Cale Makar's injury may cost Colorado more than a series

What they may not have considered is what it cost them to bring him back.

Elliotte Friedman told the FAN Hockey Show on Wednesday that Makar's injury is "pretty significant."

Friedman added that some people close to the situation are already questioning whether the defenseman will be ready for the start of next season.

That framing matters. The conversation across hockey media has been about what Makar's absence meant for the Western Conference Final sweep.

Nobody has been asking the harder question: did skating through this injury against Vegas make it worse?

Makar missed Games 1 and 2 of the series with an upper-body injury sustained in the final minutes of Colorado's Game 5 overtime win over Minnesota.

He returned later in the series. The Avalanche still lost four straight.

The decision to bring him back into a series already trending the wrong way now deserves scrutiny.

If the injury was already significant - Friedman's characterization, drawn from people close to the situation - then skating on it deep into a losing series didn't save the Avalanche anything.

It may have bought four games at the cost of months.

Colorado finished with 121 points and the Presidents' Trophy. Their roster was built around Makar's $9 million cap hit being a bargain - 20 goals, 59 assists, plus-32 in 75 regular season games.

None of that matters in June if the man anchoring every important situation can't skate in October.

MacFarland's entire offseason calculus changes when the centerpiece of your roster carries a timeline nobody inside the organization is willing to confirm publicly.

The next real update won't come from Denver. It'll come from whoever Friedman talks to next.