Patrik Nemeth is back with the Avalanche after trade from Detroit

Fresh off Evan Rawal suggesting the Avs should trade for Patrik Nemeth on today’s podcast, the Avalanche apparently agreed as they announced a trade of a 2022 fourth-round pick to the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for Nemeth.

Nemeth, now 29, signed with the Red Wings two years ago after a nice run on Colorado’s blue line and is now back with the Avalanche as they gear up for a deep playoff run. The Red Wings are retaining 50% of Nemeth’s $3M salary so he will cost $1.5M against Colorado’s cap.

The deal is yet another in which the Avs have dealt a fourth-round selection for an NHL player (Vladislav Namestnikov and Colin Wilson were two other recent versions of this).

Nemeth fills a need as Colorado’s defense has been banged up with long-term injuries to Erik Johnson and (kind of) Bowen Byram. As Johnson remains out long-term, Byram was skating with the club and nearing a return to the lineup before a positive COVID test landed him in isolation and on the league’s COVID Protocol List.

Regardless of Byram’s status, the Avalanche has gotten away with a third pairing of Jacob MacDonald and a rotation of Dan Renouf, Kyle Burroughs, and Greg Pateryn. The addition of Nemeth will certainly stabilize that position for now and when (if?) Byram returns to action, the Avs will have a defense that looks something like:

Girard-Toews
Graves-Makar
Nemeth-Byram/MacDonald

While the Avs are certainly thrilled with what they’ve gotten out of MacDonald (seven points in 27 games played, 66.38 xGF%), his reduced minutes in recent games has been a signal that head coach Jared Bednar was trusting him less and less at even strength. MacDonald does not contribute to either special team unit, making the increased lack of trust at evens a problem.

Adding Nemeth immediately addresses a PK unit that has been stellar all year but has suddenly started to show cracks as overuse has started to creep into Colorado’s bench.

What will Nemeth bring to the lineup? Well, not much has changed since he left for Detroit. He played over his head on Detroit’s top pairing last year but he’s going to be put in a much more appropriate role now that he’s back in Denver.

Here’s a look at what he’s done in Detroit:

Basically, it’s what you remember from his Avalanche tenure. He’ll kill penalties, though his effectiveness on that unit is questionable, and he’ll give the Avs another physical defender who you expect zero offense from (though he has eight points this year, same as Tyson Jost).

The main upside for this move is the Avs get a player who won’t need practice time to get up to speed with the systems and his role is as drag-and-drop as it gets. The condensed schedule means there is no practice time to be had so Nemeth’s familiarity is a major bonus here.

Him coming back and also playing in a more sheltered role will help assuage some of the memories of his poorer showings when Bednar leaned on him a little more heavily than he’d have liked because of his lack of options.

Nemeth’s job is to get on the ice, keep the puck out of his own net, and let the big guns keep their legs fresh to go do awesome stuff. That’s it. It’s a role he’s very capable of playing and for this price, it’s very palatable.

As far as their current cap situation is concerned, here’s where the Avs are as they head into the trade deadline on Monday.

After acquiring Nemeth ($1.5M), the #GoAvsGo roster today w/ 23 players of $84.1M Annual Cap Hit is $2.6M over Cap, & w/ their LTIR pool they're permitted to be $8M over the cap.

This leaves them $5.4M of Annual Cap hit that can be added.https://t.co/Azpe41fAYI https://t.co/s4c4Eh3xT4 pic.twitter.com/1kSiO6fO36

— PuckPedia (@PuckPedia) April 10, 2021

Now, to see what he has in his backpack…