What we're hearing about the Colorado Avalanche ahead of the trade deadline

The NHL trade deadline is this Friday, March 7, and the Colorado Avalanche still have work to do if they think they’re going to seriously compete for another Stanley Cup.

The team has already made a ridiculous six in-season trades (counting the preseason) so there has been a significant change in this roster already, but more work is to be done. The Avs added Ryan Lindgren and Jimmy Vesey last weekend in a deal that left some of us wanting. Lindgren is making his debut for the Avs tonight against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The week of the trade deadline is fraught with all kinds of information. Websites have trade boards with 40+ players on them. Hell, our Avalanche trade board has 20 players, though we’ve seen a few of them already get dealt.

As we head into the final few days before the bell tolls on making outside additions to the roster, we here at DNVR have been running down our Avalanche rumors. Let’s dig into them.

The Avs targets off the board

• Earlier today, the Montreal Canadiens re-signed Jake Evans, who was #2 on our trade board. We loved his fit in Denver with his speed and tenacity as a right-shot center who would bolster the depth down the middle and add another faceoff guy and penalty killer. The Habs apparently agreed and Evans’s love for playing in Montreal meant he stayed and turned down the chance to make significantly larger money on a four-year deal. We had heard the Avs had checked in with Montreal about Evans, but it was in concert with defenseman David Savard. Once the Avs acquired Lindgren over the weekend, this combo platter came to an end.
• The other big piece of news was the Edmonton Oilers acquiring Trent Frederic and Max Jones in exchange for picks and prospects in a three-team trade for the purposes of salary retention. We’ve heard the Avs were in this one until the very end and that Colorado loved Frederic. The intrigue here is that the deal the Avs were working through was larger than just Frederic and could have included top Avalanche prospect Cal Ritchie and defenseman Sam Malinski. That obviously would have been for far more than Frederic as the target is believed to have been Colorado native Brandon Carlo.
• He’s not off the board, but the Lindgren addition cooled Colorado’s pursuit of a player they once drafted and traded, Ducks defenseman Drew Helleson. Colorado is currently trying to get younger and more cost-controlled instead of continuing down the path of paying so many guys as they head into their 30s. Helleson has started to carve out a consistent role on the Ducks defense and his skating and physicality have begun to mature the way the Avs hoped when they originally drafted him back in 2019. I won’t say this is dead or anything, but I’m taking it off my immediate radar at this trade deadline.

Where the Avs might head next

• The scuttlebutt surrounding the Avs is focusing largely on them adding another forward, specifically a center. The Avs have been aggressive in looking around the league at ways to upgrade from Casey Mittelstadt at their second-line center position. The reality here is that Mittelstadt’s form this year dipped so low that even his good stretches have not been able to redeem a section of the season that was brutally bad. The Avs are worried about a fraying relationship between Mittelstadt and head coach Jared Bednar and Mittelstadt’s ongoing awkward fit into how the Avs want to play. We saw it work in the playoffs last year, but things have gotten so bad at times this year that this is where we are.
• Going back to Boston, Frederic being dealt to Edmonton earlier today ended the deal in the form it was in, but the Avs and Bruins remain in contact on several players. Carlo is among them, but the Avs are having conversations with Boston on forward Charlie Coyle and defenseman Andrew Peeke as well. I’d love for them to add Justin Brazeau to their forward corps, but I personally have not heard them connected to him so that’s just me editorializing. Coyle’s versatility in the forward corps would give Bednar another matchup weapon and a guy with a skill/sandpaper combination who has played a lot of playoff hockey in his career. Coyle is also signed through next season at $5.25M AAV, which seems a tough pill to swallow for a guy who has produced only 21 points in 62 games this season. Peeke is another physical presence on defense signed through next season.
• The other Bruin to keep an eye on here is Morgan Geekie. While his skating certainly won’t be a natural fit in Colorado, his big body and goal-scoring would be welcome additions to the Avs forward corps. I’ve already named like half of the Bruins roster, but in terms of fit, John Beecher would be a perfect Avs-style player as their fourth-line center.
• The name at the top of our trade board is Seattle’s Yanni Gourde, a center who was recently tabbed as the “Tasmanian Devil on skates” by someone I was talking to about him. It was a perfect description, but the Avs’ pursuit of him has been more muted than I was expecting. I thought the Avs would be all over him, but there seems to be a growing feeling that Gourde might be the last center standing at this deadline as teams load up on their center depth. Gourde has been hurt but was activated ahead of Seattle’s game tonight, so teams are likely waiting to make sure he gets through the game healthy, too.
• One of Nashville’s top dogs in their pro scouting department has posted himself up in Denver for the duration of the current Avalanche homestand up to the trade deadline on Friday afternoon. This naturally raises the question of whether the Avs can right a wrong of the previous generation and bring Ryan O’Reilly back to Denver. O’Reilly’s credentials as a top-line center seem to be expired, but the Avs already have that position handled, as you might know. The Avs would have more interest in O’Reilly as either the 2C or 3C, but Nashville has not been in a hurry to move him. He’s signed for two more years at a reasonable $4.5M, so the Predators can afford to slow-play this. Their lack of urgency here has put this on Colorado’s backburner for now.
• I mentioned Helleson above, but the Avs and Anaheim have engaged in conversation about Trevor Zegras. The idea is to get Zegras and move him to a team that likes him more and uses Mittelstadt as the main piece to acquire Zegras. It would most likely be a three-team deal that lands Mittelstadt in Anaheim (they like him), Zegras somewhere else, and the Avs get…someone. I’m not sure how any of that makes sense, but I’m just the messenger here. It’s been bandied about, so I’m passing it along.

The main target

• Nobody ever really knows what the New York Islanders are doing thanks to the mercurial nature of general manager Lou Lamiorello. He’s more buttoned up than a mafia don, so reading the tea leaves is a particularly challenging endeavor. That said, Lamiorello is never in a hurry to admit defeat so that the Isles are within contact of a wild card playoff spot out east complicates his team’s situation. They aren’t alone, however, as they are one of eight teams that fancies itself a contender for the final two spots of the playoff field out there. If the Isles do ultimately admit “defeat”, the prize on their roster is center Brock Nelson, whose great size and goal-scoring acumen could bring a major shift to Colorado’s forward lineup. He’s a pending free agent, though, and it feels like the worst-kept secret around the league that he wants to sign with his hometown Minnesota Wild in the summer. That is, you know, if he doesn’t re-sign with the Islanders before the deadline and removes himself from the trade conversation entirely. This has been rumored to be Colorado’s top target for a while. Adding Nelson would bring the added impact of keeping him away from other Western playoff teams, particularly Winnipeg and Dallas. Nelson is the apple of Colorado’s eye, but the price might prove too costly for an Avalanche squad that is just about out of them to spend.