The Colorado Avalanche have chosen to not re-sign defenseman Ryan Lindgren, who has just signed with the Seattle Kraken. Lindgren was acquired in a trade with the New York Rangers during the 2024-25 season.
Lindgren’s deal with the Kraken is for four years at $18 million total, $4.5 million AAV. For me, that’s a steep number to pay Lindgren. I’m quite relieved that the Avalanche did not touch that number with the 27 year old.
Lindgren played in 18 regular season games with the Avalanche and 54 with the Rangers prior to the trade. He put up two goals and one assists with Colorado during the regular season and continued his lack of production into the postseason, with just three assists in seven games against the Dallas Stars.
Overall, Lindgren has just three goals and 11 assists in 50 career playoff games. That’s just not the type of production that the Avalanche want. He also had just 21 shots on goal since he came over to Colorado from New York. That’s also not ideal.
He had 26 blocked shots and 21 hits with the Avalanche, which is pretty respectable for the amount of time he was on the ice, which he averaged 19 minutes a night for Colorado after 19:56 with the Rangers.
At some point in a player’s career, you get to basically assume that what he’s shown on the ice over a certain number of years is what he’s always going to be. That’s not taking anything away from Lindgren—he’s still productive in some form and can help an NHL team. I just think that the Avalanche were hoping that he could provide more to the game offensively, which he failed to do, though his career-high in goals in a season is just four, which he accomplished twice.
He’s more of a defensive defenseman.
He was an alright player, but I am looking forward to seeing what type(s) of talent the Avalanche bring in to fill that void left by Lindgren.