Lessons the Colorado Rockies can take from the Colorado Avalanche

After 21 years and a legendary run that matched the most combined regular season and playoff wins in NHL history with 72 in 102 games played, the Colorado Avalanche are the 2022 Stanley Cup Champions. As the champs were saluted in front of the hometown fans Wednesday night at Coors Field, there was a question — I’m sure — in the backs of the minds of many Rockies fans: When (if ever) will the Rockies get the chance to hoist their own hard-won trophy at 20th and Blake, or will Coors Field continue to only play host to visiting champions as a mere stop on a much larger victory tour.

There is no one recipe for success and it would be foolish to think you could simply copy and paste a blueprint for winning from sport to sport and league to league. But there are lessons, no doubt, that can be learned from a champion, and the Colorado Rockies would be wise to take note.

So here are four lessons the Colorado Rockies can learn from the Colorado Avalanche.

Don’t fear the rebuild

The Rockies front office and ownership have long steered clear of the word and insisted the team was competing for a shot at a World Series title, regardless of how well the team has played in recent years. As all Rockies fans can attest, the reluctance to rebuild does not mean that the team will not lose games. It merely reflects the fact that there is no plan in place to transform the club into a team that can truly compete for a championship.

The delayed rebuild has also prevented the Rockies from at least gaining the loser’s trophy of prime draft position. While far from true contention, the Rockies have played just well enough to find themselves near the bottom of “the middle” of the league (in my opinion, the worst place for a franchise to sit). The Rockies have hung around in this purgatory for several seasons and, despite seemingly being far from contention, they have not selected in the top five of the draft since 2016 when they picked Riley Pint fourth overall. This year they will pick 10th, in 2021 they were eighth, in 2020 they were ninth, in 2019 they were 23rd, in 2018 they were 22nd, and in 2017 they lost their first-rounder when they acquired Ian Desmond.

The two picks in the early 20s in 2018 and 2019 obviously are indicative of the franchise’s only consecutive playoff berths, but with a farm system that currently ranks toward the very bottom of the league, the Rockies desperately need to replenish their prospect pool.

Often in sports, you don’t get to be good until you are bad. Just five years prior to winning the Stanley Cup, the Colorado Avalanche had one of the worst seasons in NHL history. Now they are on top. The rebuild is not a white flag. It is a blank page, a fresh start. And it is the first step in the long road to securing a championship.

Draft and develop well

As noted earlier, the last time the Rockies picked in the top five, they selected Riley Pint. Drafting is by no means an exact science, but drafting and developing the next generation of homegrown talent is crucial. This is an area where the Rockies not only have room for improvement, but also some realistic hope for improvement. Historically, the Rockies have done a commendable job developing homegrown talent, and if they are ever going to win their first World Series title, this will be the cornerstone of their revitalization.

The Avalanche core was homegrown, and a direct result of playing through some tough seasons. Team Captain Gabriel Landeskog was drafted second overall in 2011. Nathan MacKinnon, who tied for the NHL lead in goals during the playoffs, was the first overall pick in 2013. Regular season team points leader Mikko Rantanen was the 10th overall pick in 2015. And after the worst season the NHL has seen in the post-lockout era, they dropped from the first pick to the fourth via the draft lottery and picked defenseman Cale Makar in 2017, who just brought home the Norris Trophy awarded to the league’s best defenseman as well as being voted the unanimous Conn Smythe Trophy winner as playoff MVP. Some are suggesting he may be the best hockey player in the world, and he’s only 23.

Forward Alex Newhook (16th overall) and defenseman Bo Byram (fourth overall) were selected in the first round of the 2019 draft and both played critical roles on the team and, at 21-years-old a piece, there’s a bright future ahead of them both.

Let the kids play

In the NHL, top draft picks often join their teams as teenagers. Baseball is a bit of a different animal when it comes to transitioning to the pro level compared to hockey. It often requires years of minor league development and tortuous growing pains before a high school player is ready for The Show. That being said, it is not entirely uncommon for a player to make his MLB debut at 19, 20, or 21 years old.

The question here, though, does not seem to be about age alone. For as long as I have been a fan of the Colorado Rockies (dating back to their 2007 World Series run), the organization has harbored a very odd attitude toward their top prospects. Often, they toil away on minor league rosters where they have nothing left to prove and when their chance finally comes to play at the big league level, they spend far too much time on the bench, stuck behind a logjam of veteran journeymen who receive the bulk of the playing time.

When competitive, the team will not deal top prospects to address other roster needs, but when the team is out of playoff contention, they will not give those prospects a chance to get regular MLB at-bats. Even now, players like Elehuris Montero and Ezequiel Tovar are stuck in this cycle. This season, Montero will turn 24 and Tovar will turn 21. Both are still young, but both also seem to have already gained all they can from minor league baseball. There is no excuse for a 24-year-old Montero to be in a Triple-A lineup with the sort of numbers he’s been putting up just as there’s no excuse for him to sit on a Major League bench.

Whether a team is playing well or not, they should consider the future, and for those teams that are struggling to win games, that consideration of the future should be paramount. It should be reflected in every decision made. Every move should come out of careful consideration of how it will help the team five years down the road. This is where giving a promising young prospect preference in playing time over a veteran on a short-term contract should be a no-brainer.

There will be growing pains for these players, and we can’t expect them to burst on to the scene and immediately have a major impact. But it is my opinion (and I believe the opinion of many other Rockies fans) that the trouble the Rockies have had with receiving consistent quality play from essentially every non-pitching prospect since Nolan Arenado is a dilemma of their own making and the result of disastrous prospect management in desperate need of a dramatic philosophical overhaul.

They need to take a page from the Colorado Avalanche and let the kids play.