The Colorado Avalanche have started to get the trade deadline in motion of late. They traded for Josh Manson on Monday, and on Tuesday followed that up by trading Tyson Jost. The 24-year-old has appeared in over 300 regular season games for the Avalanche but seemed to have plateaued as a bottom-6 piece, and so they made a deal to send him to Minnesota:

It isn't often we see a straight swap in the same division, less often for a 10^th overall pick in his age-23 season after having 300 games with the team. It does seem part of the impetus is to clear some cap for Colorado, as this saves them over $1M in space. Let's get to the players involved.

What Minnesota gets

It wasn't long ago they traded for a first rounder (11^th overall this time) from Nashville that the team had moved on from and that trade has worked out pretty well for them. But Tyson Jost is not Kevin Fiala; the same underlying metrics the have propelled Fiala to a 30-goal/40-assist per 82 games pace over the last two years are not evident with Jost. Fiala was a heavy volume shooter with excellent zone exit/entry numbers, Jost is none of those things. From Corey Sznajder's play tracking data, he was basically league average last year by shot rate and zone entry with control, and has performed poorly in those areas this year.

What is curious about Jost is that he typically had good defensive impacts. This is from Evolving Hockey and were his three years prior to 2021-22:

This season, he's been about league average. I am willing to give him some credit here as we're working with two-thirds of a season this year compared to 191 games before that. If he can be a good defensive player with above-average transition numbers, that can be an effective player.

Of course, being an "effective player" is a far cry from being a useful fantasy asset. He doesn't shoot much, doesn't hit much, and will likely be moving to the fourth line in Minnesota, barring injury. There isn't much to talk about this year, so we'll pick this back up in training camps come September.

What Colorado gets

It seems the Avalanche basically got back a player similar to Jost. Nico Sturm had the lowest primary shot assist rate among all Wild forwards last year. He has improved this year all the way to 12^th among Wild forwards in primary shot assists. He also has the second-lowest controlled zone entry rate and is ninth in both individuals expected goals and shots rates. All this is to say, he's not a good playmaker, he's not great in transition, and he doesn't shoot much. He really is just a cheaper Jost.

There are some current injuries to the Colorado forward group so there's a chance Sturm could see a brief moment of fantasy relevance. He is north of a hit per game while skating just 11:33 a night this year. If he can get to 13-14 minutes, even for a few weeks, there could be something here. Otherwise, like Jost, he'll not have much to offer in the fantasy game.

To be honest, I'm not sure who this helps or hurts. They are very similar players and will fill similar roles on the other's team. This could help Sturm in the short term but unless injuries pop up for the Wild, nothing has changed for Jost this year.

Who this helps

Nico Sturm