Colorado Avalanche Could Solve Goalie Woes with a Trade

Age: 30
Current Team: Charlotte Checkers
Current Stats: 3.34 GAA, 0.884 % (NHL) in 8 games
All-Time Stats: 2.72 GAA, .908 % (NHL) in 126 games

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The Caroline Hurricanes are another goalie-rich team, and one that’s only three points out of a playoff spot at the time of writing. They have six goalies signed to contracts — Petr Mrazek and Curtis McElhinney with Scott Darling as the third stringer,

It’s Darling I’m looking at as a potential trade target. You might remember he was the “darling” (yep, I went there) of the 2015 Stanley Cup-winning Chicago Blackhawks. He’s a big (6-foot-6, 232-pound) goalie with an inspiring backstory that’s now fallen prey to the reality of pro sports.

Darling has only eight NHL games this season with the Hurricanes after a full season as their number one (?). His numbers weren’t great this year with the NHL team, and they’re not fabulous at the AHL level either — 3.26 GAA and 0.885 save percentage in 13 games.

Darling also doesn’t come cheap. The Hurricanes had to bury his salary when they sent him to the AHL, and he’ll be making $4.15 million over the next two years after this one.

Maybe a change of scenery would help Scott Darling again. That said, the Avalanche would not want to give up much to acquire the veteran net minder — Varlamov should be sufficient. It would be nice if Carolina would retain some of Scott’s salary. However, even if they didn’t, maybe he’d be a better “second number one” for Colorado than the tandem of Varlamov and Grubauer.

Like I said in the introduction, I highly doubt the Colorado Avalanche will make a move for any of the above goalies, or any goalie at all. However, it’s nice to think of what can be if the team decided to make a trade.