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Penguins’ Vasiliy Ponomarev Signs In KHL

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June 11: As expected, Ponomarev has indeed signed in the KHL after Avangard Omsk acquired his rights.  The team announced on its Telegram account that they’ve signed him to a three-year contract.  Ponomarev will still be RFA-eligible at the end of the contract so as long as he’s tendered a qualifying offer at the end of this month, Pittsburgh will still hold his NHL rights.

June 6: The Pittsburgh Penguins could soon lose a promising young winger. 23-year-old Vasiliy Ponomarev is expected to sign in the KHL after not being guaranteed NHL playing time next season from Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas, shares Dan Kingerski of Pittsburgh Hockey Now. Dubas adds that Ponomarev has switched his Russian representation and is in the midst of working out a KHL deal. The GM also added that Pittsburgh will issue a qualifying offer to the young forward, and thus will retain his rights for the duration of his European stay.

Ponomarev’s KHL rights were traded to Avangard Omsk on Wednesday. He made his pro debut in the Moscow Spartak pipeline in 2021-22, stepping into 14 KHL games and recording two points with the club. He also appeared in 21 games in the VHL – Russia’s second-tier pro league – that season and scored 13 points. It was all a part of Ponomarev’s brief return to Russian hockey after he was drafted out of Canada’s QMJHL in 2020. He returned to America at the tail end of the 2021-22 campaign, and spent his first 29 AHL games supporting the Chicago Wolves in a push to the Calder Cup championship. He scored 16 points in those appearances.

Ponomarev kept the good times rolling in his first full season in the AHL, netting 24 goals and 46 points in 64 games with the Wolves – and adding one goal and one assist in his the first two NHL games with the Carolina Hurricanes. But the Hurricanes ultimately opted against the gritty Russian – and loaned him to the Tuscon Roadrunners, then traded him to the Pittsburgh Penguins, partway through the 2023-24 campaign. Ponomarev has since appeared in 59 games with the AHL’s Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, where he’s recorded 16 goals and 42 points. He also appeared in seven games in the NHL lineup this season, but didn’t manage any scoring.

At 23 and with a history of international travel between seasons, news of a return to the KHL won’t entirely rule out Ponomarev’s chances at playing full-time for the Penguins one day. He’s been a productive and physical forward at the AHL levels, but has so far received minimal opportunity to do the same in the NHL. A move back to Russia will mark a chance to play in a league somewhere between North America’s pros – and a chance for Ponomarev to prove he can be a top-end center on a productive pro club.

Multiple Teams Interested In Sabres’ Bowen Byram

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The looming NHL Draft has kicked the trade market into its off-season form. Forwards Jason Robertson, Mason Marchment, and Martin Necas have headlined rumors so far. Now, the Buffalo Sabres could offer the top defenseman on the trade market, with NHL.com’s Kevin Weekes reporting that multiple teams are interested in acquiring former Stanley Cup champion Bowen Byram. The Sabres were said to be gauging Byram’s market interest following the end of the regular season, though the player’s agent walked back those reports a day later.

It seems Byram will have a market if Buffalo indeed tries to move him. He originally joined the Sabres at the 2024 Trade Deadline in a one-for-one swap that sent center Casey Mittelstadt to the Colorado Avalanche. Byram was in the midst of a stout year in Colorado, with 20 points in 55 games. He finished the year off with nine points, and strong all-around play, in 18 games with the Sabres. That performance earned Byram an everyday role in Buffalo’s top-four this season, often spent playing alongside fellow left-shot defender Rasmus Dahlin.

A full season in a top role naturally led Byram to a career-year. He recorded a career-high 31 assists and 38 points while playing in all 82 games of Buffalo’s season – one of only two Sabres to play in every game. His scoring ranked third on Buffalo’s blue line behind Dahlin (68 points) and 2021 first-overall pick Owen Power (40 points). Byram’s year was marred by hot-and-cold play and glaring question marks, but it nonetheless stood out as the first true statement performance for the former fourth-overall pick. He showed he could stand up well to a top role and even hold down the fort as his top-end linemates faced missed games.

