Scheduled for an arbitration hearing on July 27th, the Colorado Avalanche and restricted free agent forward Ross Colton decided not to wait. Today, the team announced a four-year contract for Colton, paying him an AAV of $4MM.
To acquire Colton in the first place, the Avalanche originally traded center Alex Newhook to the Montreal Canadiens for the Panthers’ first-round selection in 2023, Montreal’s second-round selection in 2023, and defenseman Gianni Fairbrother. One day later, Colorado would trade Montreal’s second-round pick to the Tampa Bay Lightning to acquire the contractual rights to Colton.
In his past three seasons spent the NHL, the Lightning were the only team that Colton had ever known. Another example of Tampa Bay’s ability to churn out NHL talent from seemingly anywhere, Colton had spent his dues in the NCAA and AHL before finally making the jump to professional hockey.
During his time in Tampa, Colton showed the ability to score big goals, throw his body around, play intelligently on both sides of the puck, and become a reliable faceoff taker. Seemingly able to do it all when he is on the ice, the Avalanche rewarded his previous seasons with almost a $3MM raise.
Now joining an immediate Stanley Cup competitor in the Western Conference, Colton’s versatility should help stabilize Colorado’s forward core, one that was greatly lacking in overall depth last season. At the time of the trade, the General Manager of the Avalanche, Chris McFarland, said, “Ross is a hard-working, two-way center with a championship pedigree. “He has physicality to his game, is ultra competitive and his versatility will make him a valuable addition to our lineup in a lot of ways”.
Two seasons ago, Colton was competing as one of the more aggravating players against the Avalanche in the 2022 Stanley Cup Finals, and will now help the team on their quest for another ring. Already possessing top forward talent such as Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen on the team, Colton will now tie newly acquired Ryan Johansen as the fifth-highest-paid forward for Colorado.
I believe RyJo makes $8M, He only ties Colton with a $4M cap hit for the Avs.
You are correct. With Nashville paying 50% of his contract, Colorado is only on the hook for $4MM AAV on Johansen’s remaining term, meaning Colton would tie for the fifth-highest paid forward on Colorado specifically, in terms of what they actually owe their players.
Really like the Avs off-season. Colton, RyJo and Miles Wood make this a much better team.
I’m not sure.
Colton is a good addition.
Johansen has to find his younger form or he will become every coloradans least favorite avalanche real quick (except for girard).
And then there’s Drouin. I suppose it’s worth a flier for the price, but I’m expecting very little from him.
MacFarland needs to be targeting Kane or Tarasenko if he wants to compete with Dallas or dirty Vegas.
Playing behind MacKinnon, RyJo will get more favorable matchups than he did in Nashville. Should help his game alot.
Dirty Vegas? The envy part of your brain is a bit overactive.
At first, I thought, “What? $4MM AAV?” Looking at his stats on H-R, though, they’re more impressive than I expected. Bottom six minutes, his FO% is above water, and he has some snarl to his game. But what stood out to me was his Takeaways/Giveaways. A nice surprise for someone with only 190 games on his resume. Listening to Bolts’ games on a fairly regular basis, I don’t remember Dave & Phil really carping on him much, if at all. If not for the PIMs, you could call him “quiet, but effective”. Colton is a little noisy and effective (just like many Catamounts). Maybe he’ll get slotted further up, like in the middle-six.
Still can’t get over Kent Hughes giving up two high picks for Newhook when it only cost Sakic the lesser of those two picks to get a better player and he got to keep the better pick.
But, hey, Hughes acquired his kid’s buddy, so…(thumbs up). Good luck with that.
Its more that the lightning got fleeced because of their salary cap situation ( no leverage). Colton may be better now but newhook is expected to be the better player. I guess we’ll see
The Avalanche have chosen….wisely
Avs management did a solid job making the necessary moves this past off season to drastically improve their bottom 6 and prospect pool.