There’s pressure, there’s Stanley Cup playoffs pressure and then there’s the type of heat the Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights are facing heading into their second-round playoffs series that begins Sunday night.

The Avalanche and Golden Knights are possibly staring down the legacy of their respective core groups, and might even be facing a swan song together, because of the realities of the NHL salary cap.

To their credit, the Avalanche are in a better position than the Golden Knights going forward. Colorado has a star-studded lineup, but CapFriendly.com projects the Avalanche will have around $20 million in cap space under the flat $81.5 million ceiling this offseason.

Of course, the Avalanche are staring at unrestricted free agency for captain Gabriel Landeskog and No. 1 goaltender Philipp Grubauer. Middle-six winger Brandon Saad is also scheduled to be a UFA. And the biggest test of the Avalanche’s cap management will be 22-year-old Cale Makar, whose entry-level contract will expire, making him a restricted free agent this offseason.

Considering Landeskog is just 28, he’ll be looking for a significant raise somewhere between this current $5.6 million average annual value and the $9.25 million AAV on fellow forward Mikko Rantanen’s deal (through the end of 2025).

Makar could combine with Landeskog to take up most of that available cap space, considering Samuel Girard is the highest-paid Avalanche defenseman at a $5 million AAV. The 23-year-old is a high-end blueliner, but Makar has emerged as the lynchpin of Colorado’s defense corps, a player that’ll be challenging for the Norris Trophy for years to come.

Needless to say, Colorado general manager Joe Sakic might not be able to keep his Presidents’ Trophy-winning roster together beyond this season.

The players, who have been part of a core that’s reached the playoffs five straight seasons but hasn’t been past the second round in the prior four, aren’t blind to the facts either.

"We understand the magnitude of the situation,” Colorado defenseman Ryan Graves said Saturday during his video conference with the media. “We understand the group we have. ... You only have so many opportunities to have a good team."

Sakic and the Avalanche won’t get any sympathy from Vegas general manager Kelly McCrimmon. The Golden Knights have been devoted to winning at all costs since they entered the NHL before the 2017-18 season and advanced all the way to the Cup final in their inaugural year.

That’s meant giving out big contracts and leaving little room for flexibility under the salary cap. CapFriendly.com projects Vegas will have just $2 million to work with in the upcoming offseason, and that’s before they attempt to bring back UFA defenseman Alec Martinez. The Golden Knights are going to have same core for some time, led by forward Mark Stone ($9.5 million AAV through 2026-27) and defenseman Alex Pietrangelo ($8.8 million AAV through 2026-27), but if the mix turns to be insufficient to win the Cup, it’ll be difficult for McCrimmon to change the cast or to supplement it.

Most of Vegas’ biggest contracts are untradeable, both because of their size and various no-trade and no-move clauses. What you see now might be what you get in Golden Knights sweaters for a while, even if the Golden Knights come up short again. Since reaching that ’18 final, Vegas went out in the first round in 2019 and in the conference finals in 2020.

So there’s more at stake in this upcoming Colorado-Vegas series than a trip to the NHL semifinals. Typically, teams that have the type of success Vegas and Colorado have enjoyed the past few years collide head-on with the ramifications of having so much talent in their fold. That’s the battle the Golden Knights and Avalanche will face after they face each other, after this postseason is through. It’s also a battle with the salary cap that could provide motivation for one of these evenly matched squads that wants to win together before an inevitable breakup comes.