Opinion: Massive Nichushkin contract was a mistake from the beginning

Valeri Nichushkin became a star overnight during the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs, but a focus on recency bias put the Avalanche in a hole they’ve never seemed to dig themselves out of.

To the chagrin of some fans, Valeri Nichushkin will likely wear a Colorado Avalanche uniform in a few months.

The troubled winger is currently suspended until November while he’s in stage three of the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program. After winning their third Stanley Cup championship in franchise history in 2022, the Avalanche awarded Nichushkin an eight-year, $49 million contract, a deal that has been an unprecedented disaster to this point.

According to an ex-Russian National team scout who claims to be a close confidant of Nichushkin, the 29-year-old is on track to return in November, albeit the NHL and the NHLPA have to clear him to play first. In other words, the end of the suspension won’t necessarily guarantee that Nichushkin will be allowed to return to the ice. Of course, this depends on his recovery, and we all hope he is on the right track. This same scout, Sergey Fedotov, also reported that Nichushkin initially entered the Player Assistance Program due to “sleep problems.”

“According to Nichushkin, the picture is 95% clear: he returns in November fully ready, trains, works with a psychologist and continues the season. That’s it,” he told Sports.Ru. “In November, Valeri Nichushkin returns to Colorado in good shape and starts playing. There are no other questions. He has all the prohibitions on exchanges.”

Fedotov also reported that Nichushkin has the support of fellow Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon, but there are possibly several people who would like to see him take a hike, including franchise owner Stan Kroenke. With that said, if Nichushkin does get to lace up the skates in November, he should be on a very short leash. What’s also not being discussed are the lessons Colorado could learn from this saga.

Nichushkin Contract was risky all along

The Nichushkin situation was a double-edged sword. He became an instant star during Colorado’s Stanley Cup run, and of course, recency bias can impact anyone’s decision-making. Other than a couple of seasons with the Dallas Stars earlier in his career, Nichushkin has not played anything remotely close to a full season. He played in 79 of 82 games for the Stars in the 2013-14 and the 2015-16 campaigns, respectively. Nichushkin appeared in 65 games for the Avalanche in the 2019-20 season, his first year with the team. Since then, he hasn’t risen above that number. But he was such a stud in the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs that Colorado felt obligated to reward him with a huge deal. But in reality, Nichushkin has been consistently inconsistent for much of his career until his breakout season in 21-22. In retrospect, the Avalanche probably should have let him walk.

Some probably say, ‘Well, yeah, it’s easy to say that now.’ You wouldn’t be wrong, either. But despite his incredible success during that Cup campaign, Nichushkin didn’t have a huge sample size of achievement going in. He was different from MacKinnon, for instance, who has averaged 99 points a year since the 2017-18 season and just capped off the best season of his career by winning both the Hart Trophy and the Ted Lindsay Award, becoming the 24th player in NHL history to claim both awards in the same season. Now, there’s a guy who earned that big money. Is Nichushkin even remotely in the same class? Not quite. He has a lot of talent, undoubtedly, but his greatest asset over the last couple of seasons has been his ability to get in trouble, and that’s not worth $6 million a year. In simpler terms, some players deserve that check, and others, like Nichushkin, are drastically overpaid. 47 points, 52 points, and 53 points were never worth such a big salary to begin with.

I’m not exactly a proponent of looking back; we should always look forward, but analyzing the past can help us not repeat the same mistakes in the future. Think about where Colorado would be today if Nichushkin walked and were able to retain Darcy Kuemper. Say what you want about Darcy; he got a lot of unnecessary hate from fans. The man took on the best goaltender in the world and helped them win three out of the four one-goal games while struggling with an eye injury. During the playoffs, he had to go to an optometrist two to three times a day to re-train the injured eye. Imagine the pain and the nerves Kuemper must have been going through while going up against a historically superb team in the Tampa Bay Lightning, who were attempting to become the first three-peat Stanley Cup champion since the 1983 New York Islanders. We didn’t need to go the Georgiev route, but here we are.

And on a final note, this contract and being cheap on goaltending is the epitome of buying your hockey gear at a flea market. It’s bound to backfire terribly.