Ahead of Friday’s trade deadline day, the Colorado Avalanche have taken another swing to improve their roster by acquiring defenseman Ryan Lindgren and forward Jimmy Vesey from the New York Rangers.
The Rangers received forward Juuso Parssinen and veteran defender Calvin de Haan alongside a conditional second-round and fourth-round pick, both in 2025. New York also sent the signing rights of prospect Hank Kempf to the Avalanche in the trade.
Half of Lindgren’s $4.5 million cap hit was retained in the transaction, giving the Avalanche more space ahead of Friday, March 7th if they choose to make another swing.
The 2025 second-round pick is conditional on whichever is Colorado’s better draft pick. They own Carolina’s second-round draft pick, acquired in the Mikko Rantanen trade. Whichever is higher in the draft order will be transferred to the New York Rangers.
The conditions for the fourth-round pick are the exact same as the second-round pick in this trade. Whichever pick between the Avalanche and Canucks falls higher in the draft order, that pick is transferred to the Rangers.
Lindgren found himself as a regular on the Rangers blueline, his tenure was never a certainty and that led to his name popping up in trade rumors. The Rangers agreed to a three-year bridge contract in 2021 with Lindgren while the defender felt that he would get a longer-term deal once his bridge contract was up.
Colorado acquires a strong defensive defenseman who is a great penalty killer and good at logging long minutes. The Avalanche have found their guy to replace Josh Manson while he is out due to injury. Once Manson is back, Lindgren will likely slot in just behind Manson on the depth charts.
Vesey continued to find himself struggling to get any meaningful work done in the Rangers bottom-six group. He’s posted just six points (4G, 2A) in the 33 games he’s appeared in, but he’s spent some lengthy stretches in the press box. Ultimately, the Avalanche acquiring Vesey is purely depth come playoff time as he’ll likely continue to rotate in and out of the lineup.
The Rangers, who enter today’s contest outside of the final Wild Card spot, are clearly signalling that they are willing to sell without completely waving the white flag on their season. Regardless of where the Rangers finish, trading Lindgren shows that the team is not going to go out and lose rental players for nothing or risk acquiring a player and miss the playoffs entirely.
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