The Colorado Avalanche continue to be one of the most active teams ahead of tomorrow’s 3 PM trade deadline. After acquiring Sean Walker and Casey Mittelstadt in separate trades, GM Chris MacFarland strengthened the team’s bottom-six by acquiring Yakov Trenin from the Nashville Predators. Here are the full details of the deal:
Trenin is a prototypical bottom-six winger. He hits, plays well defensively and can chip in some offense here and there. The Avalanche now look loaded for another run at the Stanley Cup. Meanwhile, the Predators did well to get some assets for a pending unrestricted free agent who may not have had a long-term future with the club. Here are the grades for each side.
Trenin an Incredibly Underrated Depth Winger
A second-line center? Check. A top-four defenseman? Check. Now with Trenin in the fold, you can cross out another item on the Avalanche’s to-do list ahead of the deadline. Their forward depth had been shaky all season, partly due to injuries. But after adding Mittelstadt and Trenin, that should no longer be the case.
Trenin had ten goals and 14 points in 60 games at the time of the trade, putting him on pace to finish with 14 goals and 19 points in 82 games, solid numbers for a fourth-liner. He was averaging 0.7 goals per 60 minutes this season for the Predators, making him a slightly more efficient five-on-five goal-scorer than Ryan O’Reilly.
Related: 2024 NHL Trade Deadline Tracker
Trenin has always been a decent goal-scorer, too. He’s averaged 15 goals per 82 games over the last three seasons, which any team will take from a fourth-liner. He’s an excellent forechecker and will hit plenty; he has 171 hits on the season. And he’s a better passer than his counting totals would suggest.
Not only does Trenin provide some offense, but he’s also one of the best defensive bottom-six wingers in the NHL. His even-strength defense ranks in the 95th percentile in wins above replacement among his peers, and his penalty-killing ranks in the 100th percentile:
Perhaps this is a stretch on my part, but acquiring Trenin may go down as one of the best pickups of the deadline. If that’s too much, then it’s certainly one of the more underrated ones. He’s the ideal fourth-line winger for any team and will help strengthen an Avalanche forward group that’s now much deeper with the additions of Trenin and Mittelstadt.
The Avalanche didn’t pay much to get him, either. Jeremy Hanzel does look like a promising prospect for a sixth-round pick. But given where the Avalanche are as Cup contenders, they’re OK with parting with someone like Hanzel to win another Cup.
Avalanche Grade: A
Predators Navigating Between Buying & Selling
The Predators have been navigating this trade deadline carefully. They acquired Anthony Beauvillier earlier in the day but also parted with one of the better bottom-six forwards in the NHL. They’re in a playoff spot and look like they have a decent shot to get in, so GM Barry Trotz likely doesn’t want to sell off too much.
We’ll start with the pick, which is a third in the 2025 draft. A mid-round draft choice for a player like Trenin is good work, but Hanzel seems like the more intriguing addition. He has 50 points in 58 games for the Seattle Thunderbirds in the WHL, putting him on pace to finish with 57 points in 66 games.
Hanzel was a sixth-round pick in 2023 as an over-ager. More often than not, over-agers do not end up becoming significant contributors in the NHL. But given his production for the Thunderbirds, there’s no harm in taking a gamble on him. He’s shown progress year to year in the WHL, so it’s possible he could amount to something. He has NHL size at 6-foot-1, 198 pounds, so the Predators must see something they like.
Losing Trenin may affect the Predators’ pursuit of a playoff spot a bit, but I think they’ve built up enough of a cushion in the Western Conference that it’d really take an epic collapse for them to miss. They could afford to move Trenin if they weren’t going to sign him, and they got a good return in the process.
Predators Grade: B+
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Advanced stats from Natural Stat Trick, microstats from Corey Sznajder (via JFresh)
