The Athletic’s Peter Baugh recently shared that defender Devon Toews expressed interest in staying with the Colorado Avalanche through the end of his career. However, Toews also mentioned that he doesn’t want contract extension talks to continue into the regular season.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman weighed in on this in the recent 32 Thoughts podcast, sharing that, in his experiences, whether negotiations carry into the season or not can be a good indicator of how close the team and player are. Friedman said, “We’ll see how long they continue to try. If they don’t negotiate into the season that says to me they aren’t close.”
The Avalanche acquired Toews in a 2020 trade with the New York Islanders, sending second-round picks in the 2021 and 2022 NHL Drafts. New York kept the latter pick, drafting Calle Odelius, but traded the former selection to the Arizona Coyotes along with a slew of picks to incentivize Arizona to take Andrew Ladd. Arizona used the pick to select J.J. Moser, who has already appeared in 125 games with the NHL club.
Toews has been a stout part of Colorado’s defense since 2020, recording 138 points in 199 regular season games with the Avs. He also factored heavily into the team’s 2022 Stanley Cup run, ranking second among the team’s defensemen in scoring with 15 points in 20 games. He also averaged over 25 minutes of ice time per game during the Cup run, confidently cemented on the team’s top line.
Toews’ current cap hit is $4.1M and, as Friedman mentions, there’s a good chance that he could make more if he were to go to the open market. Toews’ interest seems to be firm with Colorado but if contract talks stall during the season, there’s no telling where Toews may end up.
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