Martin Kaut leaves HC Dynamo, joins MODO Hockey

With COVID-19 cases on the rise in the Czech Republic, the Avalanche have decided it would be best to pull top-forward prospect Martin Kaut from his loan with HC Dynamo Pardubice of the Czech Extraliga and reassign him to MODO Hockey of Sweden’s Allsvensken league.

The Avs 2018 first-round selection (16th overall) joined Dynamo on loan back in September. Since then, coronavirus cases in Kaut’s home country of the Czech Republic have spiked from just over a 1,000 a day to nearly 16,000 new cases per day. With this rapid uptick in COVID numbers, Czechia has shut down, including schools, restaurants, bars and hockey teams in an attempt to gain ground of the virus. With that, the Avalanche thought it best to withdraw Kaut from his loan there and instead send him to the Allsvensken league, the second-highest tier of pro hockey in Sweden.