Ross Colton is still trying to figure out what the heck happened to the Avalanche in a span of six days in late May.

Being swept out of the Western Conference final was not on Colorado’s bingo card.

“It really didn’t sink in I’d say until I got home with how quick it ended,” Colton told The Denver Gazette in a phone interview. “This was one of those years where we went all-in and (the thought) was, ‘We can do it. This is the group that can.’ We lose those two games at home when we play well and we shouldn’t have lost, and then it was kind of like, ‘Oh, my goodness.’

“It happened fast and then (a) snap of the fingers and it’s done. That was crazy.”

As the saying goes, there’s always next season. With Colton, next season will take place in a different city.

The Avalanche’s season ended May 26. Changes are inevitable when a contender falls short, especially when it enters the offseason with no cap space like the Avalanche. Colton was the first of those changes when the Avalanche dealt him to the Nashville Predators for draft picks on June 16.

There are no hard feelings, though. It’s a business, and Colton knows it. Speaking to The Denver Gazette for the first time since the trade, the 29-year-old forward knew a trade was a possibility.

“I wouldn’t say it caught me off guard,” Colton said. “I feel like I’d been there for three years, (and I) kind of had an idea it could happen, maybe. I don’t want to say I didn’t expect it or anything. I feel like it was just one of those things where you come up short a couple of years in a row, and we thought we had the horses to get it done, everyone is kind of expendable.”

Prior to the trade, Colton was a name often mentioned by NHL insiders as someone the Avalanche could move to create flexibility. While he’s excited for the new opportunity in Nashville, he didn’t want to leave Colorado.

“I loved it there. I was upset that I was leaving,” he said. “I love the guys, I love the team, I love the organization. … My first year I was a little quiet, didn’t know anyone. As my personality came out a little more, I fell in love with the city. I love the guys; I love the group. Felt at home and part of the team. I’m super excited for a new opportunity, but I’m going to miss the guys and the team.”

Colton’s time in Colorado started off great. His first season with the Avalanche is still statistically his best season as an NHL player. He set career highs in assists and points while mostly centering the “Roaring ’20s” line with Miles Wood and Logan O’Connor. He got off to a red-hot start to the 2024-25 campaign, scoring eight goals in the first nine games, before a broken foot curbed all that momentum.

Once he returned from injury, he never seemed to regain that momentum in an Avalanche uniform.

While his underlying metrics were strong, long scoring droughts overshadowed some of the positive things he did on the ice. During the second half of the 2024-25 season, he had 16- and 17-game goal-scoring droughts, while last season he went 25 games without putting a puck in the net. He ultimately started the postseason in the press box as a healthy scratch for the first two games against the Los Angeles Kings.

The veteran at the time didn’t mince words when asked by The Denver Gazette about the scratch. He said, “It sucks,” and that it was the first time he’d been scratched in his career. To his credit, he was one of Colorado’s more consistent forwards from that point forward in the playoffs, but once the season ended a split felt inevitable.

Colton was used up and down the lineup in his time with the Avalanche. But despite putting up the best season of his career at center, he was used as a winger each of his final two seasons in Denver.

“After that, I didn’t play center at all,” he said. “I would just say staff-wise, maybe they didn’t love me defensively playing center would be my only guess, because statistically, that was my best season in the NHL playing a full year of center. I never really had a preference. I know that I can play both and do it well, so that was just a matter of wherever they wanted me to be. We had a really deep team down the middle and they traded for guys to come in and play center and I think they were just trying to find the right fit.”

Colton now heads to Nashville, having been acquired by Chris MacFarland for the second time in his NHL career. The move from Colorado to Nashville for the former Avalanche general manager was not on Colton’s radar, as he tends to stay out of the front office movement. But he’s excited to again play for MacFarland, whom Colton said “believed in me.”

Between training and preparing for his own wedding at the end of July, Colton hasn’t yet arrived in Nashville. When he does, he’ll have a few familiar faces to help him get acclimated.

Jack Drury, who lived in the same building as Colton in Denver, was dealt to the Predators just a few days after Colton’s trade. There’s also former Avalanche goaltender Justus Annunen and Steven Stamkos, with whom Colton won a Stanley Cup in Tampa Bay.

Coming off his worst offensive season in the NHL and entering a contract year on a new team, Colton is motivated to bounce back. While the Predators were in the playoff race until the final day of the regular season, there should be more opportunity for playing time in Nashville than there was on a deep Avalanche team.

“(It’s a) new opportunity. (I’ll) go out there with a chip on my shoulder and do my thing,” he said.

While Colton holds no grudges, he’ll be seeing a lot of the Avalanche next season now that he’s inside the division. He let good friend Parker Kelly know that he better keep his head up if they meet in the corner.

“I sent him a video on Instagram. It was this youth hockey game and it was a kid getting buried from behind. As the kid’s laying on the ice, the kid that hit him slashes him in the head. I sent it to (Kelly) the other day and I said, ‘This is what I’m going to do to you next year.’ I was teasing him about that,” Colton said.