The Colorado Avalanche are looking like they will a new look in goal next season. On Thursday, Colorado traded for Rangers net minder Alexandar Georgiev for 2022 3rd and 5th round picks, as well as a 2023 3rd round pick. That clearly signals that the Avalanche are unlikely to retain Darcy Kuemper.
Kuemper is an unrestricted free agent who appears to be a cap casualty for the defending Stanley Cup champion Avalanche.
Sources also confirm Darcy Kuemper is out in Colorado. Pending UFA was too expensive to retain. He’s headed to market Wednesday. https://t.co/wu5gkcfWLv
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) July 7, 2022
The loss of Kuemper is sure to be felt by Colorado. He had a fantastic season for the Avalanche last season going 37-12-4 with a 2.54 goals against average and a .921 save percentage. Kuemper was overshadowed by Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, but played very well in the postseason as well going 10-4 with a 2.57 GAA.
Meanwhile, the Rangers obviously viewed Georgiev dispensable. Igor Shesterkin won the 2021-2022 Vezina Trophy as the league's top goalie. So, this move made sense for them.
The Avalanche will get what has been a career back-up in the trade. Georgiev posted a pedestrian 15-10 record with a 2.92 GAA and .898 save percentage. His career numbers are not much better than that.
Next season the Avalanche might be missing a lot of key players from their championship team. Center Nazem Kadri is also an unrestricted free agent. After missing most of the Western Conference Finals and the first three games of the Stanley Cup Finals, he returned to score arguably the most important goal in the series in Game 4. He scored the overtime winning goal, leading Colorado to a commanding 3-1 series lead that they would not relinquish.
Kadri is joined by Andre Burakovsky, Valeri Nichushkin among others as unrestricted free agents. Colorado has some work to do if they want to keep this train rolling.
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