Those facts will make the 23-year-old Byram hard to miss. He ranks 41st among active defensemen in career scoring before the age of 24 with 110 points in 246 games. That places him among company like Zach Bogosian (114 P in 352 GP) and Marc-Edouard Vlasic (110 P in 389 GP) – though, on a per-game basis, Byram’s 0.45 P/GP rank 30th between Oliver Ekman-Larsson (0.45, 154 P in 340 GP) and Morgan Rielly (0.44, 171 P in 388 GP).

Signs seem to point towards Byram still sitting as a young defender with sky-high potential, even if he hasn’t found a permanent lineup role just yet. But that sentiment has rung true for many years, despite Byram’s hot-and-cold struggles continuing through a move across the league. In offering Byram in a trade, the Sabres will be banking on a solid year in a top role being enough to increase their return on 2024’s investment. Byram could make plenty of sense for a playoff contender looking to get younger without losing strength – or a young up-and-comer that misses out on top 2025 NHL Draft left-defense prospect Matthew Schaefer, like the San Jose Sharks or Chicago Blackhawks.

The cost of Byram on the open market will be a situation to monitor as the Sabres eye potentially changing their standing in the 2025 draft. They currently select at ninth overall, directly after the Seattle Kraken and before the Anaheim Ducks.

Mario Lemieux-Led Group Interested In Stake In Penguins

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5:00 PM: FSG has issued a statement following reports of Lemieux’s interest, walking back claims that a stake in the Penguins is up for sale shares Matt Vensel of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. FSG’s statement mentioned that the Penguins are only interested in finding a small, passive partner. They went on to add that they’re engaging multiple potential investors – potentially hinting at more than the one engaged investment group mentioned by LeBrun.

3:30 PM: The Pittsburgh Penguins’ ownership group could be due for yet another shakeup. Franchise legend Mario Lemieux, billionaire Ronald Burkle, and partner David Morehouse owned the majority stake in the club as a subsidiary of Lemieux LP from 1999 to 2021, but made a major move to sell the franchise to the Fenway Sports Group just before 2022. Now, three years later, Lemieux and co are interested in rebuying a stake in the Penguins’ franchise, per Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic.

Lemieux continued to serve as a club chairman through this season – but his renewed interest in returning to the ownership chair will come as welcome news for Penguins fans. LeBrun adds that Lemieux, Burkle, and Morehouse’s interest comes after Fenway Sports Group (FSG) expressed interest in selling a partial stake in the company. He also shared that the Hall-of-Famer isn’t the only party interested in the offer, and that FSG owner John Henry is also in discussions with another group.

Lemieux LP would be buying back into the team at a considerable markup. Their 2021 sale to FSG cost a reported $900MM, per TSN, but the most recent Forbes ranking claimed that the club has nearly doubled in value ($1.75B). Having a mainstay of Penguins hockey at the helm could be beneficial as the club looks to maintain that evaluation through the retirement of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang – three legends all likely to end their careers in the new few years. FSG has employed general manager Kyle Dubas to lead the ship through their looming change. He’s already taken steps towards the future by replacing decade-long head coach Mike Sullivan with NHL-rookie Dan Muse.

The legacy of Lemieux in Pittsburgh can’t be understated. He, with help from Burkle, saved the club from bankruptcy for an estimated $1.07MM in 1999 – one year after Lemieux was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. He’d return to play five more seasons with the club from 2000 to 2006, capping off a career that many regard as one of the NHL’s finest. Lemieux recorded an incredible 1,723 points in 915 career games, and built a trophy cabinet that’s simply second-to-none. Among it are two Stanley Cup wins, which he earned with a boost from partner-in-crime Jaromir Jagr. Lemieux spent the entirety of his career in the Steel City, and knows the passion of Pittsburgh fans as well as any. His return to an owner role will be a journey worth following, even if it is still many steps away.

Stars Open To Trade Offers On Mason Marchment

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The Stars are open to the possibility of dealing winger Mason Marchment, reports David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period. It’s a more palatable avenue to clear cap space this summer than moving star left-winger Jason Robertson, who Dallas has at least considered including in talks in the weeks since their elimination in the Western Conference Final.

