The Colorado Avalanche can’t win every game, but boy does it feel like they can. Even in a 4-1 loss to Dallas on Tuesday night, the Avalanche looked like the better team every step of the way and at no point did the Stars lead feel safe. Colorado peppered the net all night, firing 47 shots and 4.7 expected goals towards Jake Oettinger, who needed a herculean effort to steal the game for the Stars. 

“Steal” feels extremely apt given the run Colorado has been on; an absolutely torrid pace where the team feels unbeatable. That loss against Dallas was Colorado’s first regulation loss since mid-December (a game where the Avalanche were missing Cale Makar, Devon Toews, Gabriel Landeskog, Darcy Kuemper, Andre Burakovsky, and J.T. Compher — or 17.5 wins of value) and second since December 2. 

That December 2 date is meaningful because it came a day after the Avalanche were stomped 8-3 by the Leafs, prompting some hot-takeists to question Colorado’s status as the preeminent Stanley Cup favourite. That’s the kind of bluster you’ll get from those that only pay attention to the standings, a premature evaluation for a team that looked ready to explode.

Colorado’s 11-7-1 record at the time wasn’t very impressive, but that heavily ignores the context of the team’s injury situation to start the season. My model never wavered on Colorado’s ability when fully healthy, positioning the Avalanche as the team to beat for the entire season. Colorado’s chances of winning the Stanley Cup have been above 20 percent for 83 percent of the season, and never once under 15 percent.

Even when dissenters were at their loudest (and trust me, there were a lot of skeptics at the time), the model stayed strong and has been rewarded heavily for its belief. Since December 2, Colorado owns a sterling 24-2-3 record, outscoring teams 115-70 in the process. 

The team has been a steamrolling juggernaut for the better part of two months, and while that coincides best with a narrative, it actually goes back a little farther than that. Coming into that Leafs game, the Avalanche were on quite a roll going 7-2-0 over their last nine games after a miserable 4-5-1 start. 

Those nine games were against relatively weak opponents, but add it to the tally and Colorado is sitting at a 31-4-3 record over its last 38 games. That’s nearly half a season where the Avalanche are playing at a 140-point pace, a near 20-point pace gap over the next best team during the time frame, Pittsburgh.

This team is a wagon and it’s why their current Cup chances are so high, nearly double the next best team.

Will anyone be able to stop the Avalanche this spring?