The Seattle Kraken have completed another trade, this time sending defenseman Kurtis MacDermid to the Colorado Avalanche. MacDermid was Seattle’s choice from the Los Angeles Kings, but instead of suiting up for the expansion team, he’ll net them a 2023 fourth-round pick.
MacDermid, 27, represents the second player the Kraken have flipped since the expansion draft, following Tyler Pitlick’s trade a few days ago. Seattle selected ten defensemen in the draft, so were always expected to trade a few of them before the start of the season. In Colorado, MacDermid joins a contending team that could use a bit of size and depth on the back end after trading away Ryan Graves earlier this offseason.
The 6’5″ defenseman is incredibly physical, but has also shown he can be a bit more than just a face-puncher over the last few years. In 118 career games he has six goals and 17 points, playing limited minutes—fewer than 13 a night—in Los Angeles. He likely won’t be asked to do much more than that in Colorado, where the team already has so many talented young options to eat up minutes. At just $875K though, MacDermid can be a reliable seventh defenseman on the NHL roster, moving in and out of the lineup whenever head coach Jared Bednar feels the need for a little more size.
The cost of a fourth-round pick isn’t much for Colorado to add an NHL player, but to the Kraken it’s another important piece as they look to build the pipeline. The team was unable (or perhaps unwilling) to leverage the expansion situation to collect many draft picks and now must try to sell off whatever pieces they can. Cap space was the biggest focus of GM Ron Francis and company, but it is interesting that now Pitlick and MacDermid, two NHL options that barely crack $2.5MM combined, are the first ones out the door. The Kraken now have an extra fourth-round selection in each of the next two drafts.
Kevin Weekes of NHL Network broke the news on Twitter.