We’re about to hit the halfway point of the 2022-23 NHL season and the Colorado Avalanche are not in a playoff position. Colorado entered play on Thursday night riding a four-game losing streak which put it a point behind Edmonton for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference and 11 points behind Dallas for first place in the Central Division.
Despite their struggles to get a foothold this season, the Avalanche are still the favorite to win the Western Conference at +280 and the second-choice to win the Stanley Cup at +700. Bookmakers are clearly handling the Avs with caution and expecting a push from Colorado in the second half.
Is that the right approach?
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On the surface, things look a little ugly for Colorado. An offensive juggernaut last season, the Avs are 25th in goals per game and 30th in five-on-five scoring. There is some necessary context behind those numbers, though, as the Avs have one of the league’s lowest shooting percentages at 8.7 percent.
Part of that poor finishing rate can be chalked to poor puck luck, but injuries are also playing a role. Colorado has been without Gabriel Landeskog all season, while Nathan MacKinnon and Valeri Nichushkin have both missed a considerable amount of time.
The injury bug also hit the blue line with Bowen Byram and Josh Manson both missing significant time.
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It does look as if the Avs are starting to turn a corner in terms of roster health, however. MacKinnon is back in the lineup, Nichushkin and Manson are skating, while Landeskog is supposed to be back at some point within the next month. Just adding those players to the lineup should lead to an uptick in Colorado’s offensive output, which should start to push the Avalanche up the standings.
Another reason that bookmakers have been slow to adjust the price on Colorado is that the Western Conference looks wide open. Coming into the season, oddsmakers projected it to be Colorado and then everybody else, but now the chasing pack has caught up to the Avs and there are several contenders that have emerged in the first half. But none of them are runaways.
So even if the Avs don’t storm back to take one of the top two spots in the Central, they’ll still be quite dangerous. The Dallas Stars, Winnipeg Jets and Minnesota Wild are all ahead of Colorado in the Central Division right now, but none of them would be favorites over a healthy Avalanche team in a best-of-seven series, even with the Avs being the road team.
All of this is to say that it may look wonky that a team outside the playoff picture is the favorite to win the Western Conference, but it is logical. The Avs should get healthy, they’ll be active at the trade deadline looking for a second-line center and they’re also due for some positive regression.
If you’re interested in adding a ticket on the Avs to win the Stanley Cup, now is probably the time to get in. It may feel like a short number for a team that has been up and down all season, but this price is likely going in one direction between now and the playoffs.