Avalanche sign national champion defenseman to entry-level contract

The Colorado Avalanche have signed University of Denver defenseman Sean Behrens to his entry-level contract. It’s a three-year deal, set to begin in the 2024-25 season. 

Behrens will finish this season on an amateur try-out with the Colorado Eagles, who play their final two regular-season games this weekend.

Behrens is coming off a national championship win with the University of Denver, where he’s spent the last three seasons. He’s earned a prominent role with the Pioneers, ranking third on the team’s blue line in scoring this season with 31 points in 44 games and rotating into top-pair minutes. 

The performance brought Behrens’ collegiate totals up to 81 points in 112 games – making him Denver’s third-highest scoring defender since 2016, behind Ian Mitchell and Mike Benning.

Colorado drafted Behrens in the second round of the 2021 NHL Draft, following an impressive, yet contentious, couple of seasons with the U.S. National Team Development Program. 

Behrens served an incredibly important role with the NTDP, operating on his off-hand next to Luke Hughes for much of his U18 season. And while he performed well, some scouts remained bearish given his small stature.

Behrens has directly addressed those concerns in college, putting on mass and adding a substantial amount of grit, strength and defensive awareness to his game. Those improvements are maybe best quantified by his team-leading 70 blocked shots this season. 

He’s become a defender that can make an big play in all three zones — whether it be through nifty dangling, an impressive pass or a big hit. Behrens will certainly face plenty of challenges as he looks to maintain that physicality into the pro scene, but he could find a fast track to success in an Avalanche system that’s brought up similarly undersized talents in Samuel Girard and Tyson Barrie.