Connor Hellebuyck has Jared Bednar tied to Colorado's most intriguing offseason rumor.
The report from Elliotte Friedman is not that the Avalanche made the move. It is that rival teams believed Colorado at least looked hard at the idea.
That alone says plenty about how Chris MacFarland viewed the position. Colorado finished 55-16-11 with 121 points, so this was not a front office chasing noise after a bad year.
It also tells you the standard inside that room is still championship-level. When a club posts a +99 goal differential and still gets linked to a Vezina-level name, the bar is obvious.
Hellebuyck would have been a massive swing. He carries an $8,500,000 cap hit, and any trade call around him would have started with real roster pain going the other way.
The funny part is Colorado's crease was not a disaster. Scott Wedgewood gave them 56 games with a .918 save percentage and a 2.12 goals-against average.
Mackenzie Blackwood also held his end with a .902 save percentage and a 2.54 goals-against average in 42 games. That is good enough to ask why the Avalanche would even explore something bigger.
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Colorado's standard still starts in net
The answer is simple. Bednar coaches a team built to win now, and front offices like that do not stop checking the market just because the current tandem is passable.
Hellebuyck's own numbers were solid, not untouchable. He finished with 57 games, a .895 save percentage, and a 2.87 goals-against average for Winnipeg.
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That makes the rumor more revealing than the stat line. Colorado was not just chasing raw results. It may have been weighing pedigree, workload history, and whether one proven horse could steady every playoff round.
There is also a roster-construction angle here. Nathan MacKinnon already sits at a $12,600,000 cap hit, so adding another premium contract in goal would have forced hard choices somewhere else on the roster.
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Still, the rumor fits the way elite teams operate. MacFarland does not need a problem in net to study an upgrade. He only needs to believe one more move could separate Colorado from Dallas and the rest of the West.
That is why this one sticks. The Avalanche won the Central, allowed only 203 goals, and still got linked to the biggest goalie name on the board.
Maybe nothing came close. Maybe it was one phone call. But when other teams around the league suspect Colorado took that shot, it tells you the Avalanche are still hunting like a club that thinks one more banner is there for the taking.
Should the Colorado Avalanche have pushed harder for Connor Hellebuyck?
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