of an experienced voice on a staff that will need every resource available navigating a playoff run with a compressed roster. Organizational continuity — Bednar's four-year extension, Sakic's confirmation as permanent GM — was supposed to be the stable foundation. Losing a key assistant now, at this moment, is exactly the kind of friction that doesn't register until a series goes to Game 6 and the adjustments stop coming.
What I've been tracking all season is the way these losses compound rather than add. When I wrote about the right wing collapse two days ago — 29 shots, zero goals over a 10-game stretch — the argument was that Colorado's depth problem was structural, not situational. L'Heureux was signed specifically to address secondary scoring, and he's now unavailable. Logan O'Connor remains a positional hole at right wing. The left wing depth behind Artturi Lehkonen drops to Adam Beckman, who has produced nothing at the NHL level this season. That's not a depth chart — that's a cliff.
The one-goal record tells you everything you need to know about where this breaks down. Colorado is 14–16 in one-goal games this season. In the playoffs, nearly every game becomes a one-goal game. The Avalanche's formula — MacKinnon and Necas generating at an extraordinary rate, the defensive core suppressing enough to keep games close — works when the secondary forwards convert at a passable rate. Gabriel Landeskog has managed just one goal on 25 shots over the last 10 games, a conversion rate that reflects how badly the depth group is struggling to finish. When MacKinnon and Necas are generating and the team still can't pull away, the margin is already gone before Makar's absence enters the equation.
The top seed is real. The gap between what earned it and what's available right now is also real. Colorado has demonstrated all season that it can manage adversity — the January stretch that went 3-7, the recovery through March and April, the defensive tightening that kept the ship upright. But managing adversity in the regular season means surviving a bad week. Managing it in the playoffs means surviving a bad series without the pieces to adjust. My read is that the Avalanche are about to find out which version of themselves shows up — and the roster they're carrying into that test is the thinnest it's been since October.