Denver, CO (SportsNetwork.com) – The Colorado Avalanche added experience to their defense on Tuesday, acquiring veteran Brad Stuart from the San Jose Sharks for two draft picks.<\/p>\n
The Sharks received a second-rounder in 2016 and a sixth-rounder in 2017.<\/p>\n
“The acquisition of Brad helps strengthen our blue line,” said Avalanche executive vice president of hockey operations Joe Sakic. “He is a proven, quality defenseman and his addition will help our team.”<\/p>\n
Stuart, 34, has played in nearly 1,000 games since breaking into the NHL in 1999, a year after he was selected third overall by San Jose.<\/p>\n
The Alberta native has totaled 77 goals and 245 assists in 985 games with the Sharks, Boston, Calgary, Los Angeles and Detroit. He won a Stanley Cup with the Red Wings in 2008.<\/p>\n
Colorado also signed defenseman Nick Holden to a three-year contract extension through the 2017-18 season and reached deals with four free agents, including forward Jesse Winchester.<\/p>\n
A healthy scratch early in the season, Holden, 27, became a steady presence on the blueline and finished with 10 goals and 15 assists in 54 games for the Avalanche.<\/p>\n
Winchester has skated in 285 games over six NHL seasons, the first five of which he spent with the Ottawa Senators. The 30-year-old was with Florida during the 2013-14 campaign and recorded a career-best nine goals along with nine assists over 52 games as a member of the Panthers.<\/p>\n
Winchester, along with defenseman Zach Redmond and forward Ben Street, agreed to terms on a two-year contract, with the Avalanche also signing defenseman Bruno Gervais for one year.<\/p>\n
Gervais owns 418 games of NHL experience but spent all of last season with the Adirondack Phantoms, Philadelphia’s American Hockey League affiliate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Denver, CO (SportsNetwork.com) – The Colorado Avalanche added experience to their defense on Tuesday, acquiring veteran Brad Stuart from the San Jose Sharks for two draft picks. The Sharks received a second-rounder in 2016 and a sixth-rounder in 2017. “The acquisition of Brad helps strengthen our blue line,” said Avalanche executive vice president of hockey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nhl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20298"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20339,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20298\/revisions\/20339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}