A comprehensive look at Colorado's center problem

Have you heard the Colorado Avalanche still might need a second-line center? In case you haven’t, they are still in need of a second-line center. Halfway through the season, the offseason acquisitions of Ryan Johansen and Ross Colton have produced mixed results so far.

Colton’s production has suffered recently as he has battled injury problems and had his minutes managed as a result. His two-way play remains unproven and he simply has not done the job of a 2C through 41 games.

Johansen was given away by the Nashville Predators after agreeing to eat half of his remaining contract. The Avalanche had, in theory, addressed their biggest offseason need in bringing Johansen, a productive top-six center/wing throughout his career, to Denver.

It has not worked out that way as Johansen had a hot start with five points in his first six games but only 11 points in the 35 games since. He’s stayed healthy, which was one of the question marks on him coming into the year, but his playstyle is the mismatch we were worried it would be when he was acquired. His effectiveness seems to be declining and is averaging just 14:09 of ice time, his lowest since his age-19 season in 2011.

That leaves the Avalanche with Nathan MacKinnon at the top, a bonafide superstar who is an offensive juggernaut in the midst of what could be the best season of his magnificent career, and Colton somewhere in the mix, and Fredrik Olofsson as a steady fourth-line center who has been solid.

By my count, that’s one center short. So let’s look around the NHL and see where they might find some solutions. Strap in because this is going to take a while.

Teams we can eliminate immediately

These are the teams who are competing for a Stanley Cup and won’t be providing the Avalanche any assistance along the way.

Boston Bruins
Florida Panthers
Toronto Maple Leafs
New York Rangers
Carolina Hurricanes
Vegas Golden Knights
New Jersey Devils
Winnipeg Jets
Dallas Stars
Edmonton Oilers
Vancouver Canucks
Los Angeles Kings

These teams either fancy themselves Cup contenders right now or had the kind of start that inspires a “We’re in this thing” attitude. That’s 12 of 32 teams removed immediately, but let’s keep making some logical cuts.

Older teams not ready to give up yet

Tampa Bay Lightning
Pittsburgh Penguins
Washington Capitals

These three teams have won Stanley Cups with their stars and don’t seem ready to give up on the dream just yet but are outside of the postseason as of this writing. It’s hard to believe the Pens would ever move on from Sidney Crosby, but if they fell out of it and Evgeni Malkin was willing to leave (at the moment that doesn’t appear to be the case), the Avs should be all over that.

Steven Stamkos doesn’t play center anymore but he’s in the final year of his contract and there have been rumblings that he is unhappy about the lack of a new deal from the Lightning, so this could get interesting if the Lightning are out of the picture.

I have a hard time believing the Avalanche would be interested in Evgeny Kuznetsov, who doesn’t play with much juice anymore. Dylan Strome could be fun, but Washington signed him to a five-year deal last February, so I’m going to assume he isn’t on the block.

Team run by Lou Lamiorello

New York Islanders

Lou just isn’t interested in trying to rebuild or retool. In the last two seasons, the Isles have dealt first-round picks in 2022 and 2023 in deals for Alexander Romanov and Bo Horvat and a third-round pick for Pierre Engvall. They have given out long-term deals to young stars (Mat Barzal and Ilya Sorokin) and role players alike (Engvall, Scott Mayfield, Casey Cizikas, J.G. Pageau) in the last several years.

They currently sit in a playoff spot thanks to 10 OT losses, but they’re still hanging around and are run by a guy who is always aggressive. It would be fun if Brock Nelson or Pageau were made available, but short of that happening, let’s move on.

Teams that aren’t good trade fits

Detroit Red Wings
Ottawa Senators
Chicago Blackhawks
San Jose Sharks
Arizona Coyotes
Columbus Blue Jackets
Minnesota Wild
Nashville Predators

There are teams that don’t have an obvious candidate to be a real 2C for a team that wants to win a Stanley Cup. Detroit and Ottawa aren’t moving any of their guys, Chicago doesn’t even have one to move (wow), and San Jose has two intriguing guys in Tomas Hertl and Logan Couture but both are signed for a long time and Colorado shouldn’t be paying in trade and then for those kind of contracts.

