The Colorado Avalanche have a little bit of work to do this offseason. With one of the least amounts of cap space for the upcoming season, they will have to rely on re-signing some of their own players, as well as being smart with the incoming crop of players.
Unfortunately, they won’t be able to go big with signing mid-high tier players. So, their own will have to do.
The biggest name on their free agent list is Jack Drury, who will become a restricted free agent. That means that other teams can attach an offer sheet to him, giving the Avalanche a week to decide whether or not to match the offer. Drury has become one of the team’s biggest depth pieces as a fourth-line center. He had 10 goals and 17 assists last season while playing in all 82 games. I could see the Avalanche getting him signed for $2 million-$2.5 million AAV.
Avalanche’s unrestricted free agents
Here is an area where the Avalanche will most likely lose players. Unrestricted free agents can sign with any team once the free agent period opens up.
The Avs have just one forward hitting unrestricted free agency in Joel Kiviranta. Kiviranta is a decent depth player who wasn’t active for every game this past year. He played in 51 games, recording six goals and nine assists. Those aren’t numbers that will get him a massive contract. He’s not always called upon, but when he is, Jared Bednar seems to be alright with him in his role.
Kiviranta averaged 9:06 of 5v5 a game in 2025-26. He’ll be an easy re-sign for Joe Sakic.
The Avalanche’s free agent defensemen
This is the position where most of the team’s free agents are. Colorado has four defensemen who are scheduled to hit free agency.
They are: Brent Burns, Brett Kulak, Jack Ahcan, and Nick Blankenburg.
Burns took plenty of heat for some big mistakes in his first year with the Avalanche. However, he had 12 goals and 23 assists for the team while continuing his ironman streak of games played, having played in all 82 regular season games for the fifth year in a row… At 41-years-old.
He had 102 giveaways this pass season, the third-most of any player on the team. I’d be more concerned if the Avalanche had a bad year, but as the Presidents’ trophy winning team, that wasn’t the case. He could re-sign on a one-year deal if he chooses to extend his career.
Brett Kulak is another depth defenseman, who the team acquired in a trade that gave the Penguins Sam Girard. He had three assists for the Avalanche while playing in 27 games for the team following his acquisition. One thing I like about his usage is that he played with six different linemates, which is good in terms of versatility. The more you do that, the better you could become in different sorts of situations.
As for Nick Blankenburg, he was just a depth option and played just 12 games, scoring two goals and recording one assist since being acquired. With the Predators, he had six goals and 15 assists in 49 games this past year before being traded.
I don’t expect depth pieces to have a lot of scoring or paper statistics, but with that being said, he could be easily replaceable.
Jack Ahcan will spend most of his time in the AHL with the Colorado Eagles and would only come up as an injury replacement. The Avalanche have several AHL players they could call up in that role on the defensive side, but Ahcan got 11 opportunities, recording two assists.
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