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  • Grading The Week: Ex-Broncos RBs Audric Estime, Javonte Williams would love to have J.K. Dobbins’ problems right now

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    Where there’s a Williams, there’s a whoa.

    As in former Broncos running back Javonte Williams, the Dallas Cowboy who somehow managed to have a rougher week than his successor, J.K. Dobbins, did in London.

    For the first time since Week 1, the Javonte Train finally went off the rails. Despite what the fantasy experts on the Grading The Week team saw as a (makes finger quotes in the air) “favorable” matchup at Carolina last Sunday, the ex-Bronco was held to a season-low 29 rushing yards on 13 carries and 5 receiving yards on five grabs.

    Context: Despite a banged-up, messed-up offensive line in front of him across the pond, Dobbins still managed more rushing yards (40) and more total yards (also 40) on far fewer touches (14).

    Life of an ex-Broncos RB — D

    And yet Williams’ statistical stumble was cupcakes and rainbows compared to the week of his former teammate — and backfield mate — Audric Estime.

    Estime, the Broncos’ fifth-round pick out of Notre Dame in the 2024 NFL draft, was waived by Denver this past August after falling behind Tyler Badie and Jaleel McLaughlin on the depth chart. The Philadelphia Eagles signed Estime a few days later and stuck him on their practice squad.

    On Tuesday, our man Audric became unstuck. The Eagles released him.

    The ex-Irish runner remained inactive for all six games with the Birds, including the Broncos’ 21-17 win at Philly back on Oct. 5.

    Burning through two franchises over your first 18 months in the league makes for something of an auspicious NFL start for Estime, no question. But there’s one thing on the dude’s side: Time. He just turned 22 this past Sept. 6. If Estime can land on his feet, with head, heart and hands all pointing the same direction, he’s got time to re-write his narrative.

    Wedgewood’s start for Avs — A

    When the kids at the GTW offices can’t trust our eyes, we trust the math. After its first five games a year ago, the Avalanche had given up 28 goals (5.6 GAA) and had lost four times. After five games this fall to open the 2025-26 season, the burgundy and blue had surrendered just nine goals (1.8 GAA) while winning four of those five contests. Avs faithful may not know what a good power play looks like, but they know what it’s like to have a grown-up — Scott Wedgewood — keeping watch between the pipes.

    Meanwhile, our old pal Alexandar Georgiev — the man in net here to start last season — just cleared waivers in Buffalo and was spotted in recent days practicing with the AHL’s Rochester Americans.

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    Sean Keeler

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  • Keeler: Avalanche roster hasn’t been this old since 2007. Will time, and Stanley Cup, finally be on GM Chris MacFarland’s side?

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    The Condor hung up his wings for good Monday. If Eric Johnson turning 37 makes you feel old, imagine how it makes him feel.

    “You snap your fingers and your career is over, and it’s so short in the big picture of your life,” Johnson, who patrolled the Avalanche’s blue line from 2011-2023 and then again for a smidge earlier this year, mused at Family Sports Center. “And it’s so short in the big picture of your life, that I just figured that, ‘Why not come to the rink every day like it’s the best day ever?’ I hope that rubbed off on people over time.”

    RELATED: Meet the 2025-26 Colorado Avalanche: A breakdown of the complete team roster

    Sure did. But seeing the affable EJ call time on a stellar run was also a reminder, and not a sunny one, that the Avs’ current core is creeping closer to the end of the movie than the beginning.

    Brent Burns isn’t the only greybeard in the building. Colorado, per EliteProspects.com, opens the 2025-26 season on late Tuesday in Los Angeles with the fourth-oldest roster in the NHL at an average age of 29.17 years. It’s the third-oldest in the Western Conference behind Winnipeg (30.17 years) and the Kings, their first-night sparring partner (29.74).

    The Avs’ roster as of Monday morning featured nine players 30 or older. It’s the first time a Colorado roster sported an average age over 29, according to the Elite Prospects database, since 2006-07. Joe Sakic was 38 then. That group totaled 95 points but missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since the franchise relocated from Quebec City.

    Coach Jared Bednar is juggling a few katanas while the Sword of Damocles dangles over his head this season. But load management is among the trickiest, given the annual grind of the Western Conference and the usual stratospheric stakes.

    Push the guys in order to snatch home ice? Or ease things up with the marathon of 7-8 months in mind? When your captain’s still testing a new knee on the fly, there’s no easy answer.