This is where someone always shouts “they can retain salary!” but I’m not believing that San Jose is willing to eat salary for six more seasons on Hertl and Couture is already 34 with three more seasons left to go while also having not played a game this season with no timeline for his return. If not for the salary issues, Hertl would be an ideal fit.

Arizona is serious about making the playoffs and none of their center options really stand out as Nick Schmaltz has long been a right wing (and Clayton Keller’s bestie) and the other guys aren’t great fits at 2C.

Columbus has Boone Jenner, who is the favorite among people making rosters every day on CapFriendly, but he’s the captain there, has injury history, and has never broken 50 points in a season. If you’re looking for a 2C, Jenner does a lot of things you really like and you can buy into the idea that he’d be more productive in Colorado, but the Blue Jackets are looking for stabilization in an organization that has undergone a lot of change (and could be going through more) and that makes Jenner more valuable to keep than move. If Columbus is willing to take the call, the Avs should be involved so I guess we can put Columbus on this list with an asterisk.

I’d love for the Wild to accept their fate as not good enough and be open to moving Joel Eriksson-Ek but he’s the best center they have and if Marco Rossi proves good enough to take the job, Eriksson-Ek is the perfect 2C anyway. There isn’t a fit here that makes much sense.

It was fun to think about Ryan O’Reilly coming back to Colorado when he hit the free agent market and it’s still easy to think about what a great fit it would be as O’Reilly has had an excellent season as Nashville’s 1C. The Avs kept their interest in O’Reilly to a minimum over the summer because they were worried about his aging curve and then Nashville gave him a four-year deal. Right now it looks like a bad call by the Avs front office, especially in conjunction with the decision to try with Johansen. Throw all of that into a blender and this doesn’t make much sense for Nashville because they don’t have a center beyond O’Reilly that would make a lot of sense (Tommy Novak might fit in the category below, though).

The Bowen Byram Summer Trade Teams

Buffalo Sabres
Philadelphia Flyers

The Avs are coming to the point that we’ve all known was coming at some point – their defense is too expensive to keep intact and they have decisions to make. This has long been building to a decision between Sam Girard and Bowen Byram.

Both have had their issues this season but at the moment, Byram’s lack of step forward has been disappointing and at least created this conversation. I don’t know if the Avs are even considering this, but I wanted to make this list because I think it should be part of the conversation.

I say these are summer deals because these aren’t the kinds of in-season deals that would make a lot of sense for the Avalanche. The focus is on younger players who would need an adjustment period and the final 20 games of the season are about fine-tuning for the Avalanche, not about a young player trying to find himself.

These aren’t the only two teams that would be interested in Byram (or Girard), obviously, and you could easily add Ottawa (Shane Pinto) and Nashville (Tommy Novak?) and if you squint hard enough maybe even a Los Angeles (Phil Danault?) to this list.

For Buffalo, they have all the offensive firepower an organization could want. Their forward corps is loaded with talent and Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power have graduated from first overall picks to NHL regulars. Mattias Samuelsson and Connor Clifton are both signed for multiple years, but otherwise, the defense in Buffalo remains a large question mark. They would prefer a RHD, I’m sure, but Byram makes a lot of sense for an organization that shouldn’t be interested in paying Casey Mittelstadt when they have Jiri Kulich and several other first-round picks waiting to break into the NHL. This is the best fit and my personal favorite option, but the Sabres might also not want to reset the development process and go with more growing pains after waiting as long as they did for Mittelstadt to come into his own behind Tage Thompson and Dylan Cozens.

I wish the Flyers was more about Sean Couturier but there’s not a chance in hell those guys are going to take their surprising success this season and move their top center. This is about Morgan Frost, who can’t stay in their lineup consistently but is young and had a 46-point season last year and is signed for only $2.1M next year. This would be a swap of young players who are disappointing so far this season but could fit each team’s long-term needs and yield big results in the future. Frost’s struggles this year are why I’m considering this a summer move and not something the Avs would do in-season.

