The Colorado Avalanche have been surprisingly quiet at the deadline for the league’s worst team, but they’ve jumped into yet another deal by swapping young forwards with the highly-active Montreal Canadiens, sending Andreas Martinsen to the Habs in exchange for Sven Andrighetto.
Martinsen is the fifth new player that the Canadiens have added at the deadline, and continues their trend of getting bigger and tougher. The 6’3″, 220-lb. Norwegian winger played only limited minutes for the Avs and has just seven points in 55 games. However, Martinsen is a heavy hitter and plays in well to new head coach Claude Julien’s system of strong, two-way play.
Colorado took a long look at Andrighetto when he was on waivers earlier this season, and clearly decided they wanted to pull the trigger on acquiring the speedy Swiss forward. Andrighetto had 17 points in 44 games last season with Montreal but, instead of a promotion, he has instead seem less time and production in 2016-17. The Avalanche will provide some much-needed new opportunity for Andrighetto to show he belongs in the NHL.
Julien isn’t wasting time in installing the system he wants to play.