Avs acquire enforcer Kurtis MacDermid; Grubauer, Landeskog talks still ongoing

Sirens, whistles, BREAKING NEWS, the Avs have made a TRADE! Yeah, OK, calm down. The Avs acquired 6-foot-5, 233-pound defenseman Kurtis MacDermid from the Seattle Kraken today (hope you didn’t buy a MacDermid jersey already, Kraken fan) for a fourth-round pick in the 2023 draft. In other news, the talks between the Avs and Gabe Landeskog and Phillipp Grubauer are still happening, at least they were as of an hour ago when I got some information that they were.

MacDermid, 27, is pure depth material for the defense. I don’t anticipate him playing too much with the Avs, unless some serious injury problems occur (which, with the Avs, is probably a likely thing) or there’s a team they want a tough, intimidating enforcer to play against. Then again, who knows, maybe he’ll play a lot? The Avs won’t be pushed around as much when he’s on the ice, that’s for sure.

For the last two seasons, he was on the regular Los Angeles Kings roster, but didn’t play every night. He played 45 games for the Kings in 2019-20 and 28 games this past season. He had two goals, two assists, 36 penalty minutes and a minus-14 for the Kings this year. He did not have good puck-possession fancy stats at all.

He can fight though:

I asked a guy who has been around the Kings for years, and he said MacDermid is a “great guy, great in the room, beloved by his teammates.”

A lot of people ridiculed the Kraken when they used their Kings pick on Kurtis MacDermid, but as we’ve now seen: two teams wanted him anyway, after being exposed by the Kings in the expansion draft. MacDermid is signed through next season, on a one-way contract worth $875,000. According to PuckPedia, the Avs now have $16,271,870 of cap space.

As for the Landy/Grubi situations: We still don’t know what’s going to happen, but the fact that the sides are still talking, to me anyway, is a good sign. Usually, the Avs never talk to a player this late in the free agency timeline if they don’t think a deal can happen.

We just gotta wait still.