Colorado Avalanche Make New Signings from the Eagles

The Colorado Avalanche made two AHL-level signings in two days — TJ Tynan and Jacob MacDonald.

The Colorado Avalanche have been keeping themselves busy. In the last couple days, they’ve signed two Eagles players to professional contracts.

Yesterday, the Avalanche signed T.J. Tynan to a one-year contract extension. The 28-year-old is finishing out the one-year contract he signed with the Avs on Free Agency Day last summer. The new contracts represents a pay increase of $100,000 at the NHL level and $75,000 at the AHL level.

Tynan, a center, has played 42 games with the Colorado Eagles. In that time, he recorded 5 goals and 42 assists for 47 points. He also represented the Eagles at the 2020 AHL All Star game.

Tynan played 16 games with the Avs this season. He recorded his first NHL point, an assist, on Nov. 30, against Chicago.

Today, the Colorado Avalanche announced that they’d also signed Eagles defenseman Jacob MacDonald to a two-year contract. The 27-year-old is finishing out a two-year contract with the team. Details of the contract aren’t available at the time of writing. This season, he made $250,000 at the AHL level and would have made $800,000 at the NHL level if he’d played.

Despite being a defenseman, MacDonald has had an impressively offensive year. He’s played 56 games with the Eagles. In that time, he’s recorded 16 goals and 26 assists for 56 points.

Colorado acquired him via trade last summer in a trade with the Florida Panthers. Colorado sent over Dominic Toninato.

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I’m not sure these two signings have any significance for the Colorado Avalanche. They probably just represent a little housekeeping. If they’re attending to their AHL players, then they have four pending restricted free agents:

• Logan O’Connor
• AJ Greer
• Sheldon Dries
• Hunter Miska

They also have three pending unrestricted free agents:

• Jayson Megna
• Mark Alt (the Eagles’ captain)
• Antoine Bibeau

I guess if they’re looking for things to do during the hockey hiatus, getting AHL signings done is as good a task as anything.

I don’t believe they will focus on NHL contracts right now. The fate of the entire season is still up in the air. Everything has been pushed back. While the end of current contracts hasn’t officially been pushed back — they’ll expire on July 1 — the NHL is likely to come to terms with the NHLPA to do so if they will, indeed, finish out this season.

What’s more, no one knows what the cap will look like for next season. While the Avs have plenty of cap space, they won’t want to start eating into that by handing out big contracts to bona fide NHLers.

Besides all that, Tynan and MacDonald have earned their contracts. Congratulations to both.