Joe Sakic and the Colorado Avalanche continue to shake up the roster, and this is the biggest move yet.
The Avs sent Valeri Nichushkin to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday, removing another member of the 2022 Stanley Cup championship team. Columbus is sending three draft picks to Colorado — a second-round selection in 2026, a third-round choice in 2027 and a fifth-rounder in 2028.
Nichushkin had 17 goals and 49 points in 72 games for the Avs this past season. The 31-year-old power forward has four seasons left on his contract with a salary cap hit of $6.125 million.
It is the third cost-cutting move of the offseason for the Avs, who were too close to the $104 million salary cap ceiling with four of the top eight defensemen from last season slated to be unrestricted free agents. The Avs now have 10 selections in the 2026 NHL draft, which starts Friday. They added No. 43 overall in this trade, and No. 74 in the first trade of the offseason.
The beginning of the offseason looks very similar to a year ago, when the Avs traded Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood to the Blue Jackets for Gavin Brindley, two draft picks and the salary cap flexibility to sign Brent Burns and eventually make in-season trades for Nazem Kadri, Nicolas Roy and Brett Kulak, among others. “Selling” early in the offseason to “buy” later in the summer or during the regular season has become a popular strategy for a few championship contenders with salary cap issues in recent years, most notably Vegas.
Colorado began this offseason with 17 of its top 20 players from the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs under contract for next season, but with a little less than $3 million in cap space. The Avs now have 15 of the top 20 guys back from last year, plus two young forwards from Nashville (Fedor Svechkov and Zachary L’Heureux) and nearly $11 million in cap space. The Avs now also have an obvious hole in the top-six forward group, unless the plan is to move Nazem Kadri or Nicolas Roy to the wing next to Nathan MacKinnon or Brock Nelson.
This ends an often productive, but also often turbulent tenure for Nichushkin with the Avalanche. Signing Nichushkin to a one-year contract in August 2019 proved to be one of the better reclamation projects in recent NHL history. Nichushkin scored zero goals in 57 games in his final season with the Stars.
Nichushkin became a critical part of the 2022 championship run. He had nine goals and 15 points during the 2022 postseason and became one of the best two-way wings in the league during his time with Colorado. His combination of size, skating ability, skill and defensive prowess is exceedingly rare in the NHL.
The story of Nichushkin’s time in Denver can’t be told without the reasons why he wasn’t available at critical times. Nichushkin left the team during the first round of the 2023 playoffs against the Seattle Kraken. An intoxicated woman was found in his hotel room in Seattle ahead of Game 4. He was not charged with anything related to the incident and has since claimed that he would have rejoined the club for the second round had the Avs advanced. The organization has never corroborated this.
Then, he entered the NHL-NHLPA player assistance program twice during the 2023-24 season. The first time was during the regular season, but the second came during the second round of the playoffs. He was suspended for at least six months just hours before Game 4, effectively ending Colorado’s Stanley Cup hopes, and was placed in Stage 3 of the program.
To Nichushkin’s credit, he has had zero off-ice issues the past two seasons. The 72 games played were his most since 2025-16. If he has another issue in the future, Stage 4 of the player assistance program includes a one-year suspension and no guarantee of reinstatement by the NHL.
When he was available, he was often brilliant, though less so at times this past season. His per-game totals this season were his lowest since 2020-21 and he had just two goals and four points during the club’s run to the Western Conference Final. He was also one of several key players who was injured against the Vegas Golden Knights or was playing through an injury in that series.
Nichushkin is the third forward from the 2025-26 Presidents’ Trophy-winning club that is no longer on the roster since Sakic took over general manager duties earlier this month. Sakic also traded both Ross Colton and restricted free agent Jack Drury in separate deals to former GM Chris MacFarland with the Nashville Predators.
