The Colorado Avalanche acquired Brock Nelson on March 7, 2025, along with prospect William Dufour in exchange for former first-round pick Calum Ritchie, a first-round pick in either 2026 or 2027, a conditional third-round pick in 2028 and defenseman Oliver Kylington. That move has paid off pretty well, considering the team lost Jonathan Drouin to the New York Islanders this past offseason in free agency.
A lot was made from the previous chemistry Drouin had with Nathan MacKinnon. Both players were with the Halifax Mooseheads in Junior Hockey, so that caused everybody to connect the dots. Then, the move to sign Drouin in free agency happened. Drouin signed a one-year deal in 2023, and then chose to re-sign with the team the following offseason, again for a single year.
On his first contract with the Avalanche, Drouin made $825k, while getting a bump in salary the following year at 1-year, $2.5 million. I felt like he should have re-signed with the Avalanche this past offseason, but that didn’t go as I thought it would.
Jonathan Drouin vs Brock Nelson stat-wise
While his best season of his career, goal-wise, happened in 2016-17 with the Tampa Bay Lightning (21 goals, 32 assists), his second-best season was his first year with Colorado, when he put up 19 goals and 37 assists. It felt like a no-brainer move to get him under contract for a second season. What could possibly go wrong?
Unfortunately, injuries played a role in Drouin’s second season with the Avalanche, when he played in just 43 games (just over half of the games on the schedule). He put up 11 goals and 26 assists. Even with that in mind, Drouin was able to secure a 2-year deal worth $4 million AAV. He’s got two goals and 11 assists in 16 games this season.
Meanwhile, Nelson has been doing quite well himself. In 2024 before the trade, he had 20 goals and 23 assists in 61 games for the Islanders. When he got to Colorado, he played in 19 games, recording six goals and seven assists. I mean, those are not earth-shattering numbers, but I can tell that he has fit in nicely as the team’s second-line center. In terms of faceoffs, under a solid sample size of 279 in 2024-25, Nelson won 49.8 percent of his faceoffs (167). This season, he’s won 50.8 percent (167 of 329).
I think the biggest takeaway is that both players have done well in their respective roles. The addition of Martin Necas and his insertion into the top line alongside MacKinnon and Arturri Lehkonen has looked pretty good. I think that his contributions have pretty well cancelled out the loss of Drouin. Additionally, adding Nelson as a second-line player was a good depth move.
Nelson is also a contributor on the team’s second power play unit, though he does not have a goal. He does have a power play assist. That particular unit is a major work in progress, as the team implemented a new power play coach, Dave Hakstol, who replaced Ray Bennett. The team hopes that the power play gets going sooner than later, as they rank 22nd in power play percentage (17.4 percent). Colorado ranks fourth in penalty kill percentage (87.9 percent).
Again, I stress the word “chemistry” because that’s probably the biggest thing in terms of team success. Once the Avalanche start to play more this year, we should see an uptick in goals per game and I reckon that Nelson is going to be a big part of the equation.
With all that being said, both Nelson and Drouin will want to go out and prove their former team that they were wrong to let them go to the other team. They square off on Sunday at 7pm MT.