Avalanche sign Brock Nelson to $22.5 million contract extension before free agency
The Colorado Avalanche have signed Brock Nelson to a three-year contract extension, the team announced via X, formerly Twitter.
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Nelson, who was traded to Colorado by the New York Islanders in March, will earn $22.5 million over the three-year deal. His $7.5 million AAV would rank second-highest on the Avalanche's current roster, behind only 2024 Hart Trophy winner Nathan MacKinnon, whose $12.6 million average is among the highest in the NHL.
In 19 regular-season games with the Avs, Nelson scored 13 points — 6 goals and 7 assists — and he recorded 4 assists in Colorado's seven-game series loss to the Dallas Stars in the first round. For the season, Nelson had 56 points — 26 goals and 30 assists — in 80 games between the Islanders and Avalanche.
Until March, Nelson had spent his entire professional career in the Islanders organization. The final first-round pick in the 2010 draft, Nelson started out with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers (now the Bridgeport Islanders) in 2012 before making his NHL debut a year later during the Stanley Cup playoffs. Over the course of 12 years with the Islanders, Nelson amassed 295 goals and 279 assists in 901 games. He also had 27 goals and 23 assists in 78 career playoff games in New York, for which he served as alternate captain for nearly four years.
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During Nelson's tenure, the Islanders made the playoffs seven times. The closest they got to the Stanley Cup was in 2020 and 2021; during the first of the two COVID-shortened seasons, sixth-seeded New York reached the Eastern Conference Finals, upsetting the Washington Capitals and No. 1 seed Philadelphia Flyers before losing to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning. The following season, the Islanders knocked out the East Division champion Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round and eliminated the Boston Bruins before, again, falling to the Lightning, who won the Stanley Cup for a second straight year.
Over his final few seasons in New York, Nelson and the Islanders came up short; they missed the playoffs entirely in 2022, lost to the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round in 2023, and lost to Carolina in the first around again in 2024. Amid a 2024-25 season in which the Islanders finished 35-35-12, New York decided to trade Nelson. Following the season, the Islanders opted against retaining president and general manager Lou Lamoriello, who had been in the role since 2018.
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