Marchment, who turns 30 in a week, is coming off one of the better seasons of his career. He scored 22-25–47 with a +15 rating over 62 appearances in 2024-25. While he missed significant time due to a facial fracture and subsequent surgery, that was his best goal-scoring work on a per-game basis for his career at 0.35 and his second-best season in the points department at 0.76.

The left-shot winger has averaged 21 goals and 51 points per 82 games over his six-year NHL career. Injuries are a legitimate concern, having only hit the 80-game mark once, but he’s one of the more consistently effective middle-six wingers in the league when healthy, both offensively and physically. Checking in at 6’5″ and 212 lbs, he’s a willing fighter and frequent hitter while also serving as one of the more efficient per-minute point producers of the last few years.

His possession impacts leave a little more to be desired. His raw numbers look fine, but become more concerning when put in context, considering he’s spent the majority of his NHL career with a pair of strong 5-on-5 teams in Florida and Dallas. They’re not huge drawbacks – he’s averaged a -0.2 relative CF% at even strength over his career while receiving semi-favorable offensive zone deployment – but his reputation defensively likely outweighs reality a little bit.

Nonetheless, his $4.5MM cap hit provides great value to the Stars. That’s almost never a deal a championship-contending club would be looking to move, but as detailed at length, the Stars simply don’t have a path toward cap compliance next season without making a salary dump. They have under $5MM in projected space with seven roster spots to fill, meaning they’d essentially have to sign only league-minimum players this summer while letting all of their pending free agents walk.

Salary cap considerations are essentially the sole motivator behind considering moving Marchment, a pending UFA starting July 1, and Robertson, a pending RFA starting July 1. They each have one year left on their contracts and would normally have their resources devoted toward extension discussions in a few weeks, but without a chance of recouping any cost-effective assets in a deal involving overpaid defenders Mathew Dumba and Ilya Lyubushkin, it appears general manager Jim Nill is looking to part ways with a player with higher trade value to try and land a cheap contributor as part of the return.

Marchment would obviously have a much lower return and asking price than Robertson, a first-line fixture who’s posted 80 points in back-to-back seasons following his 109-point breakout in 2022-23. Parting ways with the former would also have a much less transformative impact on their forward group next season. Still, if they get the right deal for the latter, it may make sense. Extending Robertson, who will presumably cost at least his $9.3MM qualifying offer per season to re-sign on a multi-year deal, would give Dallas seven players making over $8MM per season in the summer of 2026, when they need to work out a new deal for star defenseman Thomas Harley.

Mammoth, Ben McCartney Agree To Two-Year, Two-Way Deal

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The Mammoth have signed winger Ben McCartney to a two-year, two-way contract, per a team release. He was a pending restricted free agent with arbitration rights. He’ll earn the league minimum $775K salary if in the NHL for both seasons, but his minor-league salary wasn’t disclosed.

McCartney, 24 in July, gets some more runway to climb back up to the NHL after debuting way ahead of schedule for the Coyotes in 2021-22. A 2020 seventh-round pick by Arizona, he made a strong first impression upon arrival in AHL Tucson in 2021 and got his first call-up amid a rash of injuries early in the season. He recorded four shot attempts and seven hits in two games while averaging north of 14 minutes per night, but didn’t get on the scoresheet outside of a few penalty minutes. He’s stuck in the minors ever since, regressing offensively since his initial 18-17–35 showing in 57 games in 2021-22. After posting 0.61 points per game in that rookie season, he’s operated at 0.45 points per game over his last three seasons.

After battling some injuries during that time, McCartney showed more signs of life in 2024-25. The Manitoba native is now an alternate captain with the Roadrunners, where he returned after clearing waivers for the first time in his career back in October and posted a 16-17–33 scoring line in 63 games. He finished seventh on the team in scoring and fourth in PIMs (86) en route to his best offensive campaign since that rookie showing.

That isn’t enough to make him a legitimate candidate for a roster spot in the fall, but he may have at least earned a longer look in training camp to help push himself up Utah’s list of potential call-ups. If he doesn’t log 80 career NHL appearances by the time his deal is up in the summer of 2027, he’ll qualify for Group VI unrestricted free agency. The Mammoth now have 40 of 50 possible standard contracts on their books for next season.

