Colorado Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic has made an early deadline-day deal, acquiring Vladislav Namestnikov from the Ottawa Senators in exchange for a 2021 fourth-round pick.
Avalanche Get Much-Needed Injection Up Front
Subject of many trade talks in the past few days and recently held out of the Senators’ lineup, Namestnikov will head to the Avalanche, who currently sit second in the Western Conference at 36-18-7.
The Avalanche are hoping the Russian can provide a depth scoring punch as they have received their fair share of bad news on the injury front recently: Nazem Kadri, Matt Calvert, and most recently, Mikko Rantanen have all gone down this month.
The 27-year-old Namestnikov is a solid two-way left winger also capable of playing centre. In 54 games for the Senators this season, he recorded 13 goals and 12 assist for 25 points while skating an average of 15:08.
The Avalanche will be the third team the 2011 first-round pick’s suited up for this season; he began 2019-20 with the New York Rangers but was traded to the Senators in early October.
In 416-career games between the Senators, Rangers, and Tampa Bay Lightning, Namestnikov has 79 goals and 104 assists for 183 points.
A Lateral Move for the Rebuilding Senators
The Senators are fully embracing a rebuild and will add a fourth-rounder to next season’s stockpile.
It’s a bit of a lateral move as they also traded away a 2021 fourth-rounder to get Namesnikov, Chris Johnston reports.
Regardless, the Senators are fully embracing a rebuild. They have a whopping 15 picks this June, including three first rounders — they acquired a conditional first-rounder by trading John-Gabriel Pageau to the New York Islanders this morning — and are in contention to win the Draft Lottery.
The fourth-round 2021 pick from the Avalanche is the third they’ve acquired for that draft from elsewhere, pushing their total to 10.
Declan Schroeder is a 26-year-old communications specialist and freelance journalist in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He holds a diploma in Creative Communications with a major in journalism from Red River College and a bachelors in Rhetoric and Communications from the University of Winnipeg.
Deeply rooted in the city’s hockey culture, the original Jets skipped town when he was two and the 2.0 version came onto the scene when he was 17.
