Avalanche additions at Trade Deadline enjoying seamless transition, GM says 

MANALAPAN, Fla. -- Chris MacFarland walks into the lobby of the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa for an interview Monday wearing a Colorado Avalanche long sleeve quarter-zip, collar up covering his neck, pants, not shorts, and a hat.

It's a steamy South Florida afternoon. Sure, he's inside, in the comfort of the air conditioning, and although he's not giving off the impression, MacFarland, Colorado's general manager, might still be hot.

If so, he's right on par with his team.

The Avalanche are the hottest team in the NHL, winners of seven in a row and nine of 10, including 4-3 against the St. Louis Blues at Enterprise Center on Tuesday behind a hat trick from Mikko Rantanen and Justus Annunen's 30 saves, completing a sweep of a four-game road trip.

Colorado (44-20-5) has 93 points in 69 games, tied for first in the Central Division with the Winnipeg Jets, who have a game in hand. They have two more points than the Dallas Stars, who have also played 69 games.

"It's crazy," MacFarland said. "I think it's going right to the wire."

The Avalanche will be right there, helped by the moves MacFarland made before the 2024 NHL Trade Deadline on March 8.

Colorado acquired defenseman Sean Walker from the Philadelphia Flyers, center Casey Mittelstadt from the Buffalo Sabres, and forwards Brandon Duhaime from the Minnesota Wild and Yakov Trenin from the Nashville Predators. It traded defenseman Bowen Byram to Buffalo for Mittelstadt.

MacFarland, in his Avalanche quarter-zip, sat with NHL.com after Day One of the NHL General Managers meetings here to talk about the reasoning behind some of the trades, the impact he has seen from them, why they didn't add a veteran backup goalie, and much more.

Before we get going on the trades and what they have meant to the team, let's talk about Gabriel Landeskog. He is skating. Is there any thought in your mind that he would be a realistic option at any point in the Stanley Cup Playoffs?

"It's a good question and we're on record as saying we just don't know. There's no rationale response to our captain being out for two full years. The last hockey game he played was the night we were fortunate to win the Cup. I wish I could say we were dealing with a 4–6-week injury and at six weeks you know he's going to be back. This is not that and it hasn't been that. He had the surgery last year the first week in May and we were told it would be roughly 12-16 months before we kind of knew. The positive I can say is Gabe is doing good, but we are a long way from people banging on him, stops and starts, changing directions. He hasn't played a game in two years. I hope and it would be amazing for us and more importantly for Gabe. He misses it and it's something he's working hard for every single day, but we have a significant amount of term left with Gabe so we're going to do and he's going to do what's in the best interest of him long term, not to try and hurry back. But sitting here on March 20, we're still a ways away. There are more unknowns than knowns at this point. I certainly have never dealt with this situation in 23 years."

Let's look at the addition of Casey Mittelstadt and trading Bowen Byram for him. Can you take me through the process of making that trade, and what you have seen so far from Mittelstadt?

"He's an elusive, vision, pass-first type of guy that has shown he's a top-six player that can play with skill. In his few games with us that is exactly what he has shown. Getting him and Val Nichushkin back, it gave us a second line. For our coaches and our team, it has been a little bit of a struggle, forcing guys to carry a little bit of a bigger load. I think it gets more balance in our lineup.

"'Bo' is a really good hockey player and when I talked with our staff internally it was not easy. We all know how good Bo is and how good he can be. He is a guy that has a very good power play skill set. I think with Cale [Makar] and going four forwards and the amount of time they're on the ice, there was a part of Bo's game that was not going to be potentially maximized here. With that said, he was still playing 20-22 minutes a night, killing penalties, a tremendous puck mover, was awesome for us in the playoffs and just a really good player. So really when you start to think about it, what does it look like? You're not going to trade him for a 30-year-old or a pending free agent or something like that. At least from our end if we were even going to entertain it, it had to be for something that excites us and probably in the middle of the ice. If we were going to do something it was going to be for a young player with some controllability."

