New Avalanche winger Brandon Saad is of Syrian descent and might not have become a hockey player if the Pittsburgh Penguins weren’t winning championships in the early 1990s.
Born in the Steel City in 1992, Saad came into the world about four months after the Penguins won the Stanley Cup for the second consecutive year. Saad, whom the Avs acquired from the Chicago Blackhawks for defenseman Nikita Zadorov on Oct. 10, feels like he was born to be a hockey player with all the excitement in Pittsburgh.
“I had older cousins that played hockey (and) when I was born the Pens were winning championships. The buzz in the city was huge at the time,” Saad, who won the Cup with the Blackhawks in 2013 and 2015, said in a Zoom call. “My parents ended up taking me and my brother to the rink. We just fell in love with the game. Obviously, it’s grown a lot more now — 20-plus years later.”
The Penguins also won the Cup in 2009 when Saad was 16. Saad, whose Syrian-born father immigrated to the United States when he was a teenager, turns 29 next week.
Colorado has also developed NHL players born in the late 1990s or early 2000s around the time the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in 1996 and 2001. At the top of the list are defensemen Jaccob Slavin of Erie, Brandon Carlo of Colorado Springs and forward Troy Terry of Highlands Ranch.
Slavin, 26, was a 2020 NHL All-Star and alternate captain for the Carolina Hurricanes. Carlo and Terry are both 23 and playing for the Boston Bruins and Anaheim Ducks, respectively.
Despite their ages, Slavin, Carlo and Terry were ranked first, second and fourth by The Denver Post among Colorado-born players to have reached the NHL.
Saad, meanwhile, said he and his wife plan to sell their Chicago-area home and buy in the Denver area. They have a young son and, despite Brandon entering the final year of his contract, they don’t want to feel like one-year renters in Colorado. The final year of Saad’s deal carries a $6 million cap hit — $1 million of which the Blackhawks are retaining. The Avs might not be able to afford him in 2021-22 and beyond, but they are thrilled about his arrival for next season.
“We’re extremely happy to have Brandon with us. He’s a guy we’ve watched for years and we think he’s going to be a great fit as one of our top six (forwards),” Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic said. “We feel like we’ve solidified our top-six group and also our bottom six. We’re pretty content with the depth that we have upfront, for sure.”
Decisions at D. The Avs have two more restricted free agents to sign in recently acquired defensemen Devon Toews and Kyle Burroughs, who both played for the New York Islanders this past season. Toews, whom Colorado gave up 2021 and 2022 second-round draft choices for, completes the Avs’ top six and could play with Cale Makar on the first pairing.
Burroughs or newcomer Dennis Gilbert — who came over in the Saad trade — will probably serve as the extra defenseman. So what happens with young Avalanche draft picks Conor Timmins, 22, and Bo Byram, 19?
Without factoring in injuries or training camp/preseason performances, Timmins will probably begin next season with the AHL’s Colorado Eagles and Byram will be returned to his junior team in Vancouver. But Sakic said nothing is set in stone.
“We’ve seen enough of Conor. We know he could maybe, possibly, take the next step (and) Byram, we’re going to give every opportunity,” Sakic said. “But also knowing we don’t want to put a lot of pressure on them … We want them to come in slowly and at their own pace.”
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