Congratulations to the Colorado Avalanche on winning the Stanley Cup in Tampa. It was a tough and grueling series. The Tampa Bay Lightning have nothing to be ashamed of as they showed their grit by battling hard throughout the playoffs and kept coming for more when they could have easily thrown in the towel.
As New Jersey Devils fans watched the NHL playoffs, we learned it takes more than brilliant and timely goaltending to win the Stanley Cup. The Avalanche were able to match the intensity and speed of the Tampa Bay Lightning and had a relentless pursuit to the puck throughout the series. Mark Messier made a great point during post game that the Avalanche were learning from the Lightning as the series went on.
Cale Makar was the difference maker in the playoffs and was awarded the Conn Smythe trophy. It’s funny to think that the 2017 NHL Draft was considered one of the weaker drafts, yet this year’s Norris Trophy winner and MVP of the playoffs was picked 4th overall. If you were the Devils GM and had to do it over, would you pick Makar over Nico Hischier, who is now the Devils captain?
Joe Sakic gets a ton of credit here. In 2017, Avalanche had the worst record in the NHL leading up to the draft lottery but, Ray Shero and the Devils were victorious in getting the first overall pick while Colorado got the fourth spot. Sakic was not happy but, eventually, he’d get the last laugh. Unlike the Devils at the time, the Avs organization already had a young nucleus on their roster with Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon and ultimately Makar was able to blossom into the superstar defenseman that he is today. Could Luke Hughes be the next Cale Makar for the Devils to add to the nucleus of Hischier and Jack Hughes?
As for goaltending, the Avalanche proved you do not need a super elite goaltender like Igor Shesterkin and Andrei Vasilevskiy to win a Cup. Avs goaltender Darcy Kuemper came up big when he needed to with a great all around team in front of him. He was good enough to win. However, I do believe that you must have elite goaltending if an organization expects to build a dynasty and win multiple times in consecutive years like the Lightning.
The Devils should use the Avalanche’s blueprint for success as an example. It has been reported that the Devils organization feels like they are one goaltender away from where they want to be. The Devils don’t need an elite goaltender and should not overpay for one by mortgaging the future as the goalie market this offseason is slim pickings. Keep building the team through the draft. After all, they’ve got that second overall pick to add to their young talent pipeline.
Former Devils Win
It was great to see Peter McNab, former NJ Devil and color analyst, now the Avalanche color analyst win the Stanley Cup along with former Devils goaltender Craig Billington who is now the Colorado Avalanche Assistant GM.
Goaltenders
We had a discussion last night on my podcast about the Devils goaltending situation. What would you do this offseason if you were the Devils GM?
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Sam Woo is co-host and executive producer of the Let's Go Devils Podcast which can be heard live every Sunday at 9pm ET and Wednesday at 8:30pm ET. You can follow Sam on Twitter: @PrimetimeSamWoo 
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