LOS ANGELES — It is possible that no NHL team will reach 112 points this season. In fact, only the New York Rangers — at 107 with four games remaining — have a chance at getting there.

Each season is a separate entity, and increased balance in the league in 2014-15 is involved. But before getting to the postmortems for this Avalanche season, let’s start with this: The basis of comparison was Colorado’s 112-point showing and Central Division championship a year ago in its first season under coach Patrick Roy. https://embed.sendtonews.com/oembed/?fk=5vyDixL5&cid=5163&sound=off&format=json&offsetx=0&offsety=0&floatwidth=400&floatposition=bottom-right&float=on

It was so consistent, it bordered on the bizarre, and that’s why this is worth mentioning again as background: Through everything, including injuries, through bounces mostly good, but some bad, the Avs were 26-11-4 in the first half, in the second half, at home and on the road. Undeniably, Roy was a worthy choice as the NHL’s coach of the year as a rookie in the business at the highest level.

This is not half-full, blinkered naivete, but a judgment that has come into sharper focus after another year of evidence: One of the many things this season has showed is that last season — yes, the regular season only before the playoff flameout — truly was monumental, perhaps even one of the most praiseworthy overachievents in recent Colorado sports.

But it set the bar.

It set the bar for what came next, for this season and beyond.

To the Avalanche’s credit, from the front office on down through the locker room, that has been recognized and even welcomed.

So absolutely, this season is a disappointment, and it was destined to be considered that long before the Saturday afternoon confirmation that the Avalanche wouldn’t make the playoffs.

For the sixth time in the past nine seasons, there will be no postseason hockey at the Pepsi Center.

This will be the biggest test for Joe Sakic and Roy.

They must avoid denial.

Denial would entail assuming that the run of injuries — including to Erik Johnson and Nathan MacKinnon — explains too much.

The Avs are not the only NHL team to suffer injuries. Yes, they’re second in man-games lost, but that’s misleading because it includes full or virtually full seasons for Jamie McGinn, Patrick Bordeleau and Ryan Wilson, and only McGinn was significantly missed.

By the stretch run, the third and fourth lines weren’t capable of pitching in offensively — not even to the occasional extent that can be so invigorating for a team — and that’s not just about injuries. It’s about organizational depth and talent evaluation. Even a year ago, the Avs were without Alex Tanguay for most of the season, plus Matt Duchene and Paul Stastny for significant stretches. They overcame.

Plus, while Semyon Varla- mov is one of the league’s elite goalies, the Avalanche mostly got excellent play from Calvin Pickard when the Russian was out — and Reto Berra’s problems when he was used have to be weighed against the organization’s misplaced faith in him. (He has looked like a competent NHL goalie the past couple of weeks, but that doesn’t retroactively erase his earlier suspect play.)

The “young” core — getting to the point where young must be in quotation marks, and soon to the point where it shouldn’t be used at all — must step up. Johnson was having a career season before he was injured, and there is no reason to doubt he is coming into his own nine years after being the NHL’s top overall draft choice.

I’m not nearly as down on the Avalanche defense as many are, because it’s mainly an issue of having fifth and sixth defenseman types (including Brad Stuart at this point of his career) being asked to do too much. In that sense, the addition of an anchor for the second pair or another top D-man to go with Johnson would make the others — including Nick Holden and Nate Guenin, under contract for next season — better.

The offseason assessment can’t start with excuses.

Terry Frei: tfrei @denverpost.com or twitter.com/TFrei