3:51 PM: The Avalanche have confirmed the professional tryout agreement with Bellemare per a team announcement.
10:21 AM: The Avalanche and center Pierre-Édouard Bellemare are in agreement on a professional tryout, per Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. The French veteran will try to land a guaranteed deal during training camp for his second stint in Colorado.
Bellemare told French media last month that he intended to continue his NHL career this season and was training with Skellefteå AIK of the Swedish Hockey League while waiting for an offer to come to fruition. The 39-year-old has served as a capable bottom-six defensive pivot in the NHL for a decade but is coming off a difficult 2023-24 season that saw him fall out of an everyday role.
A UFA last summer after two seasons in Tampa Bay, Bellemare signed a league minimum one-way pact with the Kraken roughly a week into free agency. But a leg injury cost him over a month and a half from late December to mid-February.
Even when healthy, he was a healthy scratch for over a quarter of the season and only got into 40 games on the year. His offense was roughly in line with his limited career averages, posting four goals and seven points, but he averaged a career-low 9:50 of ice time per game.
He won 53.5% of his draws, though, and did have a positive possession impact in his limited role with a 54.9 CF% and 57.4 xGF% while having 60.3% of his even-strength zone starts come in the defensive end.
Bellemare’s defensive impact is more cerebral than physical, especially in recent seasons – he had only 20 hits and 22 blocks for Seattle last year, both career-lows. But he has been extremely solid in the faceoff dot after a rough few years in that regard to begin his NHL career with the Flyers. Even though he’ll be 40 by season’s end, he’s still a perfectly capable fourth-line center, even if his limited offense means he may not be an 82-game option in an increasingly scoring-oriented league.
The Avs will hope he can prove that in camp. They’re familiar with his game – he scored 18 goals, 15 assists and 33 points with a +8 rating in 122 games there across the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons while averaging 12:31 per contest.
If his PTO turns into a contract, he’d be competing for a fourth-line center role in Colorado that’s up for grabs. Chris Wagner is currently projected to fill the role after getting limited reps near the end of last season, playing double-digit games in an NHL campaign for the first time since 2020-21. 22-year-old Jean-Luc Foudy could also make an outside run for the role after playing 13 games for the Avs over the last two seasons, and there could be some other roster shuffling if 2023 first-round pick Calum Ritchie lands a spot on the opening night roster.
But Bellemare has far more experience in that role than any of them, with exactly 700 NHL games under his belt. Even if he ends up splitting time in the role with Foudy, Wagner, or others, he projects as a well-rounded upgrade in limited usage.