    “I think Bedsy and the staff … are going to be smart, particularly with (Gabe) Landeskog, right?” Avs general manager Chris MacFarland replied Monday when I asked about the load. “We’re going to glean information on how (Gabe) does in back-to-backs, or three (games in four days), or four (in six days) and his practice schedule …  He’s a really important player. So I think we’ll just we’ll glean that information … and we’ll read and react off that.”

    For years, C-Mac’s Avs were young, to paraphrase noted philosopher Bob Seger, and they were strong, running against the wind. Only those winds blow even harder now, and they’re not so young anymore. Big Val Nichushkin turns 31 in March. Landeskog turns 33 in November. Brock Nelson turns 34 next month. Among the defense, Josh Manson turns 34 on Tuesday. Devon Toews turns 32 in February. Burns turns 41 in March.

    Time is no longer on Bednar’s side. At one point Monday, MacFarland even sounded reflective, if slightly defensive, about the expiration date on what should’ve been an NHL dynasty.

    “COVID hurt us,” MacFarland said. “There’s no ifs or buts about it. And then the uncertainty of Gabe’s situation and the unfortunate stuff with Val. But that stuff’s in the past.

    “I think our guys, what Bedsy and our players have done is, that they have a chance. I think the organization’s job is to try and give them as good a chance as possible, and their play dictates that. I think over the last seven, eight years, their play (has) consistently dictated that. Hopefully, it will continue to do so this year as well.”

    To his credit, MacFarland has been as dedicated to tweaking and shuffling the fringes of his roster as former Nuggets GM Calvin Booth was to sitting on his hands. Better to try and fail than to shrug, as Booth did, while Father Time coldly ripped the pages from Nikola Jokic’s desk calendar.

    But Avs 1.1 (2023) and 1.2 (2024) never got as close as version 1.0 (2022 Stanley Cup champs) did in terms of bottling that combo of strong health, strong depth, strong special teams, strong goaltending, strong intangibles and strong matchups.

    Although 1.3 (2025), on paper, flew awfully close. Wise puckheads looked at Stars-Avs last spring and declared that the winner was easily bound for, at worst, a Western Conference final — and that we were getting a main event far, far too early. They were right, in hindsight. Not that it should make anyone in burgundy and blue feel any better.

    A long Cup run is a marathon, a two-month, uphill march of sweat, blood, guts, focus and willpower. It’s a battle of attrition and desperation; a story that inevitably demands a dozen hands and five or six heroes.

    Lord Stanley is one of the hardest trophies in sports to win and even harder to keep. And yet the fact that the Florida Panthers have made it look even easier than the Lightning did does not reflect as kindly on MacFarland and Bednar, who have been good at their jobs at the same time some peers have been great.

    It’s not unfair to assume the pair’s window might have already come and gone. If you’re curious, the last 14 teams with an average age of 29 or more from 2020-21 through 2024-25 averaged 95.2 points during the regular season. Eight of the 14 “old” squads reached the playoffs. And four of those eight got bounced out of the bracket in the first round.

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    Sean Keeler

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  • Keeler: Nathan MacKinnon says Game 7 loss to Dallas ‘like getting over a breakup.’ Now Avalanche star is healed, out for revenge

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    The ghost in the stall meant one thing: Nathan MacKinnon isn’t done haunting the NHL yet.

    As the Avalanche locker room opened for media a few Fridays ago during training camp, the big names crisscrossed, de-taped and unwound. Captain Gabe Landeskog held court at one end. Newbie Brent Burns grinned toothlessly at the other.

    “Every day, you see (MacKinnon) do 10-12 things that are like, ‘Holy (expletive),’” Burns, a veteran defenseman who came over from Carolina, cackled. “And usually I’m at the wrong end of it. So it’s not good.”

    Practice had just ended. MacKinnon’s skates were inside his locker. The rest of him was gone. Grinding.

    “Working out,” an Avs staffer told me.

    Twenty minutes became 25.

    “He’s riding the bike now,” another staffer said. “Will be a bit of time.”

    Twenty-five minutes became 30.

    Then 35. Then 40. Then 45.

    My phone buzzed.

    “He’s on the way,” a voice said.

    Think this man is easing up at age 30? Think he’s satisfied with one Stanley Cup?

    You must be joking.

    “I enjoy the day-to-day grind of it,” the Avs’ iconic center explained. “I enjoy working out. I enjoy skating with guys back home —  just relaxing and working hard and trying to get better. So that kind of keeps me in the moment. ”

    The rocket never rests. MacKinnon stands 6-foot in socks. But if carrying the Avs on his back, if dragging them kicking and screaming, gets Colorado another Stanley Cup in 2026, he’s good with that, too. Hop on.

