Nearly six months have passed without Avalanche or Nuggets programming on Comcast with no apparent end to the bitter dispute. As for hope local games might return with the playoffs fast approaching?

Don’t count on it.

An analysis of the latest court filings from Altitude’s federal antitrust lawsuit — alleging a Comcast plan to monopolize sports programming in the region — illustrates the regional sports network’s slow-moving legal strategy. The cable giant, meanwhile, seems intent on halting requests to produce evidence in its aim to dismiss the case.

The final pretrial conference for Altitude v. Comcast is currently scheduled for May 3, 2021, per online court records, placing the Nuggets, Avalanche and Rapids in jeopardy of a continued Comcast blackout well into 2021.

In a worst-case scenario, though, the stalemate could extend for several years.

RELATED: Dish Network reveals latest proposal to Altitude Sports, refutes claim it hasn’t negotiated in good faith

“If you have conglomerates behind both sides where neither really has to deal in order to stay in business, a short-term resolution is unlikely,” said Tim Lacomb, an attorney at MoginRubin LLP in San Diego, who specializes in antitrust, unfair competition and complex business litigation. “If the case gets into discovery, at that point you’re going to have at least hundreds of thousands of pages of documents produced by the defendant and relevant third parties. You’re going to have numerous depositions, and all of that just takes a significant amount of time.”

For a potential preview of what’s to come, just look at what’s happening in Los Angeles.

In 2013, Time Warner Cable purchased exclusive broadcast and streaming rights for Dodgers games in a landmark 25-year, $8.35-billion deal. The team launched its own regional sports network, SportsNet LA, with TWC offering the channel to competing television providers. But DirecTV, Dish, Cox and Verizon balked at the high price tag and declined to carry SportsNet LA.

The result: An estimated 70% of Los Angeles households have been unable to watch local Dodgers broadcasts in an ongoing blackout for six seasons — and counting. Charter Communications purchased TWC in 2016 and made SportsNet LA available to a larger percentage of households. But it was too little, too late, with rival television providers still refusing to carry the RSN due to high cost.

“Initially, there was a lot of anger,” said Bill Shaikin, a longtime sportswriter at The Los Angeles Times who covers the Dodgers and sports business. “Right now, it’s not so much an issue of people wanting to see the Dodgers but can’t. There are plenty of people who got used to not seeing the Dodgers and decided that’s just fine with them.”

Back in Denver, crawling litigation suggests a resolution is not close.

Kroenke-owned Altitude filed its initial antitrust lawsuit Nov. 18. Nearly three months after that, it refiled an amended version that changes a member of counsel, provides additional arguments and revises wording throughout. Comcast, now forced to refile its motions to stay discovery and dismiss the case, provided a scathing review of Altitude’s litigation in a Feb. 13 court filing.

Its new motion states: “Nothing in the amended complaint, however, alters the inescapable conclusion that Altitude has pleaded presumptively — and demonstrably — meritless antitrust claims. Nor does the amendment undermine in any way Comcast’s prior showing that a discovery stay is warranted. To the contrary, Altitude’s decision to wait until the last minute to amend its complaint rather than opposing Comcast’s motion to dismiss, forcing Comcast to move again to dismiss the complaint, confirms its strategy of seeking to delay an eventual ruling on the merits.”

If a judge rejects Comcast’s new motion to dismiss, and the case moves toward a jury trial, it is unclear how the verdict will impact the immediate availability of local Nuggets and Avalanche broadcasts. However, the decision could have a far-reaching impact on an evolving national sports media landscape.

“It will have pretty wide-sweeping ramifications for the industry, good or bad,” Lacomb said. “If this is resolved in Altitude’s favor, you’re going to have regional sports networks with a significant ability to protect themselves. If a buyer comes in and offers them predatory terms, they get to point to this case and say, ‘You can’t do that.’ If there is a decision that comes the other way, then you’re giving the cable company free rein to come in and offer those alleged rates.”

DirecTV is the only television provider that currently offers Altitude programming after reaching a multi-year agreement in October. Altitude has been blocked out from Comcast and Dish since the end of August.

Bill Isaacson, the outside counsel hired to represent Altitude, spoke with reporters upon the initial antitrust lawsuit filing. Asked whether Altitude was serious about bringing to case to trial, Isaacson responded with an answer that likely makes Avalanche and Nuggets fans subscribed to Comcast service shudder.

“We’re prepared to do this the whole way,” Isaacson said.