Avalanche add toughness in Brandon Duhaime

The Colorado Avalanche added to their impressive wing depth in a deal with the Minnesota Wild that brought them forward Brandon Duhaime in exchange for a 2026 third-round pick.

It’s not the kind of sexy trade that marked yesterday when the Avs went big in acquiring Sean Walker and Casey Mittelstadt in separate trades, but Duhaime is the kind of hard-nosed depth add that Stanley Cup contenders make every season as they seek to shore up the bottom of their roster.

In the case of Duhaime, however, it’s an interesting acquisition for the Avs simply because he doesn’t appear to fit any of the team’s immediate needs. Colorado’s wing depth with Valeri Nichushkin returning soon looks something like this:

Jonathan Drouin – C – Mikko Rantanen
Nichushkin – C – Artturi Lehkonen
Miles Wood – C – Logan O’Connor
Zach Parise – C – Andrew Cogliano

Add in that winger Nikolai Kovalenko’s KHL team is down 3-1 in their playoff series and he is set to join the Avs upon his team’s elimination (which could happen as early as Saturday) and adding Duhaime to this lineup raises a question about where they see him fitting, especially at the cost of a top-100 draft selection. None of this even considers the possibility that Gabe Landeskog returns to the lineup during the postseason, which could further imperil Duhaime’s place.

That said, Duhaime’s profile makes his appeal as a bottom-of-the-lineup add obvious. He’s a thick body at 6’2″, 200 pounds and hits everything that moves while playing on Minnesota’s penalty kill. He adds next to nothing offensively with just eight points (4G, 4A) in 62 games this season but he brings that added element of toughness to a lineup that certainly could use a heavy hitter.

Because it’s me, I’ll show you the fancy stats on him and give you a fuller picture on his on-ice results.

For a player who averages 10 minutes per night, this is all fine. He’s not amazing at anything except hitting guys and the only consistently positive result he produces on the ice is making opposing players feel the impact of when he crashes into them.

The Avs have a clear-cut need at their fourth-line center spot and it must be noted that Duhaime will not address that but he can play both wing spots. Andrew Cogliano is rapidly approaching the end of his career as his play has gone through significant lulls this year and Duhaime gives the Avs options if someone has a rough stretch.

One area that immediately made sense to me was the way Duhaime gets up and down the ice, so I pulled his skating data from the NHL Edge database and it is certainly impressive.

A fourth-line player who throws his body around a lot that skates that well? It’s not hard to see why the Avalanche would have an interest in him, but a player who may or may not be in the lineup when the playoffs open at the cost of a top-100 selection? It feels heavy-handed to me, but he is well-suited for the rigors of postseason hockey.

On the intangible side of things, he is very well-liked and brings an attitude to the locker room of knowing his role and understanding how to be himself every day. That might sound silly, but some guys don’t know how to play 10 minutes per night and be comfortable in their own skin as a role player whose job is just to light someone up in the corner once per game. Duhaime does not have that problem.

The other area here that makes sense to me is the trades yesterday put the Avs at about $4.9M of salary cap space. Duhaime makes only $1.1M as a pending free agent so he doesn’t significantly eat into their ability to continue making moves, potentially even for a 4C to play alongside Duhaime. If things go well, Duhaime likely doesn’t see much of a raise from that number and could be a straight Cogliano replacement if Cogliano chooses to retire.

It’s not a major needle-mover of a trade for the Avalanche, but it does make the roster more playoff-ready in terms of playstyle and depth. It came at an expensive price, but that was a price the Avs could afford.