In one day, Nicolas Roy went from cellar-dweller to Stanley Cup or bust.
The Avalanche acquired the veteran in a trade with Toronto sending a conditional fifth-round draft pick in 2026 and a conditional first-round selection in 2027 to the Maple Leafs in exchange for Roy. It was a welcome move for Roy, who has fortified Colorado’s third line in conjunction with captain Gabriel Landeskog and Nazem Kadri, who was acquired by deadline trade the day after Roy.
“You go from definitely not making the playoffs to obviously the first team in the league and a team that’s pulling out every stop to win the Cup this year, so I’m really happy with how it turned out,” Roy said. “As a hockey player, that’s exactly what you want … Since I’ve gotten here, my goal has been to contribute in different ways, and I was able to do that in the first round (of the playoffs). Hopefully, I can do that again in the second round.”
In the Avs’ sweep of the Kings in the opening round, head coach Jared Bednar called Roy’s play “amazing.” Roy tallied points in three of the four games, including the OT winner in Game 2, an assist in Game 3 and another goal in Game 4. Roy’s plus/minus for the series was plus-five in an average of 12.87 minutes of ice time per game.
Those contributions came as a winger on the third line, a position that Roy played some previously when he was with Vegas from 2019 to 2025. A natural center, Roy’s versatility is part of what made the 29-year-old attractive to Colorado in the trade market. The deal to bring back Kadri, who was a key piece of the Avs’ 2022 title run, affirmed the fact that Roy would play winger while Kadri would be the center on Colorado’s new-look third line.
For most of the season, that third line was winger Victor Olofsson, center Jack Drury and winger Parker Kelly. Olofsson was dealt to the Flames as part of the Kadri trade, while Drury and Kelly are now part of Colorado’s fourth line along with Logan O’Connor, who missed most of the regular season due to injury.
Adding firepower for a Stanley Cup run
Bednar said the experience of Landeskog, Kadri and Roy was a key factor in Colorado’s sweep of Los Angeles, but the coach left the door open for a possible line shuffle heading into the second round against
“We’ll see who we are playing, and we’ll pick our lines based on (matchup),” Bednar said. “(Roy) is a responsible, defensive player, and that type of offense and the way he created it (against the Kings) can be repeated against any opponent. That was a favorable matchup for us — we had three veteran guys, all that have won a Stanley Cup, playing against a younger third line. They won that matchup, and that’s a big reason why we won that series.”
Roy was part of the Golden Knights’ Stanley Cup team in 2023, when he registered 11 points (three goals, eight assists) in 22 playoff games. He said he’s leaning on that experience in these playoffs as he continues to develop chemistry with Kadri. Both of those players aren’t just rentals for this season’s Stanley Cup run — Roy is under contract while Kadri is under contract
“I love the versatility of (Roy) taking faceoffs on the right side, and we can mix in a few extra plays in that regard,” Kadri said. “He protects the puck really well down low, he’s a great forechecker, he’s got some good vision too. And obviously he’s a big body around the net and he creates some havoc and chaos down there. It’s been fun to play with him and I think there’s already some chemistry there.”
Defenseman Cale Makar says Roy’s play since making his Colorado debut on March 6 has helped the third line bring “a consistent presence” on both ends of the ice. In 15 regular-season games with the Avs, Roy — a fourth-round pick by Carolina in 2015 who is of no relation to former Avs goalie Patrick Roy — had five points (three goals, two assists).
“(Roy and Kadri) find areas to get the puck to the net, which is great, and they read off each other really well,” Makar said. “It seems like they think about the game similarly.”
The Roy and Kadri trades were aimed at increasing Colorado’s depth and firepower on its latter lines, and thus taking some production pressure off the top line of Nathan MacKinnon, Martin Necas and Artturi Lehkonen.
Necas, who played with Roy in 2019 on the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers team that won the Calder Cup, said that goal has already been achieved.
“He’s still really good with the puck, just like he was (when we played together in Charlotte), and he’s a really good two-way player,” Necas said of Roy. “We’ve got more depth now, and you need that in the playoffs … When the top line isn’t clicking, we need other lines like the third one to contribute, and that’s what we did in the first round. We have to keep that going and (Roy) is a huge part of that.”
