Colorado Avalanche Should Give Nick Blankenburg Another Chance — And the PTO Decision Could Become One of Their Most Intriguing Moves of the Fall

DENVER — Sometimes the most interesting NHL decisions aren’t the blockbuster trades.

They aren’t the eight-figure contracts.

And they certainly aren’t the moves that dominate the front page for 24 hours.

Sometimes, they’re the quiet decisions sitting on the edge of the roster — the ones that could either become a forgotten footnote or suddenly look brilliant once the season begins.

For the Colorado Avalanche, Nick Blankenburg may be exactly that kind of decision.

A recent analysis from The Hockey News has argued that Colorado should give the right-shot defenseman another opportunity through a Professional Tryout (PTO) after he remained unsigned heading into September. The idea is simple: bring Blankenburg into training camp, let him compete, and make the final decision later.

On paper, it sounds almost too easy.

But considering Colorado’s salary-cap situation, defensive depth and championship ambitions, it could be a surprisingly important gamble.

THE PLAYER COLORADO ALMOST FORGOT

Blankenburg wasn’t originally brought to Denver to become a headline.

Colorado acquired him from Nashville at the March 2026 trade deadline for a 2027 fifth-round pick. At the time, he was coming off a career-best offensive season with the Predators, recording six goals and 15 assists in 49 games.

The Avalanche viewed him as depth.

Nothing more.

And initially, the fit wasn’t perfect.

According to The Hockey News, Blankenburg struggled early after arriving in Colorado, with mistakes, aggressive offensive decisions and positioning issues creating concerns about whether he could consistently fit into Jared Bednar’s system.

Then something changed.

The player who looked expendable suddenly started looking useful.

By the end of the regular season, Blankenburg had scored two goals and one assist in 12 games with Colorado, and he finished the season with eight goals and 24 points across 61 games between Nashville and Colorado.

Then came the postseason.

And that’s where the story became considerably more interesting.

THE PLAYOFF GOAL THAT CHANGED THE CONVERSATION

In Game 1 of Colorado’s second-round series against Minnesota, Blankenburg scored his first career Stanley Cup Playoff goal during an outrageous 9-6 Avalanche victory.

It wasn’t a meaningless regular-season goal.

It came in a playoff game that required Colorado to survive an offensive track meet, with eight different Avalanche players finding the net.

Blankenburg also scored against Vegas during the playoffs, pulling Colorado level in a game the Avalanche eventually lost in overtime.

And suddenly, the conversation changed.

Maybe the 5-foot-9 defenseman wasn’t just organizational depth.

Maybe there was something there.

WHY A PTO MAKES SO MUCH SENSE

Here’s where Colorado could get clever.

A PTO doesn’t guarantee Blankenburg a roster spot.

It doesn’t require the Avalanche to make a long-term commitment.

And it gives the coaching staff something incredibly valuable:

information.

Bring him to camp.

Put him into preseason games.

Test him against NHL competition.

See whether the late-season version of Blankenburg was a genuine development curve or simply a short-term hot streak.

If he struggles?

Move on.

If he impresses?

Now Colorado has a low-cost option who already knows the system, the coaches and the pressure of playing in Denver.

That is precisely why the proposal makes sense.

THE SALARY-CAP ANGLE MAKES THIS EVEN MORE INTERESTING

Colorado doesn’t have the luxury of throwing money at every problem.

The Avalanche have built their roster around expensive stars and long-term commitments, and the margin for additional spending is extremely thin.

That makes inexpensive depth more valuable than ever.

A player such as Blankenburg doesn’t need to become Cale Makar.

He doesn’t need to produce 50 points.

He doesn’t even necessarily need to play every night.

He simply needs to become someone Bednar trusts when injuries strike.

That’s a very different standard.

And perhaps a much more realistic one.

BUT THERE’S A PROBLEM — AND IT’S A BIG ONE

The Avalanche already have competition for defensive spots.

That’s what makes a potential Blankenburg comeback so dramatic.

Colorado isn’t deciding whether Blankenburg is talented enough for the NHL.

The question is whether he is better than the alternatives already inside the organization.

That’s a brutal distinction.

A player can be NHL-caliber and still fail to make one particular roster.

For Blankenburg, every preseason shift could become an audition.

One bad defensive sequence could reopen the concerns that followed him earlier in his Colorado tenure.

One impressive performance could force the coaching staff to reconsider its depth chart.

That’s exactly why a PTO could be fascinating.

There would be nowhere to hide.

THE “UNDERSIZED” LABEL IS STILL FOLLOWING HIM

Blankenburg’s biggest obstacle may not be his offensive ability.

It’s his size.

At 5-foot-9 and 177 pounds, he is considerably smaller than the traditional NHL defenseman.

That doesn’t automatically make him ineffective.

But it means his margin for error is smaller.

He has to compensate with skating.

Decision-making.

Puck movement.

Positioning.

Aggressiveness without recklessness.

And most importantly, consistency.

When a smaller defenseman makes an aggressive play and it works, fans notice.

When it fails, coaches notice even more.

That’s the balancing act Blankenburg must solve.

COULD HE ACTUALLY BECOME A SURPRISE DEPTH PIECE?

Absolutely.

But that’s different from saying Colorado should hand him a roster spot.

The smart move would be to give him the opportunity and make him earn it.

That’s why the PTO proposal is so compelling.

It creates a low-risk, high-information experiment.

Colorado doesn’t have to promise anything.

Blankenburg doesn’t have to prove everything in one night.

And Bednar gets the chance to see whether the player who finished last season strong can carry that momentum into training camp.

The upside is obvious.

If Blankenburg wins the competition, Colorado could have found an inexpensive defensive option without sacrificing assets in a trade.

If he doesn’t, the Avalanche lose virtually nothing by having given him another look.

AND THAT’S THE PART FANS SHOULD WATCH

The Avalanche don’t need another superstar.

They already have those.

They need the pieces that keep the machine running when injuries arrive, when the schedule gets brutal and when playoff hockey starts exposing every weakness.

Blankenburg could potentially be one of those pieces.

Or he could simply be another player who came close but couldn’t crack the final roster.

That’s the gamble.

And with training camp approaching, there is only one way to find out.

Give him the PTO.

Let him compete.

Let him fight for the job.

Because if Nick Blankenburg walks into Colorado’s training camp and looks like the player who finished the 2025-26 season, the Avalanche might suddenly find themselves facing a very different problem:

How do you keep a player you thought you had already moved past?