Keeler: Avalanche’s Erik Johnson says Colorado roster “reminds me a lot” of 2022 Stanley Cup champs

Erik Johnson won’t itch about being a healthy scratch. Not a peep. You might think the fact that Johnson won’t always be active for the Avalanche is a bug. Heck, no. No. 6 sees it as a feature.

“I think (this group) reminds me a lot of the year we won,” Johnson, the fun, physical heart of the Avalanche’s 2022 Stanley Cup champs, said Saturday of his return to the Front Range at age 36. “I think we’re really deep.

“I don’t think we had that strength down the middle since Naz (Kadri) left. I just feel that 1-2-3 punch down the middle now with Nate, Brock Nelson, and Charlie Coyle (at center), and then (Jack) Drury and (Parker) Kelly can play center as well — I just think you win down the middle.

“So, I think (we’ve got) two of the best (defensemen) in the world, great goaltending tandem, and just a hell of a center group. And I don’t think we’ve been this deep since we won (the Cup).”

It takes a village to land a parade. What quality is to October-March, quantity is to April-June. Presidents’ Trophies can be had on the backs of just two stellar lines. Lord Stanley’s Cup, and the Homeric journey it takes to hoist it, requires four of them — all pulling on the same rope.

When healthy, the new-look Avs, winners of five straight and hosts to woeful Chicago on Monday, are primed to come at you in waves of pain.

Toronto, one of the better teams in the East, threw everything but the kitchen sink at Colorado this past Saturday. By the midpoint of the third period, the Maple Leafs looked leggy, leaden and bereft of ideas. Johnson’s Avs, meanwhile, closed the game with four goals over the final nine minutes to snatch a 7-4 victory.

The three lines after Nathan MacKinnon’s top group were centered by players who’d all joined this roster after January 15: Brock Nelson, acquired in a trade with the Islanders, registered an assist in his Colorado debut with the second line; Charlie Coyle, picked up in a deal with the Bruins, notched a helper with the third line; and Jack Drury, a Carolina Hurricane at Christmas 2024, helmed the fourth unit.

“It’s hard to push teams and keep going, right? Coyle, an amiable Bostonian, told me after his Avs debut. “So, you need all lines contributing, and that’s what (Colorado) has had for years.

“So, to look around and have our depth, even guys who are out right now in the lineup can easily be in up and down the lineup. That says a lot about our club.”

The Avs woke up Sunday as the hottest team in the wearisome Western Conference. Colorado’s 5-0 homestand has featured 28 goals so far, which isn’t even the best part of that stat. It’s that 13 of those goals have come from outside of either the top line of Nathan MacKinnon-Artturi Lehkonen-Martin Necas or from outside the top power-play line.

“We have depth for the first time,” Avs coach Jared Bednar noted Saturday. “And we’re going to use it.”

That depth, mind you, didn’t come cheap. Coyle cost Casey Mittelstadt, William Zellers and a second-round pick in the 2025 draft. The Avs had acquired Mittelstadt at this time a year ago to solve their Ryan Johansen problem, only for the former to hit the same kind of wall.

To try and fill their Nazem Kadri hole, GM Chris MacFarland in the last 18 months — deep breath — shipped Bo Byram to Buffalo; Mittelstadt, Zellers and a second-round pick to Boston; and defenseman Oliver Kylington, forward Calum Ritchie, a first-round pick and a conditional third-round pick to the Islanders in a package for Nelson and William Dufour.

Give MacFarland points for urgency. MacKinnon will soon be 30, Mercurial Val Nichushkin is Russian Roulette on skates, and Gabe Landeskog’s timetable keeps moving like one of Charlie Hough’s knuckleballs. Alas, teams that spend for the now sometimes end up paying for it later.

The revamped Avs scored quickly with the Nelson-Nichushkin-Jonathan Drouin second line, only to spend much of the middle 20 minutes of the contest on the back foot, still working out some kinks while the Leafs forged a 4-3 lead after two stanzas.

But in a postseason-type game between two playoff teams, the Avs hung in, peppering Toronto goalie Anthony Stolarz until the engine finally turned over. Colorado outshot the visitors 26-13 through two periods and 34-21 for the evening.

Coyle lit the fuse 11:55 into the final stanza, feeding Drouin in the slot with a perfectly threaded rope from behind the Toronto net. Drouin’s wrister got Colorado tied at 4-4 and popped the cork on a run of four unanswered goals.

“(Drouin) was in a great spot to receive the pass and (it was) just lucky it worked out,” Coyle recalled. “He had a great finish.”

A pair of empty-netters closed the books on Nichushkin’s first-ever regular season hat trick — the big winger declined to talk to the media after the tilt — and on the Avs’ fifth win of this homestand. A win that Johnson watched in a chic brown suit. Home again. Home at last.

“I felt like I introduced myself to more people than I said, ‘Hey, how you been?'” the defenseman chuckled. “There are lot of new guys, too, but the main characters are still the main characters. I think that’s super important. And the core is in place, and it’s a hell of a core, right?”

Dang straight. Because the more things change on Chopper Circle, Condor, the more they stay the same.