The Avalanche were founded in 1972 as the Quebec Nordiques and were one of the charter franchises of the World Hockey Association. The franchise joined the NHL in 1979 as a result of the NHL-WHA merger. Following the 1994-95 season, they were sold to the COMSAT Entertainment Group and relocated to Denver.

In the club's first season in Denver, the Avalanche won the Pacific Division and went on to sweep the Florida Panthers in the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals, becoming the first NHL team to win the Stanley Cup in the season following a relocation.

According to the Avalanche website, Bernie the St. Bernard was born in Summit County in a litter of five puppies. His brothers and sisters loved playing in the snow but Bernie kept running to the hockey rink at the base of the mountain. After many attempts to bring Bernie back to the slopes, the Ski Patrol finally realized his love was really ice not snow. The Patrol brought Bernie to an Avalanche home game where he saw a perfect sheet of NHL ice, and it was love at first sight. Bernie had found his new home.

Avalanche right winger Claude Lemieux checked Draper from behind, driving his face into the boards. The hit sent Draper out of the game and into the hospital with a broken jaw, shattered cheek and orbital bone which required reconstructive surgery involving his jaw being wired shut and numerous stitches. The Avalanche would upset the Red Wings in six games, eventually winning the Stanley Cup.

Ray Bourque won the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the NHL's best defensemen five times. He was named to the end-of-season All-Star teams 19 times and retired with NHL records for the most career goals, assists, and points by a defenseman. His #77 jersey was retired by the Colorado Avalanche on November 24, 2001. (The numbers retired when the franchise was in Quebec--J. C. Tremblay's No. 3, Marc Tardif's No. 8, Michel Goulet's No. 16 and Peter Stastny's No. 26--were entered back into circulation after the move to Colorado.)

During the 2013-14 season, Semyon Varlamov set franchise records with 41 wins and a save percentage of 92.8%. On January 30, 2014, he signed a five-year contract extension with the Avalanche worth $29.5 million.

In the 2001 Stanley Cup Finals, the Avalanche defeated the New Jersey Devils 4-3 to win their second championship. Colorado's Patrick Roy, nicknamed "Saint Patrick," was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the 2001 playoffs. He is the only goalie in NHL history to win the Conn Smythe Trophy three times, the only one to do so in different decades, and the only one to do so for two teams.

When the startling news broke in 1980 that Czechoslovakia player of the year Peter Stastný and his brother, Anton, had defected to Canada to play with the Quebec Nordiques, it represented a watershed moment in professional hockey. The following year, his brother, Marián, joined them. The trickle of Czechoslovak and Soviet hockey players rapidly became a flood following their footsteps. According to Peter, his defection "was the best decision I ever made. It has given my family the choices and options that people behind the Iron Curtain could only dream of. Then, to play pro hockey with my two brothers was like icing on the cake."

In ice hockey, butterfly style is a technique of goaltending distinguished by the goaltender guarding the lower part of the net by dropping to the knees to block attempts to score. The butterfly style derives its name from the resemblance of the spread goal pads and hands to a butterfly's wings. Although earlier goalies had success with this style, it had fallen out of favor until the emergence of Patrick Roy in the mid-1980s. This new, modern butterfly style has been referred to as the "profly" style.

The 1987-88 season was Gord Donnelly's first full year in the NHL. In 63 games he had seven points and a staggering 301 minutes in the sin bin, clearly distinguishing himself as the team's number-one enforcer.