    “Just trying to get my mind and body ready for a long season,” MacKinnon continued. “Each day I come here, I’m just trying to get a little better. Just try to win every day I have. And hopefully that takes me and the team to a good spot.”

    He’s in a better place than last May. That’s when old friend Mikko Rantanen, in what we hope doesn’t become a recurring theme, tore into MacKinnon’s chest and ripped his heart out. Rantanen, a stalwart of the Avs’ 2022 Cup champs, scored a hat trick to lead his new team, the Dallas Stars, to a maddening, series-clinching Game 7 win over his old one.

    “It’s like getting over a breakup,” MacKinnon said of last season’s ignominious end. “It just takes a long time. Time heals everything.”

    Including the Avs. Last spring’s wounds are this fall’s scars. Last October’s concerns are this year’s colonnades.

    Landeskog, the Captain, is back from the jump. So is big Valeri Nichushkin.

    Brock Nelson signed a 3-year extension to nip that nagging “2C” question in the bud. New winger Victor Olofsson can hit a flea from 50 yards out. Burns brings 6-foot-5 beef to the blue line, to say nothing of the best dang beard in pro hockey.

    “I think when you all lose together, you’re in a painful experience together, I think you can come out of it stronger,” MacKinnon said of the Avs’ first-round elimination by a depleted Stars roster. “No one (in this locker room) was blaming each other; it was all on each other. I think it was a tough loss. We lost to a really good team. But I think we’ll be better because of it.”

    Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon (29) takes the puck down ice against Dallas Stars center Mikael Granlund (64) and Esa Lindell (23) in the first period of game four of the first round of the NHL playoffs at Ball Arena in Denver on Saturday, April 26, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)

    One Cup? For Nate, it’s not enough. It was never enough.

    Mighty MacK’s good pal Sidney Crosby went seven years between championships. Colorado’s Burgundy Bolide turned 30 on Sept. 1. Father Time is the only dude MacKinnon can’t beat to the goal line.

    “This is our fourth year (since 2022), so you just never know when it’s going to come,” the Avs center mused. “It’s just … sometimes, you win a couple in a row. Sometimes, it took (the Penguins) seven. And (then) they won two in a row. Hopefully, that happens for us one day. But I like where we’re at.”

    Enter Burns. Enter Olofsson. Enter new assistant coach Dave Hakstol to help put some pep back into Colorado’s special teams. The Avs’ power play buzzsaw of the ’22 postseason was positively toothless in ’25 against the Stars.

    “It’s not a ton of turnover, like last season (when) we had like nine new guys,” MacKinnon said. “Most of those guys are back. So I think it’s going to be a positive year — positive that we have so many returning guys.”

    The negative? Landy turns 33 in November. Val turns 31 in March. Nelson’s 34th birthday falls on Oct. 15. Burns is lurching toward 41.

    There’s a lot of mileage in that locker room. And an awful lot of tread worn off an awful lot of tires.

    “I won’t look at Nate any differently if he wins one (Cup) or if he wins three,” Eddie Olczyk, the Warner Bros. Discovery and TNT analyst, told me by phone. “He’s won. He’s separated himself from many, many great players who have played this game.

    “In terms of game-breakers and difference-makers, (the Avs) have two of the very best at different positions in (MacKinnon) and (defenseman) Cale Makar. But you need to stay healthy.”

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    Sean Keeler

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  • Keeler: Avalanche gave Valeri Nichushkin a second chance. He blew it. It’s time to move on.

    Keeler: Avalanche gave Valeri Nichushkin a second chance. He blew it. It’s time to move on.

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    Sleepless in Seattle, Doomed in Denver. Two straight postseasons. Two straight playoff exits for Valeri Nichushkin.

    It’s been real, Val. Lord, it’s been glorious. But this is your stop.

    The Avalanche title train needs engines it can rely on.

    You weep for the man. You rage at the loss. You wonder about the Avs front office, which circled the wagons, protected and enabled their troubled winger. Only to be burned again.

    It’s over. It’s time.

    The championship window won’t wait.

    Nathan MacKinnon turns 29 in September. Mikko Rantanen’s 28th birthday falls a month later. Gabe Landeskog will be 32 a month after that.

    The Avs are on the clock.

    And the timing couldn’t be worse.

    Roughly an hour before Colorado dropped the puck on a pivotal Game 4 at home in their second-round Stanley Cup Playoffs series Monday night with the Dallas Stars, the NHL and NHLPA jointly dropped the bomb on the player nicknamed Nuke.

