from Rory Boylen of Sportsnet,

For this exercise we wanted to focus on teams who aren’t there as a contender yet, but have the pieces in place or the flexibility to take a great stride forward in the near future. Parity is the name of the game in the NHL today and we’ve seen some teams take wild swings from one end of the standings to the other in short order, and sometimes — like this season — in a single stretch of 82 games. Of course, that means any team that isn’t currently considered a contender could earn that distinction, but we are doing our best to identify the ones with the most optimistic outlook.

Five of the six teams listed below didn’t make the playoffs this season and not all of them will likely even make it next season. Some of these teams could rise as early as 2019-20, while other may take the full three years to get there.

COLORADO AVALANCHE

They have one of the best players in the world with Nathan MacKinnon, who is behind only Connor McDavid and Nikita Kucherov in points per game average (1.26) over the past two years. But the best thing about MacKinnon may be his steal of a cap hit, which is just $6.3 million for the next four seasons. Right now, that is the 68th-highest cap hit in the league and will surely fall more this summer. And that’s just the start of Colorado’s case.

The biggest piece of business this summer is to re-sign Mikko Rantanen, who is coming off a career year and is part of this loaded RFA class. On one hand he could use the leverage of the market around him to push for $9 million or more, but on the other that MacKinnon contract could help set a frame work given the salary structure of the team.

Go back 20 months and we’re looking at this Avalanche team very differently.

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