Prior to that trade you made the move to get Sean Walker, who essentially has been a replacement for Byram. Walker has been good, jumping into plays, scoring goals, creating. What were the scouts telling you about Walker and does it seem so far to you that it's been a seamless transition from Byram to Walker with Mittelstadt in the middle too?

"We obviously saw him when he was with the Kings a lot and obviously we watched him in Philly. What kept coming back to us is fit. He's right-handed, which was a draw for us, but the skating and the ability to bring offensive heat from the back end was a perfect fit for what coach [Jared] Bednar wants to do in having those guys join the rush. It's been seamless so far. The game against Edmonton he could have had a hat trick, but even the games before that he was jumping up, he was involved in the offensive flow and that's something we're very excited about down the stretch here."

How has the re-addition of Valeri Nichushkin change your lineup, impact the look of the team?

"It's massive. I mean, just look at our record with him in the lineup (31-11-3) and without him (13-9-2). It's night and day. He touches everything we do; 5-on-5, power play, penalty kill, 3-on-3 in overtime. I think Val is one of those guys that even if he's not scoring his details without the puck and his ability to track and turn pucks over and get us going the other way is huge. His reach, he's just a huge, huge piece and when he's not in the lineup it's a noticeable difference."

The goalie situation. Obviously, you like your No. 1 guy, Alexandar Georgiev. If you wanted to address the depth behind him before the trade deadline you could have, but that didn't happen. How are you feeling about the team's goaltending depth as the playoffs approach knowing the past two years, including your run in 2022, it has taken multiple goalies getting multiple starts in the playoffs to win the Stanley Cup?

"Listen, we lived it. Two years ago, Darcy [Kuemper] did get hurt in the playoffs and we had Pavel Francouz. We were spoiled by 'Pav' during his time with us because he was the quote-unquote backup, but he was the guy if he had to carry the mail for three, four or five games in a row we were very secure in his ability. That injury late in the summer threw us all for a loop. We took Ivan Prosvetov on waivers, and he banged out some wins for us in the first half of the year, which allowed Justus Annunen to continue to play with the Eagles in the AHL. He had a good first half.

"I think it's something that you assess and when you look at the needs of our team as we got closer to the deadline it was a calculation of how many starts are we going to have available and with the other needs we have? We have a finite number of draft picks and prospects, and what are the other teams going to ask for? I think we all saw it; goalies weren't moved until basically on deadline day and two of them got traded for each other. But I think Justus did enough to show us that he deserved a look. Like any young goalie there's an adjustment and you don't know until you know. I think you just have to get that game experience. He's been practicing with us. He's played two or three or four good games in a row now. We'll see. We definitely have a comfort level with him, and Ivan and we'll see where it goes."

Nathan MacKinnon continues to take his game to another level. This year, it doesn't seem like it's just at another level, but the consistency of that level is greater too. Is that something you guys talk about too?

"Yes. Nate has carried a massive responsibility for us every year. I think the way Nate prepares day in and day out, he probably tweaks things every year that he picks up on, but his drive and his want has been consistent from Day One. But I think this year with no Landeskog, we've had some adversity, losing Val, losing Sam Girard, he's had to carry a lot of the mail for us at times along with Cale and Mikko and Devon Toews. I know that pressure he does a great job with and we're very fortunate to have him."

You took a flier on Jonathan Drouin over the summer, signing him to a one-year contract with the hope that being reunited with MacKinnon, his teammate in juniors, would help him resurrect his NHL career. What have you thought of the results?

"Really good. Nathan obviously had a relationship with him. We all knew, our scouts, that Jonathan has really good hands, a really creative player. I think it was the other parts of his game that you're just not sure, the defensive contributions, the consistent work ethic, the play without the puck. Checking is not an option with coach Bednar and to Jonathan's credit he's dialed in, bought in and he's back to playing hockey and enjoying it day in and day out. He's been a really good fit."