    Nichushkin, the announcement read, had been placed in Stage 3 of the NHL Player Assistance Program but did not disclose why. Which means he’s suspended without pay for six months, and eligible to apply for reinstatement after that.

    In other words, not just whatever’s left of this year’s postseason run — but at least a month into the regular season of 2024-25 as well.

    Tick. Tick. Tick.

    The clock doesn’t just apply to the window, either.

    Nichushkin has a whopping six seasons left on an eight-year, $49-million deal inked after he lifted Lord Stanley high. It’s turned into Kris Bryant minus the laugh track, bad money wasted by a good organization.

    The kicker? Val’s got a 12-team no-trade clause that kicks in on June 15, 2025.

    If he can’t help you reel in another Cup, it’s time to cut bait.

    Let someone else take this challenge on.

    Nichushkin’s got too much talent to give up, you say. Absolutely true. He’s also too unreliable to lean on anymore as a piece of this championship puzzle, too much of a risk to be a pillar for the core.

    After the mysterious departure in Seattle, his absence for treatment this past winter and Monday’s suspension, can the Avs, his brothers, trust him? Can MacKinnon, who tolerates fools about as much as he tolerates defenders? Can Colorado fans?

    Because it’s the brilliance that breaks your heart. The Choo Choo Train, who spent much of the winter in the NHL’s Player Assistance Program, was exemplary this postseason. His nine playoffs goals as of Monday afternoon were tied for the most in the league. His six-game streak of lamp-lighting to open a Cup run is an Avalanche record and fell one shy of the league mark.

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    Sean Keeler

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  • Keeler: O, Captain! Avalanche needs leader to deliver message to Stars goon Jamie Benn that Gabe Landeskog can’t

    Keeler: O, Captain! Avalanche needs leader to deliver message to Stars goon Jamie Benn that Gabe Landeskog can’t

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    DALLAS — Jamie Benn needs to “feel” you, as Nuggets coach Michael Malone likes to say. Right between the ears.

    If the NHL won’t send a message to Benn, the Dallas Stars’ goon in green, then the Avalanche must. Starting with Game 3 Saturday night at Ball Arena.

    Legal hit? More like calculated assault. At worst, the Dallas captain should’ve seen five minutes in the sin bin for his cheap shot of Avs defender Devon Toews some 2:43 into the second period of Game 2.

    Benn launched. He left his feet. Toews’ head snapped like a crash test dummy. Officials declared it a shoulder-on-shoulder crime and suggested we all move on. To paraphrase my best pal Deion Sanders, that’s some bull junk, right there.

    For one, even if the Stars winger was aiming for Toews’ shoulder, at least one angle showed him connecting directly with No. 7’s neck. Which, last I checked, is connected to and immediately south of the head.

    “I mean, does he catch a piece of his shoulder? Yeah, I guess you could argue that,” Avs coach Jared Bednar, whose team returns to Denver after a road split at American Airlines Center, replied when I asked about the collision. “But the target is high and it’s at his head, and he makes contact with the head. And I’ve seen, many times, guys get called for the head shot and penalty with a lot less than that. But I guess they didn’t think so.”

    Two, Benn knew exactly what he was doing. The Stars knew what he was doing. Dallas coach Pete DeBoer, whose Vegas teams delighted in pushing the Avs around in the postseason, knew darn well.

    “Benner has been outstanding in this playoff. I thought against Vegas he did and he did (it) smart,” the Stars boss said late Thursday night. “He did it at the right times and he did it clean. But his presence physically is having an impact for us in these playoffs in a real positive way.’’

    Kareem Jackson, my man, you chose the wrong sport. DeBoer woulda loved you.

    In the NFL, Benn’s shot is an ejection, a fine, a suspension and a chat with the safety cops.

    In the NHL, it’s a “real positive” presence, a strategic wrinkle in a no-holds-barred, merciless bracket.

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    Sean Keeler

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  • Keeler: Avalanche can’t stop scoring. Alexandar Georgiev can’t stop winning. Mea culpa, Georgie. You got right.

    Keeler: Avalanche can’t stop scoring. Alexandar Georgiev can’t stop winning. Mea culpa, Georgie. You got right.

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    Lazarus of Bethany’s got nuttin’ on Alexandar Georgiev of Bulgaria. Tough times don’t last. Tough goalies do.

    “I think in Game 1, we didn’t give him a lot of chances to make quality saves,” Avalanche defenseman Josh Manson told me before Colorado and Georgie wiped out the Whiteoot in Winnipeg with a 6-3 victory late Tuesday. “I felt like a lot of (shots) were going in from the backside or (to) his right, which is tough.

