The Condor hung up his wings for good Monday. If Eric Johnson turning 37 makes you feel old, imagine how it makes him feel.
“You snap your fingers and your career is over, and it’s so short in the big picture of your life,” Johnson, who patrolled the Avalanche’s blue line from 2011-2023 and then again for a smidge earlier this year, mused at Family Sports Center. “And it’s so short in the big picture of your life, that I just figured that, ‘Why not come to the rink every day like it’s the best day ever?’ I hope that rubbed off on people over time.”
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Sure did. But seeing the affable EJ call time on a stellar run was also a reminder, and not a sunny one, that the Avs’ current core is creeping closer to the end of the movie than the beginning.
Brent Burns isn’t the only greybeard in the building. Colorado, per EliteProspects.com, opens the 2025-26 season on late Tuesday in Los Angeles with the fourth-oldest roster in the NHL at an average age of 29.17 years. It’s the third-oldest in the Western Conference behind Winnipeg (30.17 years) and the Kings, their first-night sparring partner (29.74).
The Avs’ roster as of Monday morning featured nine players 30 or older. It’s the first time a Colorado roster sported an average age over 29, according to the Elite Prospects database, since 2006-07. Joe Sakic was 38 then. That group totaled 95 points but missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since the franchise relocated from Quebec City.
Coach Jared Bednar is juggling a few katanas while the Sword of Damocles dangles over his head this season. But load management is among the trickiest, given the annual grind of the Western Conference and the usual stratospheric stakes.
Push the guys in order to snatch home ice? Or ease things up with the marathon of 7-8 months in mind? When your captain’s still testing a new knee on the fly, there’s no easy answer.
“I think Bedsy and the staff … are going to be smart, particularly with (Gabe) Landeskog, right?” Avs general manager Chris MacFarland replied Monday when I asked about the load. “We’re going to glean information on how (Gabe) does in back-to-backs, or three (games in four days), or four (in six days) and his practice schedule … He’s a really important player. So I think we’ll just we’ll glean that information … and we’ll read and react off that.”
For years, C-Mac’s Avs were young, to paraphrase noted philosopher Bob Seger, and they were strong, running against the wind. Only those winds blow even harder now, and they’re not so young anymore. Big Val Nichushkin turns 31 in March. Landeskog turns 33 in November. Brock Nelson turns 34 next month. Among the defense, Josh Manson turns 34 on Tuesday. Devon Toews turns 32 in February. Burns turns 41 in March.
Time is no longer on Bednar’s side. At one point Monday, MacFarland even sounded reflective, if slightly defensive, about the expiration date on what should’ve been an NHL dynasty.
“COVID hurt us,” MacFarland said. “There’s no ifs or buts about it. And then the uncertainty of Gabe’s situation and the unfortunate stuff with Val. But that stuff’s in the past.
“I think our guys, what Bedsy and our players have done is, that they have a chance. I think the organization’s job is to try and give them as good a chance as possible, and their play dictates that. I think over the last seven, eight years, their play (has) consistently dictated that. Hopefully, it will continue to do so this year as well.”
To his credit, MacFarland has been as dedicated to tweaking and shuffling the fringes of his roster as former Nuggets GM Calvin Booth was to sitting on his hands. Better to try and fail than to shrug, as Booth did, while Father Time coldly ripped the pages from Nikola Jokic’s desk calendar.
But Avs 1.1 (2023) and 1.2 (2024) never got as close as version 1.0 (2022 Stanley Cup champs) did in terms of bottling that combo of strong health, strong depth, strong special teams, strong goaltending, strong intangibles and strong matchups.
Although 1.3 (2025), on paper, flew awfully close. Wise puckheads looked at Stars-Avs last spring and declared that the winner was easily bound for, at worst, a Western Conference final — and that we were getting a main event far, far too early. They were right, in hindsight. Not that it should make anyone in burgundy and blue feel any better.
A long Cup run is a marathon, a two-month, uphill march of sweat, blood, guts, focus and willpower. It’s a battle of attrition and desperation; a story that inevitably demands a dozen hands and five or six heroes.
Lord Stanley is one of the hardest trophies in sports to win and even harder to keep. And yet the fact that the Florida Panthers have made it look even easier than the Lightning did does not reflect as kindly on MacFarland and Bednar, who have been good at their jobs at the same time some peers have been great.
It’s not unfair to assume the pair’s window might have already come and gone. If you’re curious, the last 14 teams with an average age of 29 or more from 2020-21 through 2024-25 averaged 95.2 points during the regular season. Eight of the 14 “old” squads reached the playoffs. And four of those eight got bounced out of the bracket in the first round.
Feast or famine. Which pretty well sums up the Avs’ postseason narrative since 2019, now that you mention it.
A few months ago, I asked Nathan MacKinnon about turning 30, about a core getting old.
“Cale’s 26,” MacKinnon cracked, nodding at Cale Makar’s locker across the way. “So I’ll probably be retired before we’re bad. Yeah, we’ll be fine. Cale will be all right.”
With that, he smiled. Time flies when you’re having fun. Just not always with a tailwind.
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