Canadiens, Penguins, Red Wings Interested In Nicolas Hague

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Nicolas Hague’s trade market continues to percolate. The Canadiens, Penguins, and Red Wings have joined the previously reported Flyers in demonstrating interest in the Golden Knights’ pending RFA defenseman’s services, according to David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period today. Pagnotta added that the Golden Knights have informed Hague’s camp their focus is on a trade rather than a new contract, although a move is “not a guarantee.”

Hague is an intriguing option for teams looking to add a lefty who can cycle into top-four minutes amid a rather weak UFA market. He would slot in the third tier of available left-shot rearguards if he were old enough for unrestricted free agency, along with names like Brian Dumoulin, Matt Grzelcyk, Ryan Lindgren, and Nate Schmidt. He is, of course, younger than all of those options and, although he’s 26 years old, may still have a bit of room to grow into a steadier second-pairing piece. He’s projected to receive a two-year deal worth north of $2.6MM per season this summer, according to AFP Analytics. While that’s a tad prohibitive for the Golden Knights, who have bigger moves in mind, it won’t be a salary-cap hurdle for nearly every interested party.

The 6’6″ defender was Vegas’ own second-round pick in their inaugural 2017 draft class. Hague has spent his entire career in Nevada, almost exclusively as the left-shot option on their third pairing. Buried on the depth chart for years behind Brayden McNabb and now Noah Hanifin as well, his ice time took a small hit this year, averaging 17 minutes per game following three years of seeing 18-plus per game.

A steady 10-20 point producer, that’s not why teams are interested. He’s a good fringe second-pairing option with PK deployability, size, physicality, and historically strong possession metrics. ’Historically’ is doing some heavy lifting there, though. His two-way play wasn’t particularly adept in 2024-25, at least at even strength. His -4.9% relative shot-attempt share was a career-low, especially considering he received rather even offensive and defensive zone deployment. His control of possession quality (expected goals) also fell below 50% at even strength for the first time in his six-year career.

There’s enough of a track record there for reasonable optimism surrounding a rebound, though. The Ontario native enters the summer with 83 points and a +20 rating in 364 career regular-season games, and he logged 18:34 per night in Vegas’ run to the 2023 Stanley Cup.

Perhaps no team among those mentioned needs a cost-effective player like Hague more than Detroit. Negative-value signings on defense over the past few years have hampered their ability to exit their rebuild, with aging names like Ben Chiarot and Justin Holl incapable of having success in anything above a third-pairing role. Hague, while untested in 20-plus minute deployment, would be a younger, cheaper, and better-skating option than any of those other supplemental pieces behind young core defenders Moritz Seider and Simon Edvinsson.

There’s also a clear need for Hague’s services in Pittsburgh. While the Penguins are under far less pressure to contend for a playoff spot in 2025-26 than the Red Wings, they simply need more defenders in the system to avoid overdeploying their younger prospects while also ideally having the flexibility to move on from Erik Karlsson and begin winding down Kris Letang’s workload.  The Pens need another pickup on top of just Hague to accomplish that, but he’d go a long way toward helping and would immediately become their top left-shot option ahead of a paper-thin group behind him.

Hague would see a more familiar depth role in Montreal if that’s where he ends up. His acquisition is less about shifting him into top-four deployment – Kaiden Guhle, Lane Hutson, and Mike Matheson are all lefties and have that covered. It would be more about flexing enforcer Arber Xhekaj into a No. 6/7 role while having Hague replace him as the everyday left-shot option on their third pairing.

Cale Makar Wins 2025 Norris Trophy

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Avalanche star Cale Makar has been voted the NHL’s top defenseman and will take home the 2025 James Norris Memorial Trophy, the league announced Wednesday.

It’s the second time taking home the Norris for Makar, who became the first defenseman in Avalanche franchise history to win it when he was crowned the league’s best rearguard following the 2021-22 season. He was the clear favorite for the award, becoming the first D-man to hit 30 goals and 90 points in the same season since Paul Coffey in 1988-89 while finishing the year with a 10-point lead in scoring among defenseman ahead of the Blue Jackets’ Zach Werenski, although the two tied with 54 even-strength points.

