What We Learned: For Stanley Cup-champion Colorado Avalanche, the hard work begins now

What typified the unprecedented run of success enjoyed by this Tampa Bay Lightning group? Roster consistency.

That first Lightning team that went to a Stanley Cup Final in 2015 featured six players who were on the Lightning team that went to the Stanley Cup Final in 2022. The team that won the first of two consecutive Stanley Cups? They still have 14 of those guys.

You just don’t see that kind of year-to-year consistency for most elite teams very often, because teams often mortgage their futures, bring in players on expiring deals, and so on.

And if the newly crowned Colorado Avalanche — as deep, scary, and fun a team as you’ll see in the cap era — want to follow in the footsteps of the team they just knocked off, they will immediately need to start deploying an exceptional plan to rebuild th