It was the best deadline the team could've had, within reason.
The Ryan Johansen experiment failure left Colorado in a spot where they had a fundamental weakness in its roster (2C). That position can be hard to address in-season without resorting to rentals. And then after the high end rentals (Lindholm, Monahan) were taken off the board, suddenly you're trying to talk yourself into gap stops like Henrique and Wennberg.
We all knew there was a chance Casey Mittelstadt was available based on the construction of Buffalo's roster. But there were no insider rumors about him being available, and a trade involving young controllable players can be difficult to pull off in-season. To everyone's shock, the Avalanche got it done. Acquiring Mittelstadt came at great cost and has divided some of the fan base, but you have to commend MacFarland for going all in to address the 2C position long term.
The Sean Walker move was a pleasant surprise, but not a shock because Colorado was linked to him in rumors. Still, it was somewhat of an atypical trade by the Avalanche because it involved them a) trading a 1st for a rental and b) landing one of the top "Trade Board" targets. Obviously, the reason for the aggression was due to the loss of Bowen Byram, but it's good to see given how often the Avalanche have done their deadline shopping at FiveBelow.
Regarding the Duhaime and Trenin moves, I love both acquisitions but especially Trenin. His 3 goal, 16 hit performance against Colorado in the 2022 post-season has never been far from my mind. I think the biggest lesson with the 2021 President Trophy team's playoff failure was that the club didn't have enough snarl, and Colorado addressed that when they won the Cup. They're following that blueprint here again, adding big time grit and two-way play.
I think the lingering questions are whether or not they should've done more on defense, or done something period in goal. I think personally I'm a little more concerned about defensive depth, but Caleb Jones had a couple nice games recently. Based on what ended up being dealt, I think the team is better off relying on Jones over guys like Ruhwedel and Stetcher. I guess Colorado could've after Edmundson or brought back EJ. But in recent months, I've read both Caps and Sabres fans say how each player would be "addition by subtraction". So in a vacuum, I'm fine with no depth adds.
In goal, similar sentiment. I think the Avalanche will be going with Annunen, or possibly Prosvetov, as their inexpensive backup next year. Jake Allen at $1.9M doesn't sound bad, but I'm also not sure how much he moves the needle. He's been horrible the last two years; not just overall, but relative to Montreal's other two goalies. Maybe he'd rebound in Colorado, but the team opted to stick with their budget options and I don't necessarily blame them.
Overall, I thought I'd be Satisfied, but ended up Very Satisfied. MacFarland has been super aggressive both last off-season (Olofsson, Johansen, Newhook, Colton trades; Drouin, Tatar, Wood signings) and in-season (Tatar trade; Prosvetov waiver claim; Kiviranta, Parise signings), so I knew he'd do something of substance at the deadline. But I didn't have (5) trades on my Bingo Card; and even if I had, I would've underestimated the long term magnitude of those moves.