The Athletic Hockey Show - Avs get Nelson in late-night deadline deal

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

The Colorado Avalanche and New York Islanders made the first big splash of NHL trade deadline day as the clock struck midnight with the Avs acquiring Brock Nelson and William Dufour, sending Calum Ritchie, Oliver Kylington, a 2026 or 2027 first-round pick, and a conditional 2028 third-round pick to the Isles.Hosts: Max BultmanWith: Peter BaughExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris Flannery Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Hey, everybody, Max Bolton here alongside Peter Boff for an emergency trade deadline podcast. The first, we hope at least, of many podcasts you're going to be hearing throughout the day, reacting to each of the biggest trades. So stay tuned to this feed for sure. This episode is presented by E-Trade from Morgan Stanley. Peter, we're kicking it off with a big one right around midnight here, Thursday into Friday.

The New York Islanders trade Brock Nelson and William Dufour to the Colorado Aval. They get back a Hall, Callum Ritchie, a first round pick in either 2026 or 2027, a conditional 2028 third round pick and Oliver Shillington. You covered the avalanche. I want to start there, and they get the best piece in this deal in Brock Nelson. Who knew when they traded Miko Raton that they were going to be getting one of the top rentals on the market now, but that's where they're at.

So are the avalanche going all in for this in your eyes? Yeah, I mean, I think you look at a lot of these teams. You look at what the Lightning do, or at least did in their cup runs and are doing again this year. And that's, you kind of just go all in every year you think you have a chance to win, especially when you have a core in place that is going to be there for a long haul, which Nathan McKinnon and Cal McCar are. They kind of, you kind of thought Mika Ratan was, obviously he's not, but they've got this core in place that they know is going to be really good every single year.

And now they're kind of at a point where they're just pushing the chips in every year. You saw last year they traded Bowen Byron for Casey Middlestadt. And they also got Sean Walker and Trennan. And they went pretty aggressive at the deadline last year. This year they're doing the exact same thing. They've essentially, if you look at the pieces they've brought in versus shipped out, they've shipped out Mika Ranton, Calvin DeHan, Yuso Parsonin, and now, I guess, Oliver Shillington, and then obviously all the other stuff, the draft picks and Calum Ritchie, to bring in

Marty Natchez, Brock Nelson, Jack Drury, Ryan Lingren, Jimmy V.C. Those are like, that's a big hall of players. They had to give up a lot, namely Rantanin. But they've gotten deeper, which is the reason they made the Miko Rantaninan trade. And now they have a big piece coming back that they hope can be their answer at second line center. So quite a bit deeper, to your point. I mean, when we talked about the Rantanin Trade, we were looking at that bottom six going, man. And now all of a sudden it's a lineup full of good NHL players.

I want to focus on one in particular. What does this mean for Casey Middlestat, the guy who a year ago looked like he was going to go forward as the number two center on this team? So that was my kind of initial question. I was watching the game when I saw, I think, Friedman tweeted first that he was hearing that this was in motion. And when Elliot tweets that it's usually like three minutes later when it's suddenly as official. I immediately looked for Casey Middlestat on the bench, and he was there because I was like, oh, I wonder if that's the return going the other way. What interests me about the avalanche and their situation here is that Casey Middlestead is still

a good, young, promising player who has had big offensive seasons and was great for the abs in the playoffs last year. So it's kind of, unless you know that Nelson is going to be around long term, you don't want to be doing a second line center search again this coming summer. So I wonder, this is pure speculation, but like what I would maybe do if I were GM, which I'm not, and that's probably a good thing for all 32 hockey teams, is I would kind of take a temperature on Brock Nelson, see if maybe you could get him to extend or consider extending, get a sense of what that number is. And if you think he can, you're going to be able to keep him, then maybe you look to move on from middle stat and

progress with McKinnon and Brock Nelson as your top two centers. And they could get stuff for middle stat. I mean, like, this is a guy who's had, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but 50, 60 point seasons is still young. I think he's 26. He's under team control. And I look at the avalanche right now, and I think that they're pretty close to being exactly where you want to be as a team.

But I do think their decor could maybe use some bolstering. think that Lingren was a step in the right direction, but I mean, tonight they have Keaton Middleton playing. Sam Malinsky's been in and out. These are fine depth pieces, but I think you'd rather have them as a seven and eight kind of defensemen going into the playoffs rather than your sixth defense, sixth defenseman. So that's my initial. I'm kind of word vomiting at you because this just happened, but my initial instinct is maybe they trade middle stat either to replenish picks or to bolster their decor, especially if Brock Nelson will extend long-term or if they think they can get him to do so.

