Avs Trade For Depth To Go On Deep Playoff Run

Colorado Avalanche executive vice president/general manager Joe Sakic hinted prior to the start of free agency that the trade route might be the best way for his club to add reinforcements to its roster this offseason.
While Sakic certainly perused the free agent market for NHL talent, he found exactly what he wanted in a top-six winger and depth defenseman by making a couple of deals.

The Avalanche acquired two-time Stanley Cup champion and five-time 20-goal scorer Brandon Saad from the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday and then traded for the New York Islanders' Devon Toews on Monday following the defenseman's breakout campaign where he recorded 26 points (six goals and 22 assists) in 68 games in 2019-20.
"We're trying to put together as deep as a team as possible to make a run this year," Sakic said this week.
Colorado parted with its second-round draft picks in 2021 and 2022 to obtain Toews and gave up defenseman Nikita Zadorov and prospect rear guard Anton Lindholm to acquire Saad. The Avs also received minor-league defender Dennis Gilbert in the deal with the Blackhawks.

While it was tough to lose a player of Zadorov's ilk after he spent five years patrolling Colorado's blue line, getting a player with the championship pedigree and skill of Saad was key in the exchange of the 6-foot-6, 225-pound Russian.
"We just felt this was the best thing for us. We were looking for a second-line player, I think that's the one thing that we wanted to address, maybe a top-four D-man also to help us out there," Sakic said. "We are extremely happy to have Brandon with us. He is a guy that we watched for years, and we think he is going to be a great fit as one of our top six. We feel like we've solidified our top-six group and also our bottom six, so we are pretty content with the depth that we have up front for sure."
The Avalanche's projected lineup for next season might be as balanced and deep now as it was back when Sakic was winning Stanley Cups and division titles as a player. The talent in Colorado's top two lines will be hard to match around the league and there are several players in the team's bottom six that have the capability and skill to play up in the lineup as well.

The team also has several other forward prospects with the American Hockey League's Colorado Eagles that are looking for more playing time in the NHL, creating an advantageous situation for the club should it face another string of injuries like it experienced this past campaign.
Twice during the 2019-20 regular season the Avalanche was without large portions of its roster due to ailments, but the squad was still able to finish in second place in the Western Conference and was in a position to take the top spot if the season wasn't paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Avs were almost completely healthy once games resumed for the Stanley Cup Qualifiers and Playoffs, but they again faced injury trouble in the second round of the postseason against the Dallas Stars. In Game 7 of that series, Colorado was without seven players, including its top two goalies, captain Gabriel Landeskog, veteran D-man Erik Johnson and two depth forwards in Matt Calvert and Joonas Donskoi.
It's unknown if the Avs would have won that series against the eventual Stanley Cup runner-up instead of falling in that decisive contest in overtime if they had more healthy bodies, but Sakic is giving his team the best chance to overcome such adversity next year with the additions of Toews and Saad.
"You have to have depth to win, and we feel like we addressed that," said the Colorado GM.

Toews fills out the team's six projected starting spots on defense and allows for younger players in the system to develop at their own pace. Conor Timmins completed his first pro season in 2019-20--making the Avs' lineup for opening night and then seeing playing time in the playoffs--and 19-year-old prospect Bowen Byram could make the jump to the pro level after having success in junior and being named to Colorado's expanded postseason roster in the Edmonton hub city.
"We've seen enough of Conor, we know enough that he might be ready to take the next step," Sakic said. "Byram, we're going to give him every opportunity--but also knowing that we don't want to put a lot of pressure on them. We want them to come in slowly and at their own pace."
The addition of Toews to an already strong group that includes Johnson, Ian Cole, Samuel Girard, Ryan Graves and Calder Trophy-winner Cale Makar will allow the Avalanche to ease its prospects into the best league in the world with hopes of them possibly being ready for full-time action the following year.
Having young players contribute in future seasons will be key to the Avs' success.
Colorado is expected to have room under the salary cap to possibly make more moves before or during next season, but the team will join most, if not all, other teams in the league in facing a serious cap crunch after the upcoming campaign. The 2020-21 salary cap is staying at the same $81.5 million upper limit that it was last year, and it could remain that way for several more years due to economic concerns of the league created from the current pandemic.
The Avalanche has several key players it needs to sign before 2021-22 that could limit its future free agent signings, and the moves Sakic made this year kept that in mind. Among the current Avs that are in need of new contracts after the upcoming season are Landeskog, Makar and goaltender Philipp Grubauer.

Free agents this year are already feeling the effects of the flat cap as every team has fewer jobs and less money available to pay players.
Sakic fully realizes that and wants to protect his club's ability to make moves in future years.
"You see the marketplace, the flat cap is hurting a lot of teams, and it's not even this year, it's knowing that it's going to be flat for the next couple years," Sakic said of the current realities facing teams and players. "It does make it a lot more difficult. You just have to be really careful when looking in the future. We know the contracts that we have coming up next year, so whatever we do this year we wanted to make sure that we keep our flexibility to sign the guys that we need to sign from our own group.
"It is a different situation; it will be tough for a lot of teams. You see in the marketplace in free agency, other years a lot [of players] who are still out there would have been signed by now. It's just a tough marketplace."