The teams that perplex me

St. Louis Blues
Seattle Kraken

What even are these teams? Both had recent enough playoff success that you can understand if their front offices weren’t interested in making any moves that would suggest they aren’t interested in winning again soon. Both are close enough today to the postseason race that they can justify keeping everyone and trying to make it work. Both also have obvious holes that if they were taking the thousand-foot view, they’d see teams that are not going to seriously contend for the Stanley Cup with how they are currently built.

Neither club is lacking talent, it’s just both clubs are poorly constructed overall. From Colorado’s perspective, the Blues have a couple of players that might make sense. Kevin Hayes has been effective for them and is another guy you can see from last summer how the Avs might have gotten it wrong in “choosing” Johansen over Hayes (if they were truly in on Hayes to begin with). It wouldn’t be a move that would cost very much, but Hayes is another guy that you are getting what you pay for, you know? Plus, he’s signed for two more seasons so if things don’t go well, you’re in the same position you’re in right now with Johansen, but worse.

You could also talk to the Blues about Brayden Schenn, who is the kind of hard competitor you love come playoff time but St. Louis probably isn’t interested in moving him because he’s their captain but it’s fair to wonder if the Avs should even be interested. He’s already 32 and signed for four more years at $6.5M per year and is currently on pace for the worst 82-game season of his career. So, you know, some questions there.

The Kraken also present an interesting conversation. A terrible start has been followed by an excellent stretch that has gotten them back into the mix of the diluted Western Conference playoff field. If they fall out of the race again and think they’re not going to be a factor, it will be interesting to see what decisions they make. The obvious name of interest here is Yanni Gourde, who is a 1C/2C alongside Matty Beniers but Alex Wennberg as their 3C sees plenty of time, too.

Gourde has one more year left on his deal just north of $5M and is exactly the kind of strong defensive center that produces enough offensively that would be a wonderful fit behind Nathan MacKinnon, but a futures-based move (draft picks, prospects) is not something Ron Francis has shown an affinity for in his history as GM. Wennberg is a free agent this summer, so maybe that’s the move instead though there are a lot of question marks there, too.

One reason Francis might be more open to moving one of Gourde or Wennberg is that top center prospect Shane Wright is right there knocking on the door. If Seattle slips out of the point where Francis feels they can still make a run this year, he could shift gears and move one of those guys to give Wright a headstart on his NHL adjustment.

The most obvious candidates

Montreal Canadiens
Calgary Flames
Anaheim Ducks

We’ll start with the Ducks. Mason McTavish is definitely one of the centers here and the acquisition of Cutter Gauthier adds another name to the mix in the future. For now, that leaves Adam Henrique still in a position to make some noise. Henrique is a free agent this summer so there’s no future consideration and the price tag should be way more limited than the other guys I’m about to get to.

There’s a reason for that, however, and one of them is that Henrique hasn’t consistently been a center for the last few years. He is back there this season, but the defensive metrics are still concerning despite still proving to be a play-driving force. His skating is something that would be a better fit in Colorado than Johansen’s has been, so there’s a stylistic fit conversation to be had. He also does well in the faceoff circle and he’s on pace for 40+ points this year despite playing alongside Max Jones and Jakob Silfverberg. They’d also have the skinny on Henrique from former Colorado Eagles and current Ducks head coach Greg Cronin. There are a lot of things here that make this a fit.

Anaheim’s acquisition of Gauthier once again raises the possibility of the future of Trevor Zegras in Anaheim. It was a contract negotiation grind last summer and he has already made a reputation for himself as a difficult personality at times so without even considering his on-ice play you have a lot of background work to do. Cue Cronin once again. Zegras also isn’t even a full-time center himself, often playing at left wing. This would be another move to put into the bag of circling back to this summer versus in-season, I think.