Among defensemen, Makar also ranked 11th in plus-minus (+28), first in points per game (1.15), second in shots on goal (246), and third in average time on ice (25:43). He also recorded 128 blocks, the second-highest mark of his six-year career. Makar’s possession impacts once again flourished after an unusually subpar defensive showing in 2023-24, controlling 56.6% of shot attempts and a career-high 59.4% of expected goals at even strength.

The 6’0″ righty finished ahead of Werenski and Canucks lefty Quinn Hughes for the award. Makar received 176 first-place votes and 1,861 total points, while Werenski was the runner-up with 13 first-place votes and 1,266 points. The full voting breakdown is as follows, according to Chris Johnston of The Athletic:

  1. Makar – 1,861 points (176-13-2-0-0)
  2. Werenski – 1,266 points (13-132-38-7-1)
  3. Hughes – 918 points (2-39-110-21-12)
  4. Josh Morrissey, Jets – 280 (0-5-18-41-32)
  5. Victor Hedman, Lightning – 265 (0-1-11-55-38)
  6. Rasmus Dahlin, Sabres – 120 (0-0-4-26-22)
  7. Thomas Harley, Stars – 60 (0-1-1-7-27)
  8. Jaccob Slavin, Hurricanes – 60 (0-0-2-13-11)
  9. Lane Hutson, Canadiens – 42 (0-0-1-5-22)
  10. Jake Sanderson, Senators – 33 (0-0-0-9-6)
  11. Evan Bouchard, Oilers – 29 (0-0-2-4-7)
  12. Adam Fox, Rangers – 9 (0-0-1-0-4)
  13. Gustav Forsling, Panthers – 8 (0-0-1-0-3)
  14. Ryan McDonagh, Lightning – 5 (0-0-0-1-2)
  15. Devon Toews, Avalanche – 4 (0-0-0-1-1)
  16. John Carlson, Capitals – 3 (0-0-0-1-0)
  17. Jakob Chychrun, Capitals – 1 (0-0-0-0-1)
    Brock Faber, Wild – 1 (0-0-0-0-1)
    Shea Theodore, Golden Knights – 1 (0-0-0-0-1)

Makar’s run of dominance to begin his career is putting him on a fast track to Hall-of-Fame status. He’s now the sixth player to win at least two Norrises in the first six seasons of his NHL career, and he’s been a finalist for the award in every year since his rookie season. He still finished in the top 10 in voting while winning the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year in 2019-20.

Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images.

Eetu Mäkiniemi Signs One-Year Deal With Liiga’s TPS

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Finnish goaltender Eetu Mäkiniemi is headed home on a one-year deal with TPS of the first-tier Liiga, per a club announcement. The Flyers’ fifth-stringer this season was a pending Group VI unrestricted free agent.

Mäkiniemi, 26, once had legitimate NHL upside but has been derailed by injuries in the past few years. That continued in 2024-25. He reported to AHL Lehigh Valley after being cut from training camp and, after posting a 3.03 GAA, .899 SV%, and a 3-0-2 record in five games, sustained a sports hernia in mid-November and never returned after undergoing surgery.

A fourth-round pick by the Hurricanes in 2017, Mäkiniemi signed his entry-level deal with Carolina and came to North America for the 2021-22 campaign. He impressed in limited action with AHL Chicago, posting a .922 SV% and 2.06 GAA in 14 appearances along with an 11-2-1 record. Buried among a bevy of strong netminding prospects in the Canes’ system, though, he was deemed expendable and traded to the Sharks the following summer in the deal that sent Brent Burns from San Jose to Carolina.

Mäkiniemi made his NHL debut the following season, posting a 1-0-1 record with a .906 SV% and 2.13 GAA in one start and one relief appearance for the lowly Sharks in a pair of contests in December 2022. He never made it back to the top level, though. After being demoted to ECHL Wichita for a time the following year, he reached Group VI UFA status for the first time and opted instead to latch on with the Flyers on a two-way deal last summer in hopes of climbing up their depth chart. While he had a decent AHL start and strong training camp, his injury derailed any chance of that.

