Walk­ing into Ball Are­na at 4:30 p.m., the silence cre­ates a com­fort­ing hum. A few steps lat­er, the eyes shift to the ceil­ing where three hock­ey cham­pi­onship ban­ners hang above Sec­tion 362. For most orga­ni­za­tions, they would pro­vide a long look back into com­fort and goose­bumps. For the Avs, they pro­vide a longer gaze forward.

The ban­ners rep­re­sent moti­va­tion, direc­tion. They are a com­pass. This point was dri­ven home Wednes­day morn­ing with a sledge­ham­mer. In 30 min­utes, the Avs showed they remain all-in. Again.

The two most impor­tant days in a pro­fes­sion­al sports sea­son are when it starts and the trade dead­line when we find out what those in charge real­ly think of their team. The Avs “why” is refresh­ing. There might as well have been a neon sign flash­ing above the score­board Wednes­day that read: “We care.” In an indus­try, where rea­sons come cam­ou­flaged as excus­es, the Avs’ stance warms the heart like an open campfire.

They are not pay­ing their best play­ers to go away (see Are­na­do, Nolan) or absorb­ing an $85 mil­lion dead salary cap hit to move on from the artist for­mer­ly known as Rus­sell Wilson.

The Avs are hunt­ing with a sin­gu­lar vision. Even if that means admit­ting a mistake.

They acquired Buf­fa­lo Sabres for­ward Casey Mit­tel­stadt and Philadel­phia Fly­ers defense­man Sean Walk­er in two sep­a­rate deals, shades of when they land­ed Art­turi Lehko­nen and Josh Man­son two years ago. That sea­son end­ed with a parade.

As long as Nathan MacK­in­non and Cale Makar dot the ros­ter, the Avs com­men­tary nev­er shifts toward the future. It’s about now.

They addressed areas of con­cern, made the team bet­ter than it was Tues­day. It came with pain. The Avs shipped off promis­ing defense­man Bo Byram for Mit­tel­stadt. Acquir­ing a func­tion­al sec­ond-line cen­ter became a glar­ing need, impos­si­ble to ignore.

Ryan Johansen was a bust. The Avs might have been bet­ter off with a Jonas Broth­er. Some­thing was off. Or nev­er on. He was a dial-up skater on a fiber optics team. Johansen had to go as did Bo to land his replacement.

“It wasn’t work­ing,” Avs gen­er­al man­ag­er Chris Mac­Far­land admit­ted Wednes­day night. “Bo was a spe­cial play­er. He helped us immense­ly. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t put a pit in my stom­ach because it did. But I felt it was the right move at this time for the club.”

Every­body, it seems, loved Bo. Hard not to giv­en his con­tri­bu­tions to the 2022 run and his poten­tial. But was he bet­ter this sea­son? It’s eas­i­er to make an argu­ment that he regressed.

Rather than dou­ble down as so many stub­born suits do, Mac­Far­land moved on from Johansen. It required a poi­son pill, attach­ing a 2025 first-round draft pick that is top-10 protected.

This is why the Avs are not immune from crit­i­cism. There are some who believe they lost focus on the big pic­ture in sac­ri­fic­ing Byram. That they became too des­per­ate. Like five min­utes before last call and the per­son across the bar smiles and has a gap in their teeth big­ger than one at the Cas­tle Rock out­lets and you smile back.

Sil­ly.

Of course, unload­ing Byram comes with risk. But it is unlike­ly he and Sam Girard both were going to be on the ros­ter next sea­son giv­en their pro­ject­ed con­tracts. The best lead­ers don’t wor­ry about what the play­er leav­ing will become. Rearview mir­rors are for los­ing teams and GMs.

The Avs also did not ship off Byram for a 30-some­thing rental.

Mit­tel­stadt is 25, a con­trol­lable restrict­ed free agent, with keen vision.

He enjoyed a career sea­son with Buf­fa­lo this year — 14 goals, 47 points in 62 games — and his pass­ing should flour­ish when sur­round­ed by a pletho­ra of offen­sive weapons.

Walk­er is bet­ter than the cur­rent ver­sion of Byram. He fits coach Jared Bednar’s style, a defense­man capa­ble of pinch­ing in the offen­sive zone.

The moves also deliv­er friend­ly math. The Avs cre­at­ed salary cap flex­i­bil­i­ty to make anoth­er a deal before Friday’s dead­line. There have been nation­al rum­blings about Col­orado adding a goalie even as Jus­tus Annunen has made a com­pelling case to back up Alexan­der Georgiev.

The Avs are not the favorite to win the Stan­ley Cup — the Pan­thers and Oil­ers have bet­ter odds — but they remain firm­ly in the conversation.

Val Nichushkin could return as soon as Fri­day after enter­ing the play­er assis­tance pro­gram in Jan­u­ary. Most impor­tant is that he’s men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly healthy. From a hock­ey per­spec­tive, he instant­ly becomes a block­buster addi­tion at the dead­line. The Avs’ record when he plays sug­gests they will be skat­ing in mid-June if he returns to form or some­thing close.

“He touch­es every facet of our line­up,” Mac­Far­land said.

In the bow­els of Ball Are­na, far removed from those styl­ish cur­sive-writ­ten ban­ners, I asked Mac­Far­land about the Avs being all in. The thing about this orga­ni­za­tion is that they don’t even have to say it.

Every­body already knows it. And Wednes­day proved it.

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