One day after making a pair of big moves, the Colorado Avalanche made a pair of smaller ones Thursday to further bolster its forward depth.
The Avalanche added Brandon Duhaime from the Minnesota Wild for a third-round pick in the 2026 NHL draft, then acquired Yakov Trenin and prospect Graham Sward from the Nashville Predators for a 2025 third-round pick and prospect Jeremy Hanzel.
“The guys we added today are big, heavy bodies. They play a man’s game,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “They kill penalties and do a lot of the dirty work. They’re big, physical guys who play hard.”
Trenin had 29 goals and 48 points combined over the previous two seasons, but his production has dipped a little in 2023-24 (10 goals, 14 points in 60 games). He’s played mostly on the wing for Nashville, though Bednar said he’s seen video of him playing effectively at center.
Chris Wagner, who has been the Avs’ fourth-line center in recent weeks, was injured Wednesday night against the Detroit Red Wings and Bednar said the length of his absence is still to be determined.
Duhaime has four goals and four assists in 62 games this season. He had a career-high nine goals in 51 games a season ago.
Duhaime was a fourth-round pick in the 2016 NHL draft. While not exactly in the same mold as the recently departed Kurtis MacDermid, Duhaime has 230 penalty minutes in 193 career games and has earned a reputation as a hard-nosed player. He’s averaged more than 10 minutes per game in each of his three seasons with the Wild, which is twice as much as MacDermid played per contest for the Avs this season.
The Avs just signed Hanzel, a 2023 sixth-round pick who impressed during training camp, to an entry-level contract earlier in the day. Sward, a 6-foot-3 defenseman, was a fifth-round pick in 2022 by the Predators. Scott Wheeler of The Athletic did not rate Sward among Nashville’s top 15 prospects in his updated rankings last month.
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