The rift rumors may have been just that.

The morning after signing a deal that could keep him in Denver well into his 30s, Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog referenced the Avalanche posters in his room growing up. They showed Colorado’s Stanley Cup-winning teams in 1996 and 2001.

“That was my goal, my dream, to be in a picture wearing an Avs jersey and holding the Stanley Cup,” Landeskog said. “That is something that’s always going to be the goal.”

The Avalanche front office and Landeskog’s agents worked it out in the end — the very end — coming to terms on a deal through 2028-29 and announcing it about 12 hours before the free-agent frenzy began.

“Did it get quiet there for a week or two where there wasn’t much going on? Yeah. But that’s all part of the process,” general manager Joe Sakic said.

“We knew going into this last week we’d have a lot of conversations and we did. Both sides are excited that Gabe’s going to remain our captain for the rest of his career.”

The team opted against protecting Landeskog in the expansion draft. Landeskog said his agent spoke with the Seattle Kraken but “for me, there wasn’t a whole lot there.”

“To be honest, I would have done the same thing and I would have told Joe not to protect me,” Landeskog said.

“The uncertainty’s definitely hard but at the end of the day, for me, I was sure what I wanted. My heart’s in Colorado. Denver’s my home.”

Note: The Avalanche signed defenseman Roland McKeown, 25, to a one-year contract. The Listowel, Ontario, native spent the 2020-21 season on loan to Skelleftea in the Swedish Hockey League. He was a Calder Cup champion with the Charlotte Checkers (AHL) in 2018-19 and captained the team the following year.

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