Thirty years flew by in a minute.

On Sunday, the alumni for the Colorado Avalanche will suit up against the alumni for the Denver Pioneers ahead of the 30th season in Denver for the NHL team. While some former stars for the Avalanche will be missing, the roster looks fantastic with the likes of Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Adam Foote, and Milan Hejduk (just to name a few) suiting up.

With a lot of the greats back in town, what better time to reminisce about the past? The Avalanche are hoping to add a fourth championship banner to the rafters in a year but for now, they’ve only got three. All three of those teams were incredible, arguably three of the best teams the league has seen over the last 30 years. The question is, which one is the best – 1996, 2001, or 2022?

When talking about the best Avalanche teams, the 1996 squad often gets overlooked. They had both Forsberg and Sakic in their primes putting up over 100 points, and while the addition of Patrick Roy in net gave them their closer, they didn’t have the star power on defense that the 2001 and 2022 teams had. I’d argue that Sandis Ozolinsh may be the most underrated player in Avalanche history, but I’m not sure anyone is taking him over the likes of Rob Blake, Ray Bourque, and Cale Makar.

What made the 1996 team so good was their combination of skill and grit. Beyond Sakic and Forsberg up front, they had a point-per-game forward in Valeri Kamensky, my favorite player as a youngster. The lanky Russian had a long stride that would deceive the opposition and was extremely talented to boot. The skill players were complimented by Claude Lemieux and Adam Deadmarsh, both of whom were very talented in their own right. Those two brought the nasty to the top six and made the team difficult to play against.

The bottom six was full of guys who made life miserable for the opposing team, guys like Chris Simon, Mike Keane, Stephane Yelle, and Mike Ricci. It was a very deep forward group.

Still, as deep as that forward group was, I’d put the ’96 team below the other two teams that won it all.

It’s tough comparing the 2001 team to the 2022 team. There’s a very good argument to be made that the 2022 team is one of the three best teams concocted during the salary cap era. The deadline moves made by Sakic made them absurdly deep, to the point that a 20-goal scorer in Andre Burakovsky was a healthy scratch at times in the postseason. They lost a top four defenseman in Sam Girard in the second round and didn’t miss a beat because a guy like Bowen Byram was there to move up the lineup.

And then you’ve got the 2001 team, a team so freaking good that they lost a Hall of Fame player in Forsberg after the second round and were still able to win it all. They had the skill, they had the grit, and they had the unsung heroes at the bottom of the lineup. And can we talk about the defense? That team had two Hall of Fame defensemen eating up a ton of minutes and a third guy in Foote who was one of the meanest, nastiest defensive defensemen in the league. When you have at least one of those three defensemen on the ice at all times, you’re very tough to beat.

But most importantly, they had Roy, who took home the Conn Smythe that postseason. Sure, he had his hiccups here and there (stay in net, Patty), but that team isn’t winning the Cup without him. Game Six could have gotten ugly quickly in New Jersey, as the Devils came out flying, but Roy held them at bay until his team could settle down. The rest is history.

It’s nothing against Darcy Kuemper, who is a very good goalie. He just isn’t Patrick Roy.

No one is. And that’s why I’d rate that 2001 team above the rest.

The Colorado Alumni Faceoff is at 5 p.m. Sunday at Magness Arena. It will be televised on Altitude TV.