It no longer requires a snow job to sell the Avalanche as a legit championship Cup contender.

Within the span of 24 hours, with the pressure squarely on general manager Chris MacFarland, he transformed Colorado from a playoff disappointment waiting to happen into a team to be feared in its quest for another Stanley Cup.

Shortly after he woke Wednesday morning, there was a pit in the stomach of MacFarland.

With the clock ticking loudly toward the NHL trade deadline, if he failed to make a bold move, MacFarland was doomed to go down in history as the guy that wasted the best season of Nathan MacKinnon’s Hall-of-Fame-worthy career.

“It wasn’t working,” MacFarland said. “And we had to fix it.”

Everybody, from each of the team’s feisty rivals in the fiercely competitive Western Conference to the die-hards screaming their lungs out in the top row of Ball Arena, knew exactly what it was.

The Avs had a black hole in the center of the ice, swallowing the team’s championship aspirations in a big ugly gulp and laying to waste the magic of Nate the Great. Ever since Nazem Kadri rode the victory parade out of town in the summer of 2022, coach Jared Bednar couldn’t find any way to plug the void at second-line center.

With Colorado trailing both Dallas and Winnipeg in the Central Division, the Avs faced the real possibility of opening the playoffs on the road. With fewer than 20 games remaining in the regular season, it didn’t feel late. It was late. Too late to count solely on forward Valeri Nichushkin finally getting his mind right or the aching body of captain Gabe Landeskog to miraculously heal.

Rather than hope and pray, MacFarland dumped the rusty skates and heavy legs of center Ryan Johansen, acquiring Sean Walker, a puck-moving, penalty-killing defenseman from Philadelphia in the process.

But that move was nothing more than a prelude to the really meaningful action. MacFarland then swapped the unfulfilled potential of Bo Byram, whose ice time had slipped in Bednar’s defensive rotations, for 25-year-old Buffalo center Casey Mittelstadt, who has produced 47 points for the Sabres this season.

Due to be a restricted free agent in the summer, here’s a golden opportunity for Mittelstadt to prove he’s worthy of a five-year contract in excess of $30 million as one of the boys in the band rocking burgundy and blue.

“It’s obviously a premier position in the middle of the ice,” McFarland said. “Where were we getting our next 2C?”

Here’s hoping Mittelstadt can be the final answer.

“Trading a Bo Byram,” McFarland said, “you’re not trading him, unless you’re getting something you’re really excited about in an important slot in your lineup. It was a hard decision, but we feel it was the right one.”

Before the decisive action taken by MacFarland, who has yet to prove himself as a worthy heir to Joe Sakic as a master of roster-building, the Avs seemed bound for another maddening early postseason exit.

There’s no way to sugarcoat the truth. Despite the presence of MacKinnon, the Avalanche has only advanced past the second round of the NHL playoffs since he joined the league in 2013.

In a year when it appears the Cup is anybody’s for the hoisting, this was a trade-or-fold situation for the Avalanche. Big kudos to MacFarland for improving a team that wasn’t quite good enough to win it all.

But let’s keep it real. Mittelstadt isn’t going to make anyone forget the trade deadline blockbusters for Ray Bourque or Rob Blake.

Among current Cup contenders, Colorado hasn’t done any better this week than the Florida Panthers, sitting atop the Eastern Conference standings, and looking stronger for the playoffs with the addition of veteran forward Vladimir Tarasenko, who has scored 44 goals in 97 NHL postseason games.

And the big door prize of this trade deadline is still there for the taking: Pittsburgh winger Jake Guentzel.

Please, please, please don’t let me wake up later this week to the news Vancouver or Las Vegas found a way to pry Guentzel and his 219 career goals away from the Penguins.

The trade deadline doesn’t expire until Friday. Are the Avs done wheeling and dealing?

The job of MacFarland is to explore any and all possibilities to improve the team.

Colorado has done good. The Cup is more than a dream.

But if the Avs want to go all-in, they will go get Guentzel.