Avalanche offseason questions: Injuries, free agents, salary cap future

During the 2022 Stanley Cup Final, the Lightning drew a lot of attention for the injuries they fought through. The Avalanche weren’t exactly skipping trips to the trainers’ room, either, though.

That wear-and-sometimes-literal-tear can be used to glorify taking health risks that are maybe ill-advised.

Beyond that discussion, the Avalanche face a more practical question. How might lingering injuries affect offseason plans as the Avalanche already need to weigh big questions regarding free agents, possible franchise-altering contract extensions, and the salary cap in general?

After witnessing their dominant run to a Stanley Cup win, a thought lingered: the Avalanche have the pieces in place to win more. Even so, you need a lot of skill, luck, and foresight to go from having the potential to do something, to actually pulling it off.

Altitude’s Vic Lombardi tweeted out a daunting Avalanche playoff injury list, covering Darcy Kuemper‘s process recovering from an eye injury, plus issues for Valeri Nichushkin, Andre Burakovsky, Nazem Kadri, Samuel Girard, and Darren Helm:

During the Stanley Cup playoffs, Bednar says Darcy Kuemper had to go to optometrist 2-3 times a day to "re-train his eye".

Other injuries:

Val – broken footBurky – broken foot/thumbKadri – broken thumpGirard – broken sternumHelm – abnomimal tear@Avalanche @AltitudeSR 92.5

— Vic Lombardi (@VicLombardi) June 29, 2022

Kuemper celebrated his journey from that scary injury to Stanley Cup win:

In today’s edition of “Celebratory Instagram Posts from Players,” here’s Darcy Kuemper: pic.twitter.com/504RHNGoLv

— Peter Baugh (@Peter_Baugh) June 29, 2022

This photo of Valeri Nichuskin’s possibly broken foot is especially gnarly.

Valeri Nichushkin played through a foot