With the Colorado Avalanche making their first deal of the offseason with a familiar face, it pays to look back at one particular move said face made during his tenure in Colorado.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Chris MacFarland’s tenure was great. He took over for Joe Sakic during a team when it seemed like nothing could top what the Avalanche had accomplished.
For the most part, MacFarland was up to the task. Engineering the Mikko Rantanen trade was a masterful move.
But there was one move that stands out as the worst mistake of the MacFarland administration in Colorado. That was the Casey Mittelstadt trade.
This trade only looks bad because of the way the pieces fell into place.
At the time, Bowen Byram was considered a bit of a bust. The Avalanche had taken him fourth overall in 2019, expecting to find the next great blueliner for the organization. The 2020-21 season saw Byram play 19 games and pretty crash and burn.
Injuries and relatively inconsistent play sort of forced the Avalanche to use him as a trade chip to fill another major need. Colorado desperately needed a solid second-line center after Nazem Kadri departed via free agency.
So, why not trade Byram, who by all accounts had not lived up to expectations, for another apparent bust who could find his game with a change of scenery?
The idea looked good on paper with the Avalanche making a 1-for-1 deal, sending Byram to the Buffalo Sabres for Casey Mittelstadt.
Mittelstadt, for his part, was the eight-overall pick in the 2017 NHL Draft. However, the Sabres felt they just weren’t getting their money’s worth. The 27-year-old had played five seasons before finally putting up 15 goals and 59 points in 2022-23.
But he was in the final year of his current contract, and the Sabres just didn’t want to pay more than his $2.5 million cap hit at the time.
So, off to Colorado he went.
To be fair, Mittelstadt wasn’t awful in Colorado. He put up four goals and 10 points in 18 regular-season games in 2023-24. That year, he scored three goals and nine points in 11 playoff games. That’s why the Avalanche re-signed him to a three-year $17.25 million deal.
The following season, unfortunately, Mittelstadt just could live up to the hype. He was given a shot to be the 2C, but quickly slid down the depth chart. He had scoring droughts of 18 and 12 games. Overall, he scored 11 goals in 63 games, forcing the MacFarland’s hand.
Mittelstadt eventually became Charlie Coyle, who pretty much turned into Gavin Brindley.
Meanwhile, Byram has flourished in Buffalo. He’s become a solid top-four defenseman, scoring double digits in goals, while playing a solid defensive role. While he might not win a Norris Trophy, he seems to be fulfilling the promise that Colorado saw in him.
Declaring this move as Chris MacFarland’s worst is a bit of nitpicking. It’s not nearly as bad as some have made it out to be. But some have wondered how things would have worked out had Colorado not given up on Byram.
Incidentally, Mittelstadt put up 15 goals and 42 points in 71 games in Boston this past season. The numbers are completely in line with his career averages. So, it seems that MacFarland was right in cutting his losses when he did.
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