Grading the Colorado Avalanche trade deadline

The Colorado Avalanche completed the NHL trade deadline by making only one move on Friday when they traded Ben Meyers to the Anaheim Ducks for a 2024 5th-round pick.

That deal was the fifth of the week for the Avs as they geared up for another run at the Stanley Cup. A lot was going on so I decided I’d break them all down in one place with grades for each deal in a more condensed space rather than burying everyone with 1,500 words on each guy.

Let’s do this.

Colorado trades Ben Meyers to Anaheim for a 2024 5th-round pick

The hype Meyers came in with was substantial as he was considered the top undrafted college free agent that year. Meyers had plenty of opportunity to stick with the Avs with 39 games last season but only managed to score four goals. Weirdly, across three years, Meyers scored six goals but recorded zero assists in 53 games with the Avalanche.

He came in as a center and departed as a left wing. A disappointing end to a disappointing tenure. The pick is negligible and it’s hard to feel too much about this either way. Were they lucky to even get a pick? Was the pick high enough? How can someone feel strongly about this?

I’m iffy on it because I’m personally a fan of Meyers but also because history shows he is much more of an asset in pro hockey than whoever the Avs draft with that pick will be, so I’m going to be neutral on this grade.

Grade: C

Colorado trades Bowen Byram to Buffalo for Casey Mittelstadt

This was the big deal of the deadline for the Avs as they dipped into their pool of talented two-way defenders and moved the 22-year-old Byram for the 25-year-old Mittelstadt.

While Byram’s upside is immense, his on-ice results this year have been far more disappointing than any of us were hoping for and his inconsistency maddening. That’s part of the deal with young defensemen, but the Avs knew he was their best trade chip that could help them solve their second-line center problem for the immediate and long-term future.

As far as quality today, Mittelstadt is better at his job than Byram is at his, but Byram is the younger of the two and has the higher ceiling. From a salary cap perspective, Byram is more expensive today but when Mittelstadt gets a new contract this summer, he will surpass Byram’s money and become the more expensive player.

For the Avs, this was about solving the hole that has existed when Nazem Kadri had the ultimate walk year in helping win a Stanley Cup and parlaying that into a giant free agent contract. The Avs tried with internal options J.T. Compher and Alex Newhook and both were ultimately in over their head in the role and the offseason acquisition of a proven veteran in Ryan Johansen went bust.

Enter Mittelstadt, who is a creative, high-IQ player with a deft passing touch and great hands. He has not been overly reliant on power-play production to generate points and has been excellent at 5v5 the last two seasons.

He’s on the small side and isn’t much of a goal-scorer right now but he elevates the guys around him and will be a significant upgrade over the guys who came before him. Colorado should be able to ink Mittelstadt to a multi-year deal this summer and keep his services for a while, so this turns their attention to other roster holes.

It was bold from general manager Chris MacFarland, but this is how you attack a roster weakness. My only nitpick is that Byram could blow up in Buffalo and be a star and Mittelstadt could be the lesser of the two players long-term.

Grade: A

Colorado trades Ryan Johansen and a 2025 first-round pick to Philadelphia for Sean Walker

The fit here is excellent and the Avs landed one of the most in-demand defensemen of this year’s deadline while also shedding Johansen’s cap space for next season.

Walker plays the Avalanche style of hockey with his strong skating and attack mentality from the blueline. He loves to break pucks out with his feet or jump into the attack as the fourth guy up the ice and puts a ton of pressure on defenses to defend well in transition. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a surge in production in Colorado as he has not produced as much as you’d imagine a player with his aggressive playstyle might.

His pace and ability in the rush game will be keys here as he is a great fit in pushing play but my only concern here is how he defends. Like Byram, he is good at defending in the neutral zone and denying zone entries at a high rate, so copying one of Byram’s better attributes will be great to still have. Walker’s in-zone defense is good but not great as he isn’t a big defender and physicality is not his calling card, but his smarts and active stick are positive attributes.

Another area of expertise for Walker has been on the penalty kill, where he has been one of the NHL’s better defensemen this season. This is a theme you will see repeated in the rest of Colorado’s acquisitions because their power play is ranked 25th in the NHL since December 1st and has become a consistent thorn in their side.

Walker should help address some of the issues on the PK. The price is expensive for a 30-year-old pending unrestricted free agent and a strong run this postseason might make it impossible to keep him in the fold beyond this spring. That’s about the only downside of this deal as the Avs filled the need they created in dealing Byram but with a player they may not be able to keep.

Grade: B+

Colorado trades a 2026 third-round pick to Minnesota in exchange for Brandon Duhaime

The Avs and Wild have become frequent trade partners and that continues to bring complicated feelings to both fan bases, but the front offices certainly seem to have cozied up in recent years.

This time their work landed Duhaime, a bruising fourth-line wing whose swift skating will fit Colorado’s pace but his physicality and on-ice obnoxiousness will raise the “miserable to play against” level of Colorado’s forward corps quite a bit.

