Strike 2: If you haven’t watched a game recently, you might not recognize the current rendition of the Colorado Avalanche. They probably had to install a revolving door in the Avs locker room last week.

Over the past two weeks, the Avalanche have acquired five new players to go with the two new guys they got a month ago and the two new goaltenders they added back in late November. It’s not a complete roster turnover, but it’s a lot for a team that was already considered to have one of the best rosters in the NHL. Unless they sign some guys off the waiver wire or something, it appears that Colorado will have dressed 48 different players during the 2024-25 NHL season. That’s a lot.

This newest version of the Colorado Avalanche might be the most talented since the heyday of Hall of Famers Patrick Roy, Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Rob Blake and the rest. That was more than two decades ago. What’s crystal clear after all the wheeling and dealing the Avs front office has done during this season? That Colorado is going all in to win right now. As for the future? Well, there’s that asteroid that could hit the earth in 2032, right?

Avs fans are delighted with the newcomers, and thrilled that the team is taking this “win-now” approach. Who wants to wait? Should they be doing things the way the Colorado Rockies are?

Obviously when you have the reigning MVP and the best defenseman in the league already on your team, rebuilding is not part of your vocabulary. But is almost completely mortgaging your future – Colorado traded arguably their best young prospect in Cal Ritchie and yet another upcoming first-round draft pick to get center Brock Nelson from the New York Islanders – the right way to go? As things stand, the Avs don’t have a single draft pick within the first 100 – basically the first three rounds – remaining for the next two NHL drafts.

And none of the high end players they got in return for their trades are getting any younger.

The Avs are building a winner for right now. But is there any sort of happy medium?

Doesn’t look like it.

The draft hasn’t always been great to Colorado, but it did produce their two best players in Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar. Good thing those two didn’t get traded away back in the day.

Ironically, about the only top prospect that the Avs have refused to trade is goaltender Ilya Nabokov, who’s currently playing in the Russian KHL. And this is an organization that has historically put much less emphasis on that position than most of the others. When they sent Justus Annunen to Nashville back in November for Scott Wedgewood, they moved on from one of the scant few goaltending prospects that were Avs draft picks who actually made it to the big club. And we’ve still yet to see any Avs goaltending prospect actually become a regular in burgundy and blue much less a standout. If they’ve held on to him this long, Colorado must have big plans for Nabokov.

Other than the goaltenders, this cascade of trades comes about because the Avs couldn’t reach contract extension terms with star winger Mikko Rantanen, who is now on this third team in just over a month after being dealt by the Carolina Hurricanes to the Dallas Stars. More irony? Rantanen signed a long-term deal with the Stars that pretty much mirrors what he had turned down from the Avalanche two months ago.

Dallas gave up promising forward Logan Stankoven in that deal, and also mortgaged their own immediate future by throwing in two first-round picks (2026 and 2028) plus a pair of third round picks. Apparently the Avalanche haven’t cornered the market on going all in to win right now.

Still more irony? These two franchises that are hell bent on winning now – at the expense of trying to remain near the top when they need an influx of young talent in the not-too-distant future – will probably end up meeting up in the first round of the soon-to-be arriving NHL postseason. That should be something to watch.

What matters most to Avs fans is that their team is trying everything possible to bring another parade to downtown Denver. Apparently no one sees much sense in making parade plans for the future. That asteroid, remember?