MASSIVE Avalanche Update - This has SERIOUS Implications | Colorado Avalanche News

We've officially reached the 2025 NHL trade deadline and the Colorado Avalanche made sure to stay very busy on the trade block all the way up till the last seconds before the deadline. Some new faces coming into the locker room for the Colorado Avalanche as well as some old faces, some veterans who played for this team for a while, left and bounced around to some other teams and now they are back, ready to make some noise as we inch closer and closer to the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs. We're gonna dive into all the latest trade news and other information that you need to know right here on Avalanche Digest. But before we do so, I wanna remind you if you're not subscribed to Av's Digest, make sure to hit that subscribe button. You don't wanna miss all the latest news and updates on your Colorado Avalanche. Let's first dive into this trade in which Eric Johnson, the seasoned Colorado Avalanche veteran comes back to Colorado and is excited to be back in his original home team and potentially run back another Stanley Cup with some of his best friends who play on the Colorado Avalanche. It was a one-way deal with the Philadelphia Flyers which sent Eric Johnson back to Colorado in exchange for Giovanni Smith, a forward that we received earlier in this season in a trade package from San Jose. Smith was a part of the deal in which we traded away Alexander Georgiev and Kovalenko in exchange for McKenzie Blackwood and Giovanni Smith. Obviously, McKenzie Blackwood was a huge pickup for Colorado, playing in front of a very strong offense with a lot of depth in the Colorado Avalanche this season. You've seen his numbers and his statistics increase immensely. He's improved a ton as a goalie. He's putting up a lot of amazing statistics. Giovanni Smith, on the other hand, receiving him from San Jose, obviously the biggest point of that trade was getting a goalie that was gonna do better as far as save percentage and performance goes. Giovanni Smith, not as large of a part of that deal, and he didn't do a ton for the Avs. He didn't make a ton of noise, didn't have a ton of stats. Not sure if he even recorded a single point with Colorado Avalanche while he was here. Nevertheless, we end up trading him away to the Philadelphia Flyers, and we get back an Avalanche veteran who has a ton of experience playing with this team. He won a cup with this team, and not to mention he's a phenomenal defensive player, very large player, and just really good addition for the Avs overall. Let's take a look at some of Eric Johnson's stats this season. 22 games, one goal, two assists, and three points, so a very quiet season for Eric Johnson. He was injured. He went out with a lower body injury in early January. That is why there's only 22 games, but also Philadelphia Flyers haven't been utilizing him a ton, and in the goals, excuse me, in the times that he has been playing for Philadelphia, as I said, one goal, two assists, and three points. 14 shots on goal, 18 giveaways, eight takeaways. His plus minus is minus three, so not a lot of numbers for Eric Johnson this season. Somewhat of a quiet season, you might say, but still, as I said, he has a ton of experience playing with the Colorado Avalanche. He has the team cohesion and the team chemistry. He's very close with Nathan McKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog, if we'll ever see him come back, and another thing about Eric Johnson is he is a very defensive defenseman. He's not the Kale McCarr type of defenseman where you're gonna see him scoring a lot and making a lot of offensive noise. He is a defensive defenseman. He is making strong back checks, making amazing plays, hitting people, and stopping a lot of offense from being generated on the other side of the ice, so not only is he a huge pickup for the Avs in a sense that he's a veteran and knows this team very well, but he also is a very strong defenseman, and seeing him back in the lineup is going to be very exciting for this Avs team. Speaking of trades, the Avs have picked up so many players before this deadline, Scott Wedgwood, a new goalie, Brock Nelson, Marty Natchez, Jack Drury, and a ton more players, and something interesting about the fact that so many players have been picked up is how different this Colorado Avalanche lineup is now that we are outside of the trade deadline. So let's take a look at the October 9th lineup. This was the first regular season game of this season in the NHL where the Avs played in Vegas against the Golden Knights. They