The Canadiens have Sean Monahan here. They shouldn’t be a serious consideration for the playoffs even though they aren’t that far outside the last wild card spot at this moment so they should be embracing a seller’s mentality. Injuries have once again ravaged their team but Monahan stands as an interesting option…again. Colorado sniffed around him last year but Monahan stayed put and has responded with a 48-point pace while staying healthy. Health was one of his biggest question marks so that’s encouraging to see.

The big question here is the way Monahan fits. He’s big and has been effective in the postseason in his career (21 points in 30 games), but he’s a slow skater and we’ve seen that not be a path to success in either Johansen or Tomas Tatar this season. It shouldn’t be an exorbitant price to acquire him and the Avs and Habs have done deals in the past, so Monahan is another guy to keep a close eye on. The stylistic fit is the biggest concern but Johansen’s failure shouldn’t keep the Avs from ever pursuing another slower skater, you know?

Now let’s get to the Flames.

This isn’t really about Nazem Kadri, who I know some fans talk about bringing back all the time under the magical wand-waving of salary retention, but the Flames are unlikely to use one of only three salary retention slots in order to pay Kadri to play in Colorado for the next five seasons. That is especially true if they are entering some kind of rebuild/retool era where salary retention slots are very valuable to facilitate deal-making (see: Minnesota at the deadline last year getting picks for retaining salary as a third team).

No, obviously the story here is Elias Lindholm. He’s likely the biggest fish available at the trade deadline this year if the Flames accept that even if they sneak into the postseason, it won’t matter that much. This is an expensive roster that has multiple players hitting free agency this summer they will struggle to keep, Lindholm among them.

Lindholm will be the most expensive player to acquire because of everyone I’ve talked about here, he’s the best one out there (unless we’re seriously having the Stamkos conversation). He also checks a lot of boxes for the Avalanche. He’s right-handed, which they would really like, he’s big and physical and has shown solid results taking on hard defensive matchups. He’s a great faceoff guy and is a good offensive player, though not as great as his career-high 42-goal season two years ago might suggest.

He’s a smart player who does a lot of heavy lifting and is a connector on lines. He elevates the guys around him and is the kind of hard-working player who would fit in extremely well alongside either of Colorado’s maniacal workers, Artturi Lehkonen and Valeri Nichushkin. He has the smarts and skill to fit in with Jonathan Drouin or Mikko Rantanen, giving him a ton of versatility along the way.

The real problem with Lindholm is that Colorado won’t likely be able to retain him this summer because he’s going to ask for somewhere in the $8-9M range, a number the Avs simply cannot do given their salary commitments on hand already. Combine that with the price to acquire him (one of Mikhail Gulyayev or Sean Behrens plus this year’s first-round pick seems likely) and if the Avs don’t win the Stanley Cup, it will be a very expensive roll of the dice that does not pay off. It’s high-stakes gambling at its finest that would make the late, great Pierre Lacroix proud.

Okay, I read all of that. Now what?

If you were looking for me to unearth the secret door the Avs should go through to solve this problem, you’re probably disappointed. The combination of cap constraints, limited trade assets, and highly specific need makes this a very tricky tightrope for general manager Chris MacFarland to walk.

The goal of this wasn’t to get into specific trade proposals or drop juicy rumors of which guys are being scouted the hardest but rather to go through all 31 other teams and try to figure out a path forward for the Avalanche. If you want to know why Elias Lindholm’s name is getting so much heat already, it’s because every NHL GM in need of center help is doing the verbal equivalent of this article and coming to the same conclusion: He just might be the best center that gets moved this season.

Is that the right move for the Avalanche? Which of the above options makes the most sense? In true Avalanche fashion, which darkhorse option that I glossed over will be the one they actually decide on? I ignore the entire possibility of them acquiring another Ross Colton-type (think Scott Laughton) and running with good but not great center depth, so that’s a whole different bag of chips to open.

All of it speaks to what an important deadline this will be coming up for the Avalanche. It could decide how seriously they contend for another Stanley Cup.