As mentioned above, Duhaime is also a frequent contributor to the penalty kill and his ability there is one of the reasons he continues getting into games regularly despite being a limited offensive player with just eight points in 62 games this year.

This is usually the part where someone screams “points aren’t everything, AJ!” at me and I’m saying I get it, I understand. They are not, especially for role players who are hard fourth-liners. His bruising playstyle combined with being a fast skater means the Avs aren’t giving up much in upgrading from Joel Kiviranta to Duhaime.

The deal is a top-100 pick for a player who may not be a lineup lock for the Avs depending on health, especially when Nikolai Kovalenko comes over from Russia, potentially in the next week. That’s an expensive price for insurance but Duhaime is a known quantity.

With Kovalenko, the unknown health of Gabe Landeskog, and the declining game (especially on the PK) of Andrew Cogliano, Duhaime brings comfort to that spot and is comfortable playing within himself. Knowing who you are is an important part of all facets of life, but Duhaime’s acceptance of what he is in the NHL makes him an even more effective in-game pest because he knows it is what keeps him in the league.

The price is a round too high for my liking, which means it’s probably just right in the real world. Still, Duhaime may not even be a lineup regular in the postseason so this feels just a little much for me, but not by a lot. The upside is also a lot more limited.

Grade: C+

Colorado trades a 2025 third-round pick and Jeremy Hanzel to Nashville for Yakov Trenin and Graham Sward

We’ll get the prospects out of the way first. Hanzel did everything the Avs could have asked in his overage WHL season after they drafted him last year. Sward is unsigned but also had a huge season in the WHL, so the Avs and Predators swapped prospects likely because Sward wasn’t going to sign in Nashville. That’s about it.

Trenin is an interesting addition because one of Colorado’s biggest needs was a fourth-line center who can kill penalties and make life miserable for opposing teams. Trenin has spent the majority of his NHL career as a wing with the Predators but will be asked to move to the center of the ice in Denver. The rest of those boxes, however, are emphatically checked by Trenin.

He is a big-bodied player who skates well (not great, but solid) and is very physical. As one of the league’s premier forecheckers, he’s going to cause all kinds of issues for opposing teams and has shown himself to be one of the elite penalty-killing forwards in the NHL. Not on his team, in the NHL.

That’s a great get for the Avs, even though his ability to win faceoffs is almost entirely unknown because he has only taken 137 faceoffs in nearly 300 NHL games played. Hard to imagine there has been an ace faceoff guy hiding there this entire time and even good faceoff guys often take a year or two to figure it out across hundreds of faceoffs.

So, you know, not a perfect acquisition, but added to Duhaime you have another player who makes the Avalanche much harder to play against and will work you to death in a best-of-seven playoff series. Avalanche fans might remember he was one of Nashville’s better players in Colorado’s sweep of them two years ago. Trenin doesn’t have a ton of offensive punch with just 14 points this year but he checks so many other boxes that he is one of the more intriguing additions of this cycle to watch.

For my money, he’s the x-factor of this group. The other three have clear-cut roles and a track record of success in the jobs they’ll be asked to do while Trenin has some real unknowns attached to him. For the pick and prospect swap, however, I don’t have any problem with the Avs finding out. Their pro scouting staff has been pretty good the last several years so we’ll see. If the Avs use Trenin as more of a wing than center, this makes significantly more sense and lessens the questions surrounding it.

A healthy balance here, but overall I like it.

Grade: B

Final Thoughts

There’s plenty to like about what the Avalanche did. They managed to add skill, size, skating, and maybe long-term upside as well while only losing one meaningful roster player in Byram and one other prime asset in the 2025 first-round pick. That’s really good asset management from MacFarland and company and prepares the Avs well for what they hope will be a long journey through the postseason.

What the Avs didn’t do also stands out. They didn’t add a proven fourth-line center who can be a faceoff ace on the PK and late in games so Colorado will still have to figure those situations out. A veteran backup goaltender was pursued but the Avs couldn’t find a price they were willing to pay (allegedly Justus Annunen was part of the trade discussions but Colorado was not interested in parting with him).

No trade for a depth defenseman ever materialized as the Avalanche appear comfortable replacing Walker with Byram and rolling out Jack Johnson as their sixth defenseman with Caleb Jones and Sam Malinski as their next guys on the depth chart. It’s not a bad group but you always feel like one more might help, you know?

The big miss here feels like not adding a goaltender but Annunen’s strong recent play might have increased Colorado’s reticence to part with him and decreased the desire to pay a premium for a player who, in a best-case scenario, won’t even play for them in the postseason (it rarely works out like that, but here’s to hoping?).

It was an active and aggressive trade deadline from the Avalanche as they undoubtedly upgraded the areas of the roster they attacked. They also created a little financial flexibility, at least in theory, and picked up a couple of players who might stick around Denver for longer than this spring if things go well.