Avalanche trade for Lightning’s Ross Colton, expected to lose J.T. Compher

Colorado sent the 37th pick in the draft to Tampa Bay for the player who scored the Lightning’s Stanley Cup-clinching goal in 2021.

The move almost certainly spells the end of J.T. Compher’s time with the Avalanche. A person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press that Compher is testing the free agent market.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the team did not announce Compher’s expected departure.

Colton would fill that void as Colorado’s latest acquisition. The team traded for center Ryan Johansen, getting him at half price in a deal with Nashville, and sent pending restricted free agent Alex Newhook to Montreal.

The 37th pick going from the Avalanche to the Lightning was part of the return for Newhook.

Colton, who turns 27 before next season starts, also is a pending restricted free agent. He’s expected to get a raise from the $1.25 million he made last season.

He has 102 points in 240 regular-season and playoff NHL games.

The Avalanche are trying to rebuild, knowing captain Gabriel Landeskog will miss a second consecutive season while recovering from cartilage replacement surgery in his right knee. They’re able to put him on long-term injured reserve and use the $7 million in cap space.

The Vegas Golden Knights traded forward Reilly Smith to the Pittsburgh Penguins and re-signed Ivan Barbashev.

The Stanley Cup champions signed Barbashev to a five-year contract worth $25 million.

For Smith, they reacquired their own 2024 third-round pick they sent to Pittsburgh for forward Teddy Blueger prior to the trade deadline.

Smith was one of six original Vegas players left from the team’s inaugural season that included a trip to the final. Barbashev was a key contributor on the franchise’s title run with 18 points in 22 games.

The New Jersey Devils secured another piece from last year’s team, re-signing forward Timo Meier to an eight-year, $70.4 million contract through the 2030-31 NHL season.

General manager Tom Fitzgerald announced the signing of the restricted free agent on Wednesday, hours before the start of the league’s draft in Nashville, Tennessee.

The contract will pay the 26-year-old Swiss forward an average of $8.8 million annually with the deal starting at $12 million this upcoming season and winding down to $7.2 million in the last year.

“We were excited to acquire Timo at the deadline, but it’s an even greater feeling knowing that he’ll be here for the next eight seasons,” Fitzgerald said. “Timo’s unique blend of style of play, goal-scoring ability, and physical presence will prove valuable for us.

The NHL salary cap is getting another modest increase, going up $1 million again to $83.5 million.

The league and NHL Players’ Association announced the cap number for the 2023-24 season Wednesday. It’s the second consecutive season the cap went up by $1 million after staying flat the previous two.

This small increase was the recommendation made last week to the league’s board of governors. General managers were informed of the expected decision earlier this week.

There was a small chance the cap would get a bigger jump if revenue from previous seasons was enough to eclipse the money players still owed owners from the pandemic. That would have taken players raising the amount of money they make held in escrow, and NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh said they were not willing to do that.

The cap floor for next season will be $61.7 million.

The Arizona Coyotes have identified a half-dozen potential sites for an arena in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

President and CEO Xavier Gutierrez provided an update at the NHL draft less than six weeks after a referendum for a building in Tempe failed. Gutierrez said all of the locations would be privately funded and none would need a public vote to happen.

The Coyotes are going into their second season at 5,000-seat Mullett Arena on the campus of Arizona State University. NHL Players’ Association executive director Marty Walsh has called the situation bad for the game.