And that was 59 points and 57 points in the last two seasons for Casey Middlesand. So very good production to your point. Do you think this is enough for the Avalanche to be a legit contender to come out of the West? Obviously, where they are in the standings, they're probably going to be on the road to start the playoffs almost no matter what at this point. But this is a team with playoff experience. they still have a couple of key pieces of those deep runs,

some of their most important pieces, really. You lose Landisog, you lose Rantan, and obviously Landisog's situation is its own thing. What do you think of the Aves' chances to come out of the West and make a deep run now in light of all this? Yeah, I mean, it's, the West is tough because it's so deep. There are so many good teams in the West. If the Aves were in the East, I would be like,

all right, abs in Florida, those are the two teams that are going to be kind of duking it out. maybe Tampa, maybe Carolina, you know, but in the in the west, it's, you look through and Vegas is really good. Edmonton, we saw what they're capable of. Winnipeg's having a great year. Dallas is awesome. So Colorado could have three really difficult opponents just to get to the cup final. I think this makes them a very legit contender. I would not want to play a team that has Nathan McKinnon, Kail McCar, Val Natchushkin, which, you know, obviously they have to have Valenuchkin in the playoffs if they're going to go on a deep run. But McKinnon and Nelson up the middle is about as good a one, two punch as you can have

unless you have McDavid and Drysidal, which someone in West does have those two guys. So I think this makes them legit contenders, but it's hard for me to be like they're, I feel great about them getting through the West just because of how difficult the West is. All right. Let's talk about what they gave up because it was a lot. For a rental in Brock Nelson, you do not typically see. both a first round pick and a prospect of Callum Ritchie's caliber going the other way. Those are the two I want to focus on.

Let's start with Ritchie. This is a player who they, Avalanche took in the late first round in 2023, 27th overall, but he's risen really nicely played a big role for Team Canada at the World Juniors. He's having a nice year in the OHL. What are they losing in Calam Ritchie? Let's frame with the other way. What are the Islanders getting in Calamich? Yeah, well, and I think with Ritchie, you would remember better than I would,

but I'm pretty sure he would have been drafted higher in his draft year, but he got hurt. I was still covering the avalanche at the time. I could be completely mistaken, but I believe he missed to the start of the next OHL season because he was dealing with injury, and that might have hurt his stock a little bit. But I think that's a high-end prospect. I think it's easy, again, when you have kind of your top six set or a lot of your top six pieces in place. You can be more willing to part someone like Calam Ritchie who, while he's put up really good

numbers in the OHL is still a bit of a mystery box when it comes to the NHL level. He was up at the beginning of this season, scored his first NHL goal, but I think the game was probably moving a little too fast for him, which is understandable. He's still really young. And then he got sent back to junior. So I think the Islanders are getting a player who has some potential to be a good middle six, maybe even a top six player at the NHL level. And then a first round pick that they can kind of do it whatever they want with.

If that's trade it, they can trade it. If it's take it themselves, they can take it themselves. But I also think from the avalanche perspective, it's a late first round pick. And not all first round picks are created equal. And I shouldn't say it's not certainly a late first round pick, but considering where the avalanche are, I would guess it's probably going to be in the latter half of the first round. And those picks are, if you get a good, good third rounder with the third liner with the 26th pick.

That's a great outcome. And I think you're the abs. You look at it as giving up a maybe a mystery box that's maybe a good third liner, maybe is more, maybe is less, and getting back a bona fide second line center. And that's a risk worth taking. This is the Islanders we're talking about. So we're dealing with limited information here. I don't know what determines whether it will be a 2026 or a 27 first round pick.

It just says one of the two, 2026 or 2027, even in the release. So I guess we'll wait for a little bit of clarity on that one. Do you know on that? Yeah, I'm on their press list and they're like release list. And there's no, it does just say first round in 26 or 27. So I'm not fully sure what that means. They also got a third round pick back. And these are two front offices that kind of operate in secrecy.

Lou is obviously kind of the greatest of all time when it comes to that. But Chris McFarland, he's kind of, he's hard to get, it's hard to get a great pulse of what's going on in Colorado too. He operates in silence himself. So I think it's both of them make it hard to get out. And that's probably why this deal didn't get broken until three minutes before it was official. How do you see the Islanders proceeding from here in the sort of, of, we'll call it intermediate future. I know the rest of the year, I don't think we're going to probably see them, although it's possible in the East being as crowded as it is making a push.

But do you see this as a team that's going to try and reload and make another push for it right away next year? Or is this the first sign of a team that's ready to start embracing maybe a more substantial retool at least? It's so hard to say with Lou Lamaralla teams because it doesn't, and again, Arthur Staples, my colleague out here in New York would probably be the better person to answer this. But it does. It's just. doesn't seem to be in Lou Lamarillo's DNA to just say, all right, we're going to tear this down to the, like, and retool, rebuild. He's always kind of trying to win, it seems like. And so it's kind of hard to envision him just giving up on next season. I think he's going to, I would guess he would continue to try and add. And maybe it's

adding with moves focused more towards the future. But like, I don't know, they've still got Matt Barzal. and Bo Horvatt and Noah Dobson. And that's not, look, it's not the core that the Colorado Avalanche have or that the Edmonton Oilers have, but it's something. And I don't feel like Lou Lamarillo is a guy who's going to sit on his hands with that. All right. A lot more still to come. That's going to do it for this particular emergency episode of the Athletic Hockey Show trade deadline edition.

But stay tuned for much, much more on the feed. As the day progresses, we'll talk to you soon.