Per Craig Custance of ESPN, the Colorado Avalanche has signed center Carl Soderberg to a 5-year contract extension.
With trade rumors swirling around the NHL Thursday afternoon, the Avalanche were the first team to make headlines by trading their 6th round selection in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft for the negotiating rights to Unrestricted Free Agent Carl Soderberg. After a day of continuing negotiations, the Avalanche have come to terms with Soderberg, signing the former Bruin’s center to a 5-year extension worth $23.75 million.
With 94 points in 161 games played for the Bruins, Soderberg earned a significant raise this offseason. The Swedish pivot is coming off of a three year deal in Boston which carried a cap hit of just over $1 million. His new deal makes him the 39th highest paid Center in the NHL, just ahead of Winnipeg’s Bryan Little and right behind Arizona’s Sam Gagner.
With a cap hit of $4.75M Soderberg becomes the Avalanche’s 5th highest paid forward, and joins Matt Duchene, Gabriel Landeskog, and Cody McLeod as the only Avalanche forwards signed for the 2017-2018 season. The deal includes a full No-Trade Clause in the first two years of the deal and a limited NTC in the final 3 years.
During the 2014-2015 season, Head Coach Patrick Roy was adamant about his desire for a big bodied center to help the Avalanche compete against some of the Western Conference’s larger teams. At 6’3″ 216 lbs, Soderberg brings great size and should improve the Avalanche’s scoring depth on a third line which struggled to produce last season.
Of course, the addition of Soderberg raises even more doubts about Ryan O’Reilly’s future with the Colorado Avalanche. It’s unlikely that the Avalanche would acquire an expensive third line luxury like Soderberg if they were also planning on paying top dollar to keep O’Reilly in Colorado. Whether he’s traded in advance of tonight’s NHL Entry Draft or later in the summer, it will certainly be one of the NHL’s biggest stories this offseason, and a pivotal moment in the Avalanche franchise’s rebuild.
