The Colorado Avalanche have signed forward Tristen Nielsen to a two-year NHL contract. The deal is a promotion from the AHL contract Nielsen entered the season on. His new contract will run through the end of the 2026-27 season.
Nielsen has had a red-hot start to the AHL season. He has scored seven points in seven games, tying him for the Colorado Eagles’ scoring lead alongside Daniil Gushchin, who has seven points in five games. It’s a huge spike in production for Nielsen, who spent the last four years in a depth role on the Abbotsford Canucks. He reached a career-high 41 points in 64 AHL games during the 2022-23 season, but fell all the way to 28 points in 67 games last year.
A scoring decline pushed Nielsen towards a change of scenery this summer. He signed a minor-league deal with the Eagles in early August and joined the Avalanche for their training camp in September. He scored three points in three NHL preseason games throughout camp – an especially impressive milestone given Nielsen only played in two preseason games over the course of four years in the Canucks organization. He’s continued that hot scoring into the regular season, and earned a second-look from the NHL brass as a result.
Nielsen originally signed with Vancouver as an undrafted free agent, after appearing in parts of six seasons in the WHL. He split those years evenly between the Calgary Hitmen and Vancouver Giants, and racked up 175 points across 241 games in the league. That includes a team-leading, and career-best, 65 points in 61 games during the Giants’ 2022-23 season. The Canucks signed Nielsen as a local gem two years later, and while he was never able to strike in Vancouver, his new contract will open the door to a possible NHL debut with the Avalanche soon.
Nielsen had a solid preseason with the Avs.