Avalanche trade Tomas Tatar to Seattle for draft pick

Well then, who had this on their bingo cards?

The Colorado Avalanche have traded Forward Tomas Tatar to the Seattle Kraken in exchange for a 2024 5th round draft pick, the team announced Friday evening. This comes as quite the surprise, as Colorado practiced this morning and traveled to Winnipeg directly after, a very interesting time to make a deal. There was no word on whether or not Tatar accompanied the team on the flight.

Tatar’s Avalanche tenure comes to an end after just 27 games, as things never got rolling for the 33-year old Slovakian winger after signing a very late one-year contract worth $1.5 million on September 12th. He was only able to muster one goal in an Avs sweater which occurred on Monday in the club’s 6-5 win over the Calgary Flames, and with only nine total points on the season and inconsistencies in his ice time growing along with a couple healthy scratches, the Avs have decided it’s time to move on.

His departure opens up $2 million in cap space for Colorado to play with between now and the March 8th trade deadline, but with a handful of internal wingers potentially on the way (fingers crossed with Landeskog), there’s ultimately no telling how this money will end up being allotted. Some of it figures to compensate the probable arrival of KHL prospect Nikolai Kovalenko towards the end of the regular season, but only to the tune of $896,250 towards the cap.

For Tatar, he moves onto the Seattle Kraken, which is an interesting destination for him in his current position. For a player who was struggling to carve out a consistent role and produce offense in an Avalanche forward core, it’s going to be fascinating how Kraken Head Coach Dave Hakstol deploys him. Seattle remains largely unchanged upfront from the team that eliminated Colorado in seven games last postseason, but the scoring all-around has dried up substantially this season while the shaky defense and goaltending have remained shaky. Tatar figures to replace one of Tye Kartye or Devin Shore from Seattle’s lineup, but albeit an already-compromised one currently operating without arguably their top two wingers in Jaden Schwartz and Andre Burakovsky due to injury.