The Colorado Avalanche traded Valeri Nichushkin to the Columbus Blue Jackets on June 25, sending one of their most recognizable forwards east for a 2026 second-round pick, a 2027 third-round pick and a 2028 fifth-round pick. The move gives Colorado a cleaner path toward the next wave of contract work while Columbus takes on a player still capable of changing a lineup when he is on the ice.
Nichushkin, 31, is signed through the 2029-30 season at a $6.125 million salary, and that contract is central to why this deal landed now. Colorado has looming extensions for Cale Makar and Artturi Lehkonen, and this trade helps open more financial flexibility before the 2026 NHL Draft, where the Avalanche are projected to have about $11 million in cap space and 10 selections after the first round.
That return is not the kind of package teams give up for a player at the peak of his market. It is the kind of package clubs accept when a good player comes with real uncertainty. Nichushkin has scored 131 goals and 283 points in 404 games with Colorado, plus 27 goals and 40 points in 74 postseason games, including a key role in the franchise’s third Stanley Cup championship in 2022. He still profiles as a 20-goal, 50-point campaign when healthy. The problem is that he has been available for only about 65% of Colorado’s regular-season contests since 2021-22, a rate that sits well below what teams usually want from a top-line forward over that stretch.
Colorado did not move him because he stopped mattering. It moved him because the future started to matter more. Nichushkin had become the odd man out despite being a fan favorite in Denver, and the club had been weighing a sale for some time as it tried to balance the cap sheet against the next round of commitments. The Avalanche are trading some certainty of production for the chance to keep the core intact around Makar and Lehkonen, and they are doing it with a player who once arrived as a non-tendered unrestricted free agent before the 2019-20 season after being a first-round pick of the Dallas Stars in the 2013 NHL Draft.
For Columbus, the bet is simpler and riskier at the same time. Nichushkin is now the highest-paid forward on the roster before any other offseason moves, and the Blue Jackets are down to only one selection in the top-65 of this weekend’s draft. They are paying for upside, not certainty, and the upside is obvious enough: if Nichushkin stays available, he can still look like the player Colorado built around in its best moments. If he cannot, the Blue Jackets will have spent premium draft capital on a contract that asks for patience they may not have. The next hard date is the 2026 NHL Draft, where Colorado can start turning this trade into whatever comes next.
