Salvas Breaks Down a Crazy Week for the Avs

Trades, Hall of Fame Announcements and Players leaving... it was a wild week for Colorado.

It’s been a wild, wild week for the Colorado Avalanche… and we still have the draft and free agency ahead of us as I sit here and write this on Wednesday morning. 

Dater and I did a pod yesterday, but I thought I would sit down and write down some of my thoughts on the events of the last seven days or so.

Thursday, June 22: It was announced that Erik Johnson will not be back with the Avs

Okay, let’s start with the stinger of the week. The one that, from an emotional perspective, hurts the most, but we also probably saw coming most clearly: EJ out in Denver.

I love Erik Johnson. But it’s more for who he is and what he means to the team than what he does. A great teammate and leader who came in and spent much of his lengthy stay in Denver during lean years when the team just wasn’t very good. He had insane injuries that cost him so many games (and even an entire season), but managed to battle back and be a central cog in the team’s best moment (that hug with Mack on the ice after winning Game 6 in Tampa is etched in my memory forever). 

Coming out of two rebuilds, Johnson played in all 20 games in the 2022 run to the Cup. He played in 63 games this season, but didn’t have a goal and only recorded eight points as his role changed to a bottom-pairing depth blueliner in recent years. 

It will be his leadership that will be missed most, especially with his best buddy and team captain Gabe Landeskog also not playing with Colorado this season due to a knee injury. I don’t know if there is a void of leadership in the locker room, though, as Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen all wear letters, and Devon Toews is the next guy up (not to mention the possible return of Andrew Cognliano), but it’s a different leadership without EJ and Gabe.