3 Trades To Make Colorado Avalanche And New Jersey Devils Better
Very often, trades are one-sided in the NHL. More often than not, a team overpays in picks and prospects in order to get a star player. Those 1st-round picks can sometimes turn into future star players. Sometimes the prospects grow within an organization and become something great. Other times, one team gets a star and the other team gets pieces that don’t turn out to be anything. It’s very rare that trades are even.
However, it’s not impossible. One recent trade that seems to fit is the deal between the Anaheim Ducks and New Jersey Devils that exchanged Adam Henrique and Sami Vatanen. The Ducks desperately needed a center and the Devils desperately needed a defenseman. Neither turned out to be exactly what the other team needed, but since the Ducks re-signed Henrique to give the Devils a 3rd-round pick. That countered the 3rd rounder they gave up in the original deal.
So, there are possible even trades in the NHL. The Devils are a team that is going to be making trades this offseason. They have a ton of young players and only so many places to put them. On top of that, they have two 1st-round picks to add to their prospect pool, and they have picks in the other six rounds.
The Colorado Avalanche are a team in flux. They have put together seemingly the best team in the NHL two years in a row. And two years in a row they weren’t able to get through the second round. Something isn’t working with this team, but it’s hard to tell what it is. Two seasons ago, they had major goaltending issues and were on their third-string goalie. This season, there’s no excuse.
Tom Fitzgerald will call Joe Sakic this offseason. That much is obvious. Will they be able to make a deal? That all depends on what everyone wants. Here are three deals that could make everyone a little uncomfortable, but one that everyone will like in the end.
Things are going to get a little uncomfortable for everyone right off the bat. The Colorado Avalanche are currently using Andre Burakovsky as a third-line center. When he first came to the Avalanche from the Washington Capitals, it seemed like a given he was going to find a spot in the top six for his entire tenure in the Rocky Mountains.
The Avalanche kept adding, and the team kept getting better. Signing Brandon Saad solidified the top line, and Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon are taking the top-two center spots. So, Burakovaky is now on the third line playing a scoring role in the bottom six. That doesn’t mean the Avs think he’s easily replaceable, but with the Seattle Expansion Draft on the horizon, the Avs have to make some very hard decisions.
They almost have to go with the eight skaters option for the expansion draft. They have to protect Cale Makar, Samuel Girard, Erik Johnson (he has a no-move clause), and Devon Toews at a minimum. They probably want to protect Ryan Graves, too. Now they only have three forward protection slots. One is going to MacKinnon and another goes to Mikko Rantanen.
Everyone knows where this is going. Anyway, the Avalanche would want pieces that don’t need to be protected. The Devils aren’t going to give them centerpieces in this trade. However, Tyce Thompson is actually a really good prospect. He didn’t look great in the NHL last season, but he just came off his final season at Providence and it was an odd situation where he scored a point per game. Nikita Okhotyuk is a decent upside play on the back end, but he’s a lot like Kevin Bahl, who’s ahead of him on the prospect chart in New Jersey. The Devils might not have to give up the 4th rounder, but they wouldn’t mind losing the pick. Burakovsky would be a perfect replacement as a scoring center on the third line. He would replace Travis Zajac’s offensive production, but he wouldn’t bring his defensive production. So the Devils would have to find other means for that.
The Devils came into the season with two 3rd-round picks, but this seems like it would make a lot of sense to trade them both in a deal like this. The Devils sent one pick to get Jonas Siegenthaler. So, here’s another decent defensive upgrade that can play penalty kill, which the Devils were terrible at last season.
This seems like a deal that would come after the expansion draft since both players in the deal need to get protected. Actually, if both players are getting protected anyway, it could happen at any time.
The Devils are focusing on making their special teams better. They need to keep spaces open for younger players, but asking someone like Bahl to revamp the penalty kill is too big an ask for a player like him. He might do best spending a more normal season in the AHL. The Devils would have to replace Michael McLeod after his best season, but there are options within the organization to do that. There aren’t many options to fix the penalty kill within the organization.
Colorado has the fourth-best penalty kill in the playoffs so far. They had the eighth-best penalty kill in the regular season. Ryan Graves played the most minutes on the unit with 177 according to Natural Stat Trick. This would really help the Devils at the price of a forward who finally hit his stride. Devils fans might not like losing one of their former 1st-round picks to get someone who can kill penalties and play on the third line, but it’s a necessary evil of this situation.
This one would see the Devils lose an NHL player to get a future piece. Justin Barron looked really good this season after the Avs got him in the 1st round last season. The Avalanche do have a logjam on defense, and there’s no telling when Justin Barron could make it to the NHL without a few moves.
Is Miles Wood worth a player the Avalanche just spent a 1st-round pick on? The Avs know they have to do something to shake up this roster, and Wood comes with a certain mindset that would be good for the Avalanche. His hard-nosed attitude mixed with his ability to score clutch goals would be perfect for playoff hockey.
Wood is a frustrating player at times, but more often than not a good team loves having those players on their side. Now that he’s learned how to stay out of the penalty box, a team is going to pay handsomely for Wood. Barron is a really good prospect to get in return. He’s 6’2, so he would also add a little size to a young defensive group that’s small outside of Kevin Bahl.
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This deal gets a little uncomfortable for everyone, but it’s the right deal at the end of the day. The Avalanche make a trade on the backs of a major strength, the Devils get a really good right-handed defensive prospect, and the Avs get a piece that could help them finally get past the second round of the playoffs. This feels like a win-win at the end of the season, even if it might not feel like it right away.