Has Colorado’s core underachieved?.

[nbwingsfan]

Nah, it's just the fact that Sakic, Forsberg and Roy were a very dangerous 3-headed trio that nobody wanted the smoke with in the playoffs. From 1996-2004, both were respectively 1-2 in playoff scoring during that time stretch. 2nd place Forsberg (148pts) had a 42pt lead on Fedorov (106pts) and Roy lead with wins and sv% IIRC.

Hockey's a random game obvioulsy, but that Avs team had multiple chances of advancing to the cup finals where it was all but certain they would win vs whoever eastern team that made it to the last dance.

Their individual STAR POWER was something else

That’s significantly better than the Wings with Fed, Yzerman, Shanahan, Lidstrom, Coffey, Hasek etc?

Or Modano, Hull, Zubov, Belfour, etc?

Or Elias, Gomez, Niedermeyer, Stevens, Brodeur?

were some super franchises back then

 

[SoundwaveIsCharisma]

The Avs drafting seriously let them down during this most recent stretch. If they had just average drafting abilities alongside the MacKinnon, Rantanen, Makar trio they likely would've won another cup or two, and have a longer contention window. Instead, they have league worst drafting and that's led to a cycle of hoping internal players magically become significantly better than they've ever demonstrated, followed by desperation moves

 

[KJoe88]

Yes. lol

 

[Jixer19]

They have a cup, if that is underachieving, then what is the play/definition of all the cores that don't have one? There is a reason the Stanley Cup is the hardest to win in all sports

 

[GMR]

No, because Edmonton/Toronto still haven’t won a Cup with their current group. Maybe that changes soon but it just shows you how difficult it is to win one Stanley Cup.

 

[Tryblot]

It's actually pretty embarrassing the avs have done against expectations. They were primed for multiple Stanley cup visits and multiple cups, yet here we are.

 

[landy]

Exceeded expectations:
Penguins
Blackhawks
Kings
Blues
Lightning

Underachieved:
Avalanche
Capitals
Bruins

Everyone else:
lol

Ill take underachieving all day every day then.

 

[ProfessorFink22]

Many of us will never see our teams win a Stanley Cup in our lifetimes. there's a 1/32 chance to win one each year, soon to be 1/36. If you told me I'd get to see my team win even once in my lifetime, I'd take it, happily. Even "only" winning one cup is not underachieving, IMO.

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

No, they won a championship.

It's that simple

 

[BednarIsStupid]

Undetachieved thanks to stupid coaching. Only past the second round once in a decade with a team that gets 50 wins a year.

 

[BednarIsStupid]

No, they won a championship.

It's that simple

Florida, Edmonton and Dallas have made numerous deep runs at a time when Colorado should be there threatening with them. Colorado is a trash ass organization that pisses away opportunities to win. This year was the best example of it. Who let's their team give up a 2-0 lead in Game 7? It takes a special kind of stupid to do that and not even make it to OT.

 

[thebeernerd]

If you win even one Stanley Cup with a good core, you've historically done more with it than most teams in the NHL have. Just ask those early Sabres teams. So no, I'd say they haven't underachieved in the slightest.

 

[The Note]

By the standards some people have in this thread, only the Penguins and Blackhawks have managed to avoid underachieving in the cap era...

I think this is a problem across sports fandom. People see the what Hawks/Pens, or Golden State in the NBA, or the Chiefs (and Pats before them to a greater degree) did or are doing and think that should be the standard. Those teams are the outliers - the reason they get so much airtime is because the leagues are designed to stop runs like that from happening. So any team that “only” wins one title gets lumped in as some sort of underachiever.

Firsthand, growing up a Chiefs fan and now being back in the city, I’ve gotten whiplash going from 7 years ago when just hosting an AFCCG seemed impossible and now that is the “floor”. Expectations for good teams have grown ridiculously high across sports.

 

[57special]

First off, they aren't done yet, with the best players of the team still around, and relatively young. As others have said, they can only be so disappointing if they have won a Cup.

Losing Rantanen... I don't know why that happened, but it looks like a mistake. Looked like one when they made the deal, and still does now.

Losing Landeskog prematurely hurt them a lot. He provided the leadership and toughness that the team needed.

It's tough to manage the cap once players win a Cup and get out of their early contracts. CO hasn't been terrible at it, but not great, either.