In a Friday night blockbuster, the Colorado Avalanche, Carolina Hurricanes, and Chicago Blackhawks completed a 3 team trade which will have major implications on both the Eastern and Western Conference playoff races.
The Hurricanes acquired forward Mikko Rantanen as well as Chicago Blackhawks left winger Taylor Hall to bolster their lineup and inject some high level scoring to their forwards group. Colorado received winger Martin Necas, who is the Hurricanes leading scorer this season, plus forward Jack Drury as well as a 2025 second-round pick and a 2026 fourth-rounder from Carolina.
Chicago became involved as a salary broker, reacquiring its own 2025 third-round pick that it previously had traded to Carolina in exchange for taking on half of Rantanen’s $9.25 million salary cap hit to facilitate the deal.
Rantanen is 6th in the NHL in terms of total points this season, with 64 across 49 games. A key member of Colorado’s on ice success of the last few years, the 28 year old became expendable after contract extensions stalled out in the offseason. Rantanen is in the final season of a 6 year, $55M deal with the Avalanche, but was seeking a sizeable pay raise, something that Colorado’s front office wasn’t able to accommodate with their existing salary commitments.
Reports indicate that the Finnish forward was seeking something in the neighbourhood of Leon Draisaitl’s $14M per year extension he signed with Edmonton.
Instead, Colorado gets a 26 year old forward with another season of team control beyond this year in Martin Necas. With 55 points (16G, 39A) across 49 games, Necas is an every bit the part of a top line forward. And at 6’3″, 195lbs, he’s no push over either.
That being said, Rantanen is largely viewed as one of the top power forwards in the game, so Necas will still have his work cut out for him to replace the production heading to Carolina. That sentiment was echoed by Carolina GM Eric Tully who quipped “Mikko is one of the premier power forwards in our sport… It’s no secret that we’ve wanted to add elite skill to our lineup, and this is a player who should fit our system and locker room well. And Taylor gives us another high-skill option to bolster our attack.”
Meanwhile, Drury is in his fourth NHL season with 46 points in 153 games, and will be a good depth addition to the club’s lineup. Across 39 games this season the 24 year old has posted three goals and six assists while averaging 12:53 per game. He’s currently making $1.725M in AAV and will become a restricted free agent in 2027.
The deal marks the first major domino to fall ahead of the March 7th NHL trade deadline. In the moments leading up to the trade, several outlets knew that a major deal was about to be announced involving Colorado. However several insiders falsely announced that it was one which would send Pittsburgh Penguins legend Sidney Crosby to the Avalanche to reunite with his east coast friend in Nathan MacKinnon.
While the trade frees up salary and also adds draft capital to Colorado’s war chest ahead of deadline day, Pittsburgh has publicly stated that they have no plans to deal their franchise icon anytime soon.
Photo: Jenn G. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.