    “And then that can rattle your confidence a little bit. But he’s stepped up and just playing like how he can.”

    He grounded the Jets for four straight games. He won twice in Manitoba. He rose to the moment. He blocked out the jeers. He stiffed the haters.

    Forgive me, Georgie.

    This is how Lord Stanley comes home.

    Down 3-1 in a best-of-seven series Tuesday, Winnipeg threw everything at the crease that wasn’t nailed down. The Jets blistered Georgiev with 19 shots in the second period alone. They came away with one goal to show for it.

    Game 1: Seven goals against. Games 2-5: Eight goals. Combined.

    Forgive me, Georgie.

    This is starting to look familiar.

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    Sean Keeler

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  • Keeler: Avalanche, Jared Bednar have no choice: goalie Justus Annunen, if healthy, needs to start Game 2 vs. Jets

    Keeler: Avalanche, Jared Bednar have no choice: goalie Justus Annunen, if healthy, needs to start Game 2 vs. Jets

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    Avalanche fans deserve Justus.

    Do whatever it takes, Jared Bednar. Nyquil. Mucinex. Voodoo. Anything that gets Avalanche backup goaltender Justus Annunen healthy and ready to start Game 2 of this Avs-Jets series. Anything that gets No. 1 netminder Alexandar Georgiev away from the crease and out of the firing line.

    Love Georgie.

    He’s toast.

    The Winnipeg Jets know it. John Buccigross knows it. The moose wandering around south Manitoba know it. Over his last six appearances, dating back to April 5, Georgiev’s given up 29 goals. Bednar, the Avs’ venerated coach, isn’t just running out of options here. He’s running out of time.

    Winnipeg put seven more past No. 40 in Game 1 of their Stanley Cup Playoff series Sunday, roughly a week after peppering him for a touchdown and extra point at Ball Arena.

    This time, it took two periods for Georgiev to become Fourgiev. It took three for him to become Sevengiev.

    Yes, when the other guys put seven on your tab, it’s a group fail. The hope was that the Burgundy and Blue had a postseason gear they could shift to. That Bednar’s porous, sloppy defense over the last three weeks would flip a switch.

    Guess what? No gear. No switch. They are what they were. They need a guy between the pipes who can bail them out.

    Georgie ain’t it.

    With 5:20 left, down 7-5, the Avs had outshot Winnipeg 36-19, per NaturalStatTrick.com, and produced 10 “high-danger” chances to the Jets’ 8. What does all that mean? In terms of “expected goals,” per the site’s metrics, with a typical netminder, the Avs should’ve been leading 3-1 or 3-2 at the time.

    Nothing about this is typical anymore. What doubles the hurt is that the Avs came out firing right from the jump, getting off 11 shots in the first 10 minutes to Winnipeg’s one. They managed a 1-0 lead for their trouble. It lasted all of 112 seconds.

    More galling is that Colorado had a pivotal road game — since 2018, the Avs have won six of seven series in which they’ve notched a Game 1 victory — rocking at their pace of choice. Up and down, PlayStation style. “NHL 94” with the  “icing” and “fatigue” sliders switched to off.

    Alas, this is reality, not your frat bro’s basement. Although Game 1’s first period was so crazy, both goaltenders played as if they were wearing straitjackets. Six goals, seven giveaways, 22 shots and zero sanity.

    What happens when a team with playoff scars and playoff skill but leaky goaltending (the Avs) meets a team with postseason nerves but one of the best net-minders on the planet (the Jets)? The opening 16 minutes of Colorado-Winnipeg, a ride with more twists than a David Fincher flick.

    Down 1-0, the hosts scored twice in 3:55 to take a 1-goal lead. The Avs scored twice in 18 seconds for a 3-2 cushion. Which lived on for about 48 seconds until Mark Scheifle, camping out in front of Georgiev, slipped behind Josh Manson and slotted past the Colorado goalie to square things at 3-all.

    Annunen, a Game 1 scratch, posted a 2-1 record and 2.42 goals-against average over four games in April. Even at 65-70%, could the kid have been any worse than what transpired Sunday?

    “I don’t know if he’s going to be healthy enough to play or not,” Bednar told reporters Sunday. “He wasn’t healthy enough to play (Game 1). We’ll see what we see (Monday) morning.”

    The more you think about it, the more depressing it becomes. The Avs pounded Winnipeg goalie Connor Hellebuyck, your likely Vezina winner, with six goals — on his home ice. It was the first time Bucky’s ever been tagged for more than five in the postseason. And only the third time over his last 130 starts.

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    Sean Keeler

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