Let’s face it: no one wanted the Colorado Avalanche to move out of the Central Division — except, probably, the Avs themselves. They’re a team with a fairly young core, depth for days and a goaltender who performs consistently well.
The Avalanche are in their Cup window, which means it’s a bad time to be playing them eight times in a season. Match that with intradivisional play through the second round of playoffs, and Colorado’s path through the West is as easy as they want to make it for themselves.
Also personally, I never got over the Joonas Donskoi signing, so I’m gonna have a bad time.