The Colorado Avalanche may have found the best strategy to match the Rangers' $21 million offer to Joe Sakic: build a $165 million arena.

A new downtown home for the National Hockey League's Avalanche and the National Basketball Association's Denver Nuggets has been planned for several years. But only yesterday did the city and Ascent Entertainment, the teams' owner, clear the final hurdle by agreeing to let the Nuggets out of their lease at McNichols Arena for $15.5 million to be paid over 25 years.

Now, the 1996 Stanley Cup champions are assured of future revenue from a five-story sports palace with 95 luxury boxes and 1,850 club seats, one that will join the Colorado Rockies' phenomenally successful Coors Field for the 1999-2000 season.

So would Ascent undermine its good arena news -- which will be underscored today in a public signing ceremony -- by not matching the Rangers' offer sheet by today's 8 P.M. deadline and letting Sakic go East?