In home-and-home sweep, Avalanche show potential to replicate Blackhawks’ early-decade run

An Avalanche team with a third of its best-in-hockey top line scored five goals against the Blackhawks.

An Avalanche team with two-thirds of that line, with Mikko Rantanen returning from injury to rejoin Nathan MacKinnon, scored seven goals against the Hawks.

The Hawks, who entered the home-and-home Friday and Saturday having allowing only 10 goals (excluding empty-netters) in their last six games, suddenly looked like a paper towel trying to contain an oil spill.

They were completely outmatched and thoroughly shredded by the NHL’s hottest up-and-coming team.

‘‘They’re a very fast team, and they’ve got some players on the point that can really jump into the play and make life difficult for you,’’ Hawks star Patrick Kane said after a 7-3 loss Saturday. ‘‘Even when they make some plays and turn it over, it seems like they backcheck pretty well, too. All around they work hard and play fast, and [that’s] a lesson we can take.’’

At least the Hawks can take pride in one thing: Their franchise remains a model for the Avs, a model the Avs are trying to — and, it appears, soon will — replicate.

The game Saturday in Denver was marketed as ‘‘Division Rivalry Night,’’ complete with a pregame video describing the intensity of the Central Division and ‘‘Beat the Blackhawks’’ giveaway posters handed out to fans.

Even with the Hawks more than four years removed from their last victory in a playoff series and sitting last in the Central right now, it’s still special for smaller markets when the Hawks — the NHL’s Team of the 2010s, even if the latter part of the decade hasn’t been so fruitful — come to town.

It wouldn’t be surprising, though, if the roles are reversed in the next decade. The Avs have all the same pieces in place the Hawks did in 2009, and it’s quite possible they will emerge as the NHL’s Team of the 2020s.

The Avalanche have a 16-8-2 record and a plus-22 goal differential, the second-best in the league, despite fielding the NHL’s youngest roster (average age: 25.7) and having played the third-toughest schedule so far.

MacKinnon — on pace for a 128-point season after finishing with 99 and 97 points the last two seasons — Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog are an unrivaled forward core, comparable to Kane, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Sharp 10 years ago. The Avs supplemented them with offseason additions Andre Burakovsky, Joonas Donskoi and Nazem Kadri, all of whom are having career seasons.

On defense, Cale Makar is a favorite to win the Calder Trophy, overshadowing the fact that fellow 21-year-old Samuel Girard also is blossoming into a top-pair stud. They’re the equivalent of Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook. Veteran Erik Johnson remains a top-quality blueliner, too — a la Brian Campbell, perhaps.

And the Avalanche will have more talent flowing in around that stellar core in coming seasons, as one of the NHL’s best prospect pools — headlined by Bowen Byram, the No. 4 overall pick in June — ages into the league.

Byram won’t be around, but the rest of the Avs’ star-studded roster will be for two more games this month against the Hawks: Dec. 18 at the United Center and Dec. 21 in Denver.

The Hawks had great trouble keeping up with the Avs this weekend. They presumably will have great trouble doing so a few weeks from now, too.

And they most certainly will have great trouble keeping up with them in the standings for years to come.