AVALANCHE SIGN FORMER EIGHTH-OVERALL PICK TO THREE-YEAR EXTENSION
The Avalanche have signed center Casey Mittelstadt to a three-year extension with a cap hit of $5.75M, per a team announcement.
Mittelstadt had two years remaining under team control, so his new deal buys one UFA year. He’ll be 28-years-old at the end of his deal, putting him in the middle of his prime when he’s able to cash in a long-term bet as a UFA.
The Minnesota native entered the season as a Sabre, beginning his sixth full NHL campaign. Buffalo’s eighth-overall pick in 2017 had been largely underwhelming through the first few years of his development, failing to crack the 30-point mark through his first four seasons.
But 2022-23 signaled a breakout for Mittelstadt, who contributed 15 goals and 59 points while playing in all 82 games to help the Sabres’ offense rocket up to third in the league. Although they missed the playoffs by one point, it was an important step forward for the pivot, who now looked to be part of a long-term one-two-three punch down the middle in Buffalo with Dylan Cozens and Tage Thompson.
But the Sabres’ forwards failed to carry over their forward momentum into 2023-24. An injury-plagued campaign from Thompson and regression from key pieces like Cozens, Jeff Skinner and Alex Tuch canceled out their strongest goaltending performance in quite some time.
Mittelstadt was one of the few immune to a step back in scoring, though. In fact, he was arguably Buffalo’s best center last season. He put up the best possession metrics of his career, controlling 51.9% of expected goals at even strength, and added 14 goals and 47 points through 62 games. He averaged 18:16 per game as well, a career-high.
That also meant Mittelstadt was setting himself up for a significant raise in the final season of a three-year, $2.5M bridge deal signed with Buffalo in 2021. Cozens and Thompson had previously been signed to long-term deals by general manager Kevyn Adams, and the Sabres had plenty of prospects still to come down the middle. That made him expendable and thrust him into trade rumors ahead of this year’s deadline.
Colorado pounced, parting ways with promising but injury-plagued defenseman Bowen Byram to acquire Mittelstadt. The fit was clear.
The Avs have had a gaping hole at the second-line center position since Nazem Kadri left for the Flames in free agency in 2022, one of the biggest factors preventing them from repeating as Stanley Cup champions. J.T. Compher tried admirably to shoulder those minutes after Kadri’s departure, but, like Kadri, he converted his breakout year into a richer deal in free agency elsewhere.
Ross Colton and Ryan Johansen also tried and failed to be effective as stopgap solutions behind Colorado’s primary option behind Nathan MacKinnon down the middle. The Avs were especially banking on Johansen, whom they acquired from the Predators at a half-reduced $4M cap hit over the summer, to be Compher’s replacement. But after the veteran struggled to produce with only 23 points in 63 games, Avs general manager Chris MacFarland had to make a move.
He found a willing partner in Adams, swapping Byram for Mittelstadt in an increasingly rare one-for-one deal. It immediately paid dividends. It took a little while for Mittelstadt to adjust to Denver, but he didn’t look out of place and added four goals and six assists for 10 points in 18 games to close out the season in an Avalanche uniform.
The playoffs saw Mittelstadt fully arrive, though. In his first-ever postseason showing, Mittelstadt flourished offensively with three goals and nine points in 11 games, getting 24 shots on goal and averaging 17:25 per game.
The Avs had strong shot attempt numbers with Mitteltsadt on the ice at even strength in both the regular season and playoffs, signaling he has the two-way competency necessary for a top-six pivot on a contending roster.
Now, Mittelstadt will hold that second-line center role in Colorado through at least the 2026-27 season. It comes in just around market value, too. Evolving Hockey projected a three-year scenario as the most likely deal for Mittelstadt this summer at a cap hit of $5.8M, $500K richer per season than what he’s ended up signing for.
With Mittelstadt locked up, the Avs have $10.5M in projected cap space remaining with a roster size of 15, per CapFriendly. That figure includes the cap hit of injured captain Gabriel Landeskog, who’s expected to return next year after missing two seasons recovering from multiple knee surgeries.
However, it doesn’t account for the $6.125M cap hit of winger Valeri Nichushkin, who will begin the season on the non-roster list while he remains in Stage 3 of the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program. He’ll be unavailable for at least a month as he serves a six-month suspension assessed in May.
Colorado still has a handful of notable pending UFAs in Jonathan Drouin, Yakov Trenin and Sean Walker.
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