Colorado Avalanche Add Merkulov While the Cale Makar Extension Clock Keeps Ticking

The busiest front office of the past two months spent this week doing almost nothing, and that quiet might be the most interesting piece of Colorado Avalanche news going. The club added minor-league scorer Georgii Merkulov on a two-way deal, said goodbye to a bottom-six forward headed back to Russia, and otherwise sat tight on a roster that is pressed flat against the salary cap. Meanwhile, the biggest item on the franchise's to-do list — a Cale Makar extension — remains unsigned, and every uneventful July week makes that particular silence a little louder.

This Week in Colorado Avalanche News

The one transaction of note came Monday, when Colorado signed forward Georgii Merkulov to a one-year, two-way contract for 2026-27. The 25-year-old Russian winger put up 61 points in 70 AHL games with Providence last season and has 11 career NHL games, mostly cameos with Boston. It's a classic Avalanche depth bet: a productive minor-league scorer who costs nothing and might steal a fourth-line job in camp. There's a wrinkle that makes it more than filler, though — Merkulov spent recent seasons as an AHL teammate of Fabian Lysell, the former Bruins first-rounder Colorado acquired at the draft. Two lottery tickets who already have chemistry is a tidy little bit of shopping.

Going the other direction, Zakhar Bardakov's exit became official reading this week: the depth forward signed with SKA St. Petersburg of the KHL after one season in Colorado, telling reporters he hopes to return to the NHL someday. And just before the week opened, the organization gave the AHL's Colorado Eagles a new head coach, hiring Jussi Ahokas fresh off a Memorial Cup title with the Kitchener Rangers. One more note on what didn't happen: while 15 players around the league elected salary arbitration this summer, not a single one was an Avalanche player. The paperwork side of Colorado's summer is done. Jaden Schwartz, one of the new arrivals, was even spotted skating at the team's practice facility this week — a solid six weeks before anyone requires him to.

How the Avalanche Roster Got Reshuffled

Zoom out from the quiet week and this has been a genuinely busy offseason, most of it involving one trade partner. In June, Colorado sent Ross Colton and goalie prospect Isak Posch to Nashville for netminder Magnus Chrona and two third-round picks. Days later, Jack Drury went to the Predators too, in a deal that returned two 23-year-old forwards: Fedor Svechkov and Zachary L'Heureux, a 2021 first-round pick. If it feels like Nashville has Colorado's front office on speed dial, there's a reason — longtime Avalanche general manager Chris MacFarland left in early June to run the Predators' hockey operations, per NHL.com, leaving Joe Sakic handling GM duties in Denver. Old colleagues make comfortable trade partners.

The biggest swing came on June 25, when Colorado traded Valeri Nichushkin to Columbus for a 2026 second-round pick plus a third and a fifth down the road. Nichushkin had four years left on his contract and put up 49 points in 72 games last season, so this was a cap-clearing move first and a hockey trade second. Then, on draft day, Ivan Ivan went to Boston for Lysell, who signed a one-year deal in mid-July. The pattern is easy to read: out went established, mid-priced veterans; in came picks, cheap 23-year-olds, and cap oxygen for a team that badly needed all three.

The Additions: Schwartz, Juulsen and Value Shopping

Free agency was about filling the holes those trades opened, on a budget. The headline addition was Jaden Schwartz, signed away from Seattle on a three-year, $9.75 million deal ($3.25 million per year). The 34-year-old is exactly the kind of playoff-tested middle-six forward Colorado has imported before. Behind him:

• D Noah Juulsen — two years, $1.1 million per season, depth on the right side
• F Vinnie Hinostroza — two years, two-way, $875,000 at the NHL level
• D Christian Wolanin and F Georgii Merkulov — two-way flyers for the Eagles pipeline

The retention work mattered just as much. Around the draft, Colorado reportedly re-signed defenseman Brett Kulak — a February trade addition who fit immediately — to a five-year deal at $4.5 million annually, and brought back 41-year-old Brent Burns for one more season at $850,000. Sam Malinski, coming off a 40-point breakout, was locked up back in January on a reported four-year, $19 million extension and now projects into the top four. The departures were modest: Joel Kiviranta signed in Dallas, Jack Ahcan in Nashville, and Daniil Gushchin joined the KHL exodus.

Draft Class and Development Camp

Colorado went into the June draft in Buffalo without a first-round pick — again — but still came away with nine selections, its biggest haul in years. The first call came at No. 43: Egor Shilov, a winger who piled up 82 points in 63 QMJHL games for Victoriaville and won the league's top-rookie honors. The scouting staff was reportedly unanimous on him, which for a second-rounder is about as strong an endorsement as you'll hear publicly. WHL forward Beckett Hamilton followed in the third round, with the rest of the class tilted toward defensemen and goalies.

Development camp ran June 30 through July 2 in Centennial with 27 players on the ice. The standout was 2024 fourth-rounder Christian Humphreys, who arrived days removed from winning a Memorial Cup with Kitchener and an 85-point junior season. For a system light on blue-chip names, Humphreys, Lysell, Svechkov and L'Heureux represent a real infusion of near-NHL youth on a roster that needs it — NHL.com pegged Colorado's average age at 31.1, third-oldest in the league.

The Avalanche Cap Squeeze and the Makar Question

Here's the frame for everything above: PuckPedia projects Colorado at roughly $429,000 under the $104 million cap with a full roster, thanks partly to bonus overages and a slight bump that pushed Nathan MacKinnon's cap charge to about $12.6 million. Martin Necas's extension ($11.5 million a year through 2034) kicks in this season. That's the context for trading Nichushkin and shopping in the $850,000 aisle all July.

And it's the context for the Makar situation. The best defenseman alive is entering the final season of his deal at a comically team-friendly $9 million, extension-eligible now, and unrestricted next July. Nobody in Denver is panicking — but nothing is signed, and Artturi Lehkonen, Burns and goalie Scott Wedgewood also come off the books next summer. Last season sharpened the stakes: Colorado won the Presidents' Trophy at 55-16-11, got 127 points from MacKinnon and 100 from Necas, then watched an injured, diminished Makar and a seven-goals-in-four-games offense get swept by Vegas in the Western Conference Final. The lesson management appears to have drawn is that the top of the roster is fine and the margins needed churn. The lesson accountants will draw next summer is worth considerably more than $9 million a year.

The Calendar Ahead in Colorado

The NHL released its first 84-game schedule on July 16, and Colorado's slate has real teeth early. Key dates:

• Sept. 20–26 — four preseason games, home-and-home sets with Utah and Winnipeg
• Sept. 30 — season opener vs. Los Angeles at Ball Arena
• Dec. 31 — the 2027 Winter Classic, outdoors against the Utah Mammoth at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on New Year's Eve
• April 10 — regular-season finale vs. Minnesota

Training camp dates haven't been announced yet, but recent history points to a mid-September opening at Family Sports Center. The opener against the Kings — the team Colorado swept out of the first round in April — should carry an edge from puck drop.

Add it up and this stretch of Colorado Avalanche news is really one story wearing several hats: a cap-strapped contender that traded salary for youth, spent its remaining dollars carefully, and now waits on the only negotiation that truly matters. If the Makar extension lands before camp, the whole summer reads as shrewd housekeeping. Until it does, every quiet week in Denver comes with an asterisk.