lost that game eight to four. The lineup was Jonathan Duran, Nathan McKinnon, and Mikko Rantnan, Kovalenko, Mittelstadt, and Richie, Miles Wood, Ross Colton, and Logan O'Connor with Ivan Ivan, Parker Kelly, and Yoel Kiviranta, all playing at the forward position for Colorado. Defensive pairings were Devon Tabes, Cale McCarr, Sam Gerrard, Josh Manson, Calvin DeHaan, and Sam Malinsky, and the goalies, Alexander Georgiev and Eustace Anunen. It's now March and we have traded away Mikko Rantnan, Kovalenko, Casey Mittelstadt, Callum Richie, and Alexander Georgiev and Eustace Anunen. Lot of trades and the Colorado Avalanche have basically reworked their entire lineup ahead of this 2025 trade deadline as they want to try to make as much noise as they possibly can heading into a potential spot in the 2025 playoffs. Here is the lineup for yesterday's game against the Toronto Maple Leafs where the Avs added to their win streak and had a seven to four win over the Maple Leafs. Arturi Lekkonen, Nathan McKinnon, and Marty Natchez who came in the Carolina Hurricanes package when we traded away Mikko Rantnan. Larry Nichushkin, Brock Nelson, and Jonathan Druan. Yoel Kiviranta, Charlie Coyle, Ross Colton, Vessi Drury, and Logan O'Connor. And deep pairings were Devon Tabes, Cale McCarr, Ryan Lindgren, Josh Manson, Sam Gerrard, and Eric Johnson, the man, the myth, the legend who comes back from the Philadelphia Flyers eager and excited to be a Colorado Avalanche player again. So the fact that Marty Natchez, Brock Nelson, Charlie Coyle, Vessi, Ryan Lindgren are all players who we've received in large market trade deals ever since we started making, oh, and of course, Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgwood reworking the entire goalie tandem, getting a ton of huge and like large asset players ahead of the trade deadline. It was a very exciting and awesome thing for this Colorado Avalanche team to do. I'm a big fan of what this front office has been cooking up, Chris McFarlane, Joe Sackick, making all the moves that they're making. It's essentially cup or bust. They have a really unique set of talent in their locker room right now. Obviously, you have Nathan McKinnon and Cale McCarr, two of the best National Hockey League players you will ever see hit the ice in this modern era. McKinnon, just last night, hit the 100-point mark this season, the first player to do it in the 2024-2025 NHL season. But essentially, this is a now or never scenario where the Avs have to basically do whatever they can to try and win a Stanley Cup with the talent that they have right now. So they're gonna need to do everything that they can in order to make a strong performance in the 2025 playoffs and see if they can get through some of the other juggernaut teams that are competing for a Stanley Cup this season. Speaking of players who have also been making a ton of noise for the Colorado Avalanche this season, that is Valery Nachushkin. 26 games this season, he has 15 goals and eight assists. Nachushkin is an interesting topic of conversation because over the last two seasons, we've seen him in and out of the lineup for various reasons. The most notable occurrence of this was in the first and second round of the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs where the Avs took a 4-1 series win over the Winnipeg Jets. Nachushkin was leading the league in playoff goals with nine goals before leaving the lineup and the playoffs and going into the NHL PA to get his mind right and get back to a good mental state before coming back and playing for the Colorado Avalanche. But having him back in this lineup is huge. He just had a massive hat trick in the game against the Toronto Maple Leafs the other night and his cohesion and his depth and just his straight skill level that he has and that he offers to this Colorado Avalanche team is absolutely massive. I hear a lot of people say it, if mind and body are both right at the same time, if he feels good mentally and he's playing well and he's healthy, he is a massive asset for this team and we're hoping to continue to see him do very well as the Avs inch closer to trying to make another Stanley Cup playoffs run. We're getting closer and closer to seeing the Avs in the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs. The trade deadline is officially over and for the first time this season, it feels like the Colorado Avalanche lineup is set and firm and ready to go. We'll see what they're able to do in the coming weeks and if they can continue their five-game win streak heading into the remainder of March in the NHL season.