Colorado Avalanche made a major mistake not signing Calgary Flames star when they had the chance
Photo credit: The New York Times / Peter Baugh
The opportunity has passed, and the truth of the matter is that the Colorado Avalanche won't be adding a true second-line center anytime soon.
The most legitimate second-line center the Avalanche have had in years is when Nazem Kadri had a career year in his third and final season with the Avalanche during their 2022 Stanley Cup championship.
Colorado Avalanche made a big mistake not signing Calgary Flames star when they had the chance.
Jackie Kay from Mile High Hockey writes that It's time to accept reality and shift to a new approach. This doesn't mean giving up on improving the roster, but fixating on finding the perfect player for a specific role, without having the means to acquire them, has causes repeated setbacks and hindered the team's progress toward becoming a championship contender again.
Here's a list of failed second-line centers that have attempted to fill that role.
"The first year after Nazem Kadri departed, the 2C reins were given to JT Compher and in hindsight his performance in that role was the best Colorado has enjoyed since lifting the Stanley Cup. So, the failure isn't on Compher himself but on the organization for deeming it not good enough, letting Compher walk for nothing and then replacing him with inferior players with worse results." -Kay
At $5.1 million price tag, or potentially less with a hometown discount, he might have been an affordable solution, supported by other forwards to create championship-level depth, allowing the team to allocate assets and funds to other areas.
"At the time acquiring Ryan Johansen season in a trade from the Nashville Predators for completely free and at a $4M salary for two years sounded like a great bargain and an acceptable solution to replace Compher for the 2023-24 season." -Kay
Unfortunately, it proved too good to be true, as Johansen struggled mightily in Colorado, managing just 14 total 5v5 points over 63 games, despite a short-lived hot streak on the power play.
"The brilliant idea to throttle Colorado's competitive advantage on the back end by moving number three defenseman Bowen Byram for Casey Mittelstadt must not have passed by the pro scouts who should have known that the 26-year-old center's passive and non-physical play wasn't going to work for Bednar and his forecheck-heavy system but the Avalanche made the move anyway." -Kay
A brief surge of production late in the 2023-24 season hid these issues, but when it came time to lead the second line at the start of the 2024-25 season, Mittlestadt was unable to maintain the pace.
"Finally, even with the difficulties in fulfilling this elusive 2C position, the Avalanche decided at the 2025 trade deadline to use all remaining resources on a Hail Mary to rent 33-year-old center Brock Nelson to make it look like the 2C problem was solved." -Kay
Despite his price tag, Nelson also failed to boost the second line or control play, ending the regular season with a disappointing 49.84% expected goals average.
"A better plan is to look at how the depth of the teams still playing for the Stanley Cup is constructed and see that their approach focuses more on a top-nine forward group." -Kay
We'll have to wait a bit longer to see how management decides to deal with this problem.
| POLL | ||
MAI 29 | 35 ANSWERS Colorado Avalanche made a major mistake not signing Calgary Flames star when they had the chance Do you think the Colorado Avalanche need a star second-line center to win another Stanley Cup? | ||
| yes | 26 | 74.3 % |
| no | 9 | 25.7 % |
| List of polls | ||
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