Free agency is just over a month away, and teams are looking ahead to when it opens. Even with the UFA crop being thinned out in recent months, there will be some quality veterans set to hit the open market in July, while many teams also have key restricted free agents to re-sign. We continue our look around the NHL with an overview of the free agent situation for the Avalanche.
Key Restricted Free Agents
F Jack Drury – Not only has Drury become a stabilizing force in Colorado’s bottom-six, but he has also become one of the best bottom-six forwards in the entire league. Tying his career-high, Drury finished 10 goals and 27 points in 82 games while averaging 14:29 of ice time per game. Additionally, his 58.1% faceoff rate is even more impressive considering Drury began 63.8% of his shifts in the defensive zone. Given that he’s only one year away from reaching unrestricted free agency, it’s unlikely that Drury and the Avalanche will get together on a long-term deal this summer.
F Zakhar Bardakov – Despite averaging less than eight minutes of ice time per game, Bardakov remained on the NHL roster for much of the 2025-26 campaign. He had his moments, but was generally unimpressive, finishing with one goal and 10 points in 60 games. He maintained relatively solid defensive metrics and added 50 hits on the year, but didn’t do enough to earn a consistent NHL role. Still, given his familiarity with the NHL now, Colorado will likely keep him around to serve as depth since he won’t be too expensive to retain.
Other RFAs: F Sampo Ranta, F Daniil Gushchin, F Chase Bradley, F Taylor Makar, F Ivan Ivan, D Sergei Boikov
Key Unrestricted Free Agents
D Brent Burns – Burns is the primary suspect in the murder investigation of ‘Father Time’. Not only is he playing into his 40’s, but he also hasn’t missed a game in over a decade. He wasn’t a liability out there either, as the former 2003 draftee registered 12 goals and 35 points in 82 games, averaging just under 19 minutes of ice time per game. The Avalanche could use all the defensive depth it can get its hands on, and if Burns intends to keep playing and is interested in signing another bonus-laden deal, it should be a no-brainer for Colorado to keep him around.
D Brett Kulak – Outside of those on Team Canada at the Olympics, Kulak is the only player who got to play with Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, and Nathan MacKinnon throughout the regular season. During his time with the Avalanche, Kulak did what he did best: blocking shots and stepping up in the playoffs. Throughout postseason play, the 32-year-old blueliner finished with one goal and five points in 13 games with 25 blocked shots, averaging 20:38 of ice time. Unfortunately, unless Colorado can open up significantly more cap space, he’s unlikely to return this summer.
Other UFAs: F Joel Kiviranta, D Jack Ahcan, D Nick Blankenburg, F T.J. Tynan, F Alex Barre-Boulet, F Tye Felhaber, F Matthew Stienburg, F Valtteri Puustinen, F Jason Polin, D Jacob MacDonald, D Ronald Attard
Projected Cap Space
Colorado’s salary cap picture is an ugly one. Yes, the team has done a good job of locking in MacKinnon and Martin Necas, and maneuvering around the cap to bring in additional talent, but it’s all coming to a head in a year. Heading into the summer, the Avalanche only have approximately $2.98MM in salary cap breathing room. This should be enough to retain Drury and Burns, albeit barely, but it will be wholly insufficient to fill out the team’s depth for anything other than league minimum salaries. Additionally, Colorado is only one year away from ponying up new deals for Cale Makar and Artturi Lehkonen, so they’ll have to be prudent with every dollar spent this summer, and likely won’t want to lock themselves into anything extending beyond next season.
Photos courtesy of Dennis Lee (Drury) and Jeff Curry (Burns) of Imagn Images. Contract information courtesy of PuckPedia.
Valerie Nichushkin was a no show in the playoffs, And, Unpredictable off the ice, He’s the perfect trade candidate to free up some space.
I feel like burns is getting a lot of credit he doesnt necessarily deserve. Sure, his numbers were decent, but he certainly got a boost from being on the Colorado roster. He did have a nice stretch of a month or two in the regular season prior to the Olympic break, but after that he wasnt very good, and in the postseason he was mostly awful defensively. All the respect in the world to him, but he’s a 6th or 7th defender at this point in his career.
Of all the players listed I’m not sure if any of them should be brought back. Inject some youth since the cap is going to restrict them.
They have to free up some money somewhere. Colton, Roy, chuchu are prime candidates. I’d like to know what injuries they were dealing with. I’d rather keep chuchu as he was still good defensively but underwhelming offensively this year. In the past he has been a point a game playoff player so perhaps he can get it back.
All 3 would free up 13m but leave 5 holes that need to be filled.
Kulak would be my first priority to sign despite my earlier reluctance.
Bringing in Kadri was a waste of a 1st+2nd. Predictably, he ended up the worst in +/-, despite only playing 16 games. His oiSV% was also the worst on the team.
To me, this was one of the worst pieces of business done all season. Now they are saddled with Kadri’s $5.6M for 3 more years. At 35 he’s not getting any better.
Too soon to judge. Compressed schedule meant guys traded just didn’t have much time to settle in. Conor Garland is in same position. Maybe he falls off, maybe he bounces back. Time will tell
Good luck attempting to get posters like Roger to take some time. He and his clan of know-it-alls have zero use for logic and only react on immature emotion. He recently tried to tell us that the Hurricanes should bench Freddie Andersen for a guy who hadn’t played in weeks. This after game three against Montreal, a game they won and gave up only two goals. His rationale: “because they dominated play but barely scraped by”.
More comments from people who don’t know how to watch or write about hockey.
1. Burns was atrocious down the stretch. Can’t win puck battles on the boards and constantly would take penalties for uncontrollable rage, like randomly cross checking VGK opponents in broad daylight.
2. Drury kept rejecting our offers during the season bc he wants $3M per season and he wants get it from us. He plays one of the most cost efficient positions (4C) very well but doesn’t score enough to be a 3C which is why we got Roy.
3. Nichushkin went above and beyond in the playoffs with his assignment. Bednar tasked him with shutting down different Wild stars, not to score for us. He basically followed around Hughes, Kaprizov, and Boldy to shut them down. The one game that Bednar tasked MacKinnon with shadowing Kap was Game 3, and we saw how poorly that worked out. Bednar gave up on Nich as a primary defensive forward vs VGK and nothing Bednar did that series worked well.
4. I think I want to trade Toews. He had his worst season with us in the past 5, and he was a defensive liability nightmare. Part of me thinks that he was injured all season but the other part thinks that he is a major liability guarding younger top line players. Hopefully he was just hurt this season and he will rebound.
5. Bednar is concerning me. We have a hard time battling teams that press us. Our system relies on winning the boards but it is expensive with guys who aren’t huge like Vegas or Dallas. Hakstol needs to go; he didn’t help us at all. It’s much too earlier to bail on Bednar but it’s within our right to expect Bednar to build a bigger arsenal of tactics to deploy under duress.
I completely agree with your last point. Bednar has had 3+ years with a known systematic matchup issue and he hasn’t been able to find a solution. Failing to correct your blind spot is the kind of problem that gets great coaches fired. I’m not advocating for that but he is on the hot seat now. His next assistant coach needs to bring some corrective lenses.
The Avalanche only have 4 defensemen signed for next season. They need to round out their defense. Even if they resign Burns, they are short on the back end. They are going to need to move out a couple of contracts to create cap space. Nichushkin, Colton & Roy could be candidates to be traded