The Colorado Avalanche have won the Stanley Cup for the 2021-22 season.
Colorado defeated Tampa Bay in six games.
Former Ranger Jack Johnson played 74 games for the Avs in the regular season and 13 in the playoffs, including each game in the Stanley Cup Final.
Adam Rotter: So the season is over, Tampa’s run as the Champ is over and Colorado is built to be the team to beat going forward.
I think that this would have turned out the exact same way if the Rangers had beaten Tampa and played Colorado. The Avs are so fast, so overwhelming and played the best kind of defense: always having the puck. They could be physical, they could defend and their PP was as lethal as the Rangers.
They would have been a lot for the Rangers to handle, especially at the pace of the schedule they had played. Igor Shesterkin probably would have stolen at least one game, but in general I think Colorado was the best team this season and they deserved to win.
The Avs are the template for the Rangers. The Avs, as one of the top teams, lost in the second round for three straight seasons before getting through and ultimately winning this year. They were built with lots and lots of skill, added role players, made a couple of key hockey trades, like the Nazem Kadri trade, and it still took them multiple tries. They went through a lot of adversity, lost a lot in the playoffs where they were the favorites and are now the Champs. A lot of people around the league saw the Avs as the next team and a lot of those same people think that the Rangers could be next. But it’s very possible, as the Avs and Lightning showed, that it still could be more disappointment before the Stanley Cup returns to MSG. Maybe the Rangers will be different and follow the path that Chicago did starting in 2008-09 whenthey made the playoffs for the first time with a pretty young team/core, lost in the Conference Finals and then won thrice in six seasons. There is no set path that works because injuries, player development and breaks/bounces can go in different ways. Maybe these Rangers will be like the prior Rangers and make it to three Conference Finals in four years and then only advance to the Stanley Cup Final once. These Rangers are built to contend with a pretty set core based around Igor Shesterkin, Adam Fox, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, Artemi Panarin, Jacob Trouba, K’Andre Miller and Alexis Lafreniere. The salary cap will force the Ranger to make changes for next season, but with that core intact they should be in a good position to return to the Eastern Conference Final and go forward from there.