DENVER — The Colorado Avalanche are making moves ahead of the NHL trade deadline.
The team on Wednesday traded defenseman Bowen Byram to the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for forward Casey Mittelstadt.
Mittelstadt, 25, has played 339 regular-season NHL games with the Sabres from 2017 to 2024 and has recorded a total of 186 points.
The 6-foot-1, 195-pound forward has scored 47 points in 62 games this season. He was leading the Sabres in assists and points and was tied for sixth in goals scored.
Mittelstadt is from Minnesota, where he played for the Golden Gophers for one season in 2016-2017 before he was drafted by Buffalo in the first round (eighth overall) in the 2017 NHL Draft.
Byram was selected fourth overall by Colorado in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft and was part of the team's Stanley Cup run in 2022.
The 6'1" defenseman has played in 146 NHL games, scoring 23 goals and 40 assists, and is a +16.
Byram also won a gold medal with Canada at the 2020 IIHF World Junior Championship in the Czech Republic, where he was teammates with current Buffalo Sabres forward Dylan Cozens.
On Wednesday, Colorado also traded a top-10 protected 2025 first-round pick and center Ryan Johansen to Philadelphia for defenseman Sean Walker and a fifth-rounder in 2026. They also traded forward Kurtis MacDermid to the New Jersey Devils in exchange for a seventh-round draft pick and the rights to forward Zakhar Bardakov on Friday.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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