He’ll now return to Liiga to rediscover some consistency and hopefully stay healthy. The 6’2″, 183-lb netminder last played in the top flight with Ilves in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, recording a 2.43 GAA, .911 SV%, two shutouts, and a 15-14-11 record in 41 appearances. He’ll presumably be TPS’ starter ahead of 20-year-old World Juniors silver medalist Noa Vali, who struggled in his first full-time Liiga season in 2024-25 with a .887 SV% in 26 showings. A strong year for Mäkiniemi, particularly since he only signed a one-year deal, could land him another NHL contract in the summer of 2026.

Offseason Checklist: Colorado Avalanche

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The offseason has arrived for all but two teams now with the playoffs nearing an end.  Accordingly, it’s time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming weeks with free agency fast approaching.  Next up is a look at Colorado.

The Avalanche set a franchise record with three straight 100-point regular seasons in 2023-24 and extended that streak in 2024-25, although their .622 points percentage was still their worst in six years. That record was influenced by one of the biggest in-season resets in recent memory, carried out by general manager Chris MacFarland, who managed to give his club a new goaltending tandem and swap out a large portion of their forward group between opening night and the postseason. While the team had an excellent record down the stretch, winning 16 of their last 23 games, they lost a seven-game heartbreaker to the Stars in the first round. With a brand-new support staff for Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar in tow, Colorado has a few items to tend to this summer to extend their championship contention window.

Solidify Nečas’ Future

Star winger Mikko Rantanen was a pending unrestricted free agent last summer; extension talks for him were an item on their 2024 offseason checklist. They now enter the same situation with Martin Nečas, the centerpiece of their return when they sent Rantanen to the Hurricanes in January following unproductive contract negotiations. He’ll become a pending UFA on July 1 as he enters the back half of the two-year, $13MM bridge deal he signed with Carolina as a restricted free agent in 2024.

Nečas’ trade value had never been higher than when Carolina dealt him. The Czech forward was on pace to break the point-per-game mark for the first time in his career with a 16-39–55 line in 49 games at the time of the trade. Even though 55 points was his career average per 82 games entering the season, the Avs hoped that might be sustainable if they plopped Nečas in Rantanen’s spot next to MacKinnon, a higher-caliber center than he had in Raleigh-Durham.

Instead, things went about as expected for Nečas in Colorado. He saw his minutes increase, skating over 20 minutes per game after averaging 17-18 during his time in Carolina, but his production tapered off slightly from his early-season tear. He still managed 11 goals and 28 points in 30 games to end the year, which still would have been a career-high 0.93 points per game pace over a full season on their own, but predictably didn’t click at the well above a point per game rate Rantanen had over the last five years in Denver.

Nečas will still be one of the Avalanche’s better-value contracts last season at a $6.5MM cap hit if he can play a full season, something he’s had no trouble doing, and remain around that 75-80 point pace. However, unlike waiting until after the season started to have aggressive extension talks with Rantanen, they’ll look to kick Nečas’ discussions off earlier to avoid a repeat and force another in-season blockbuster to avoid losing him for nothing next summer. Yet with a rising cap, he’s due a considerable raise. AFP Analytics projects a Nečas extension with a $9.9MM cap hit for seven seasons, considering the salary cap’s projected jump to $104MM for the 2026-27 campaign. MacFarland needs to begin weighing if that’s a price he’s willing to pay with Makar becoming extension-eligible in the summer of 2026.

Create Cap Flexibility

Outside of Nečas, the Avs don’t have much in the way of major contract business to attend to. They’ve had a busy past few weeks, keeping new second-line center Brock Nelson in the fold on a three-year extension with a $7.5MM cap hit. They also got their new starting goaltender, Mackenzie Blackwood, signed to a five-year extension shortly after acquiring him from the Sharks in December.

The good news is they already have 19 of 23 roster spots locked in for next season as a result. The bad news is that they have just $1.2MM in cap space, per PuckPedia, only enough to sign one league-minimum player and carry a roster with no healthy extras. At present, they stand no chance of re-signing their two top UFAs, winger Jonathan Drouin and defenseman Ryan Lindgren. Even one cap-dump trade likely won’t be enough to bring back one of them, but it would at least allow them to add more cheap pickups (or re-sign a few of their own) while having in-season flexibility in case short-term injuries arise.

