The one prospect that can flip this horrendous trend by the Colorado Avalanche

When it comes to the NHL Draft, it’s not every year where there is a can’t-miss prospect. The Colorado Avalanche have unfortunately had some pretty tough luck for quite some time in terms of prospects turning out to make an impact for them at the NHL level.

The latest disappointment officially took place on Saturday, as the Avalanche traded former first-round pick Oskar Olausson to the San Jose Sharks for prospect Danil Gushchin, who is expected to make an impact at only the AHL level.

Sure, we see prospect trades fairly often. However, a former first-round draft pick such as Olausson was expected to make a much bigger impact for the Avalanche than he did: He played in just four games in three years in the NHL, though he had 33 goals in 163 games—which isn’t exactly earth shattering numbers.

While some recent first-round picks’ statuses are up in the air, as it takes time for players to transition to the NHL, the Avalanche’s dart throwing has not been ideal. Since they selected Cale Makar fourth overall in the 2017 NHL Draft, a look at their draft picks since then tell the story:

Conor Timmins was taken in the same class as Makar. He played in just 33 games in two seasons with the Avs, putting up zero goals and seven assists before being traded to the Arizona Coyotes. After spending three years with the Maple Leafs, he was shipped off to the Penguins.

The 2018 class saw three Avalanche picks get some action in the NHL since then, most notably Justus Annunen and Nikolai Kovalenko. However, those two players were traded just a few weeks after the 2024-25 season began. The first player the Avalanche took in that class was Martin Kaut, who appeared in 47 regular season games for the team from the 2019-20 season through the 2022-23 season. He managed three goals and three assists in that time.

The Colorado Avalanche have to focus on a top prospect from a recent draft

With Olausson out of the picture, the cameras move to goaltender Ilya Nabokov, who was a second-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft. Usually, it could take several years for a player to make an impact at the NHL level. Though that might still be the case for Nabokov, he’s already signed an entry-level contract (ELC), and the team wanted to get him in North America pretty quickly, as the North American game is different from the KHL.

Nabokov, 22, was drafted as an “over-ager,” which means that he was drafted several years after the typical player would be selected (around 18-19 years old). With that, he’s expected to make some sort of impact with the Colorado Eagles at some point. He’ll play for Metallurg of the KHL this season, but then make his way back to Colorado once their season is over.

There has been a lot of hype over Nabokov, who was the first goaltender selected in the 2024 NHL Draft, and the first of three taken by the Avalanche in 2024. At the time, I considered the goalie-heavy draft by Colorado as the team throwing darts at the board and hoping one sticks. It seems as though the team’s confidence is sky high on Nabokov, and that’s exactly the feeling you want to have in a draft pick.

Nabokov is still a few years (at least) from having a consistent role with the Avalanche, and that’s okay. The reason is that they traded for Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood at the beginning of the season, as mentioned earlier. Those two goaltenders have shown that they can handle things while their prospect pool develops.

There’s no rush for Nabokov to make his NHL debut, but once he does, Avalanhce fans hope that the trend of poor draft selections has come to an end.