Colorado Avalanche general manager Chris MacFarland continues to work hard ahead of puck drop in the NHL season. The club announced today that it has traded defenseman Erik Brannstrom to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for defenseman Tucker Poolman and a 2025 fourth-round pick.

Poolman, who hasn’t played in an NHL game since October 2022 and isn’t expected to play this season, should end up on LTIR. Vancouver will also retain 20% of Poolman’s salary as part of the $2 million contract with the Avalanche. As for Brannstrom, he was placed on waivers as soon as he officially joined the Canucks organization.

Brannstrom, who signed with the Avs as an RFA last July after failing to receive a qualifying offer from the Ottawa Senators, was an exciting addition for Avs fans at the time. Brannstrom was selected in the first round by the then newly expanded Vegas Golden Knights in 2017 and was subsequently traded to the Sens at the 2019 NHL trade deadline as part of the deal that sent Mark Stone to Vegas.

He was never quite able to live up to his draft pedigree as a Senator, and many Avs supporters were hoping for a resurgence of a system heavily weighted toward Brannstrom’s strengths as a puck-moving defenseman.

Brannstrom simply hasn’t put together a great team for Colorado and had some difficult moments on defense during the preseason. Brannstrom competed with players like Calvin De Haan, Oliver Kylington and Sam Malinski for a bottom pairing job and was significantly outclassed by perhaps his most comparable competition for a job in Malinski.

With the signing of John Ludvig, a more physical defender from the Pittsburgh Penguins, the competition narrowed even further.

The Avs come out of this move with one less defenseman competing for a job on the bottom pair, but it remains to be seen how Poolman’s LTIR situation will benefit the club as it addresses the situations surrounding Gabriel Landeskog and Valeri Nichushkin in the coming weeks clarifies. The Avs cap situation will continue to be monitored as Nichushkin’s eligibility for reinstatement on November 13th approaches.