Brock Nelson's recent heater shows what he can truly bring to the Colorado Avalanche, despite the team hitting a bump before the Olympic break
When the Colorado Avalanche traded for then-New York Islanders forward Brock Nelson, it signaled to the organization that the team is in win-now mode, filling a crucial spot that had long been open. The second-line center position was filled by many in the wake of Nazem Kadri leaving for the Calgary Flames, but no one fit in right and produced at the level the Avalanche needed.
Then comes Nelson, who was priced high and was an unrestricted free agent as well, so it was a major risk to send a future first-round pick and your most coveted prospect, Calum Ritchie, and more for someone who was having a down season, to his standards of play.
Though the Avalanche caught a glimpse at what Nelson can truly bring to this roster last season, and with a new contract extension, he is showing what he is truly capable of this season, especially in this rough stretch of games.
Finishing the 2024-25 season with six goals and seven assists for 13 points, Nelson didn’t look exactly what many Avalanche fans might have hoped for when they acquired him. His shooting at times was down, and he was bounced around the lineup, and with different pairing wingers, so no chemistry was really clicking with him, that was, until the playoffs.
Despite the seven-game loss to the Dallas Stars in the first round of the playoffs, his line with Valeri Nichushkin and the return of Captain Gabriel Landeskog was one of the bright spots in the series and a glimpse of what a full season of that line can do when they're healthy.
Despite the team's tremendous start to the 2025-26 season, Nelson wasn’t the most significant contributor many would have hoped for. His first 25 games of the season were good, eight goals and eight assists for 16 points while being a plus-16 with just one power-play goal and 42 SOG. In an 82-game pace for those stats, he finishes with 26 goals and 26 assists for 52 points, relatively low for a guy who signed a 3-year extension for over $7.5 million per season.
It was fine at the time because the team was winning and filled a role it desperately needed for many seasons. Still, that particular itch many fans wanted was missing because we all know there was another level Nelson could reach in goal-scoring. Still, he couldn’t just click while everyone else was.
As the saying goes, patience is a virtue, not a given, and despite the recent slump the Avalanche have been in before the Olympic break, Nelson has shed his skin and is showing the version everyone has been waiting to see. Thanks in significant part to his selection to Team USA's men's hockey team for the upcoming Olympics, many doubted his inclusion, as he was old, too slow, or criticized his performance at the start of the season. Still, he has silenced the doubters with his recent play.
In his last 27 games, he has 20 goals and 11 assists for 31 points, seven power-play goals, and 75 SOG. If he started the season on this recent heater, that's a 60-goal, 33-assist, 90-point pace, and that's with the power-play still being one of the worst in the league. Now with 28 goals and 19 assists for 47 points on the season, he is on pace to finish the season with 44 goals and 30 assists for 74 points, which would set a new career high in goals and finish one point behind his career high in points, which was set during the 2022-23 season (75 points).
His production has been seen with different linemates as well, with injuries playing a major part in this recent stretch of Avalanche games. Landeskog, Nichushkin, Ross Colton, Artturi Lehkonen, Victor Olofsson, and Gavin Brindley all have seen time on the second line, and Nelson has continued to produce with whoever he centers with.
If these past 10 games show something, it's that this team isn’t perfect as we thought it might have been, and some changes are needed for another deep playoff push, but one thing can be finally clear: they finally don’t need a second-line center. Nelson's production has been great, and the thought of the team getting fully healthy at the end of the Olympic break and kicking back into full gear at this level excites me about what the second half of the season can bring.