The few inefficient contracts on Colorado’s books will be under scrutiny as a result. They sent Casey Mittelstadt to the Bruins at the trade deadline to acquire veteran Charlie Coyle to serve as their new third-line center, but he carries a $5.25MM price tag. With MacKinnon and Nelson, their top two centers, now making a combined $20.1MM against the cap, that’s not an affordable number for a No. 3 – even if he ended the year strong with 13 points in 19 games. With only one year left on his deal and one year removed from a career-high 60 points with Boston, they wouldn’t have much trouble moving him at first glance. However, they’d need to convince Coyle to waive his no-movement clause, something he may not be eager to do again after waiving it to join a championship contender in Colorado.

There’s also Ross Colton, whose $4MM cap hit is fine value in a vacuum but, again, a tad pricey for a third-line winger. Moving Coyle and saving an additional $1.25MM in space would be far preferable, but it would be easier to move Colton, who only has a modified no-trade clause and had a 16-13–29 scoring line in 61 games last season. Injury-prone depth winger Miles Wood, who’s less expensive at $2.5MM per season, could also be someone Colorado looks to ship out, but that could also prove semi-challenging with four years left on his contract. He also has a six-team no-trade list.

That might mean Colorado turns to their defense, where their depth is far weaker, as a necessity to free up space. They wouldn’t be looking to deal either of their major trade candidates, second-pairing fixtures Samuel Girard and Josh Manson, purely as a cap dump as a result, particularly without many suitable options to replace them in free agency. They’d be looking to attach an asset to them to gain a more cost-efficient roster player back, even if they’re getting a worse overall player, to be able to spread the wealth a little more behind their elite top pairing of Makar and Devon Toews. Girard has two years left on his contract at $5MM per season with a nine-team no-trade list, while Manson has one year left at $4.5MM with a 12-team no-trade list.

Find A New Power Play Coach

While the Avalanche continued to boast a top-10 power play in the regular season as they have for many years, they converted at just a 13.6% clip against Dallas in the first round. That was 14th out of 16 playoff teams and enough of a margin of error to cost assistant coach Ray Bennett, who had been responsible for the man-advantage unit under head coach Jared Bednar for the last eight seasons, his job.

Bennett has since landed with the Isles, but the Avalanche, who only operate with two assistants (not including a goalie coach) under Bednar instead of the standard three anyway, have yet to name his replacement. That means Nolan Pratt currently serves as Bednar’s lone assistant. This arrangement obviously won’t stretch into the regular season, but for a team with scoring talent of Colorado’s caliber, they need to find their desired option as Bennett’s successor quickly amid other teams filling their AC vacancies.

One name to speculatively watch out for is former Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft. He was a finalist for a few head coach vacancies this offseason but was passed over for all of them. There’s now a potential new opportunity for him in Dallas after the Stars fired Pete DeBoer, but if he’s not considered for the gig, he has experience managing a wealth of high-end scoring talent in Edmonton with good results and could be a natural fit.

Add Defensive Depth

As alluded to earlier, the Avs simply need more behind Makar and Toews on the blue line. This item is a bit of a TBD based on how they handle any potential Girard or Manson trade.

Assuming they manage to open up a bit of flexibility somehow, they still need some third-pairing upgrades even if Girard and Manson remain on next year’s roster. Big lefty Keaton Middleton is a fine press-box option at his peak but not a legitimate everyday third-pairing option on a contender. Righty Sam Malinski played 76 games this season and, while a pending RFA, should be cheap to re-sign and would be a good value piece as Colorado’s 3RD if so. They need a more competent two-way partner for him than Middleton at the very least, though.

That will presumably be the focus of their likely minimal activity in free agency. While not particularly inspiring, there are affordable pending UFAs like Marc Del Gaizo, Joel Hanley, and Jonathon Merrill who can comfortably average more than the paltry 11:29 per game of deployment Middleton received in his 41 games this season. If they manage to clear up more considerable cap space, they could begin to consider some higher-caliber lefties like Brian Dumoulin, Matt Grzelcyk, or Nate Schmidt to play sheltered minutes behind Toews and Girard on the left side, or potentially even bring back Lindgren.

Image courtesy of Jerome Miron-Imagn Images.

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