It certainly is crunch time now, as free agency day 2025 is just two sleeps away. Today, we at Last Word On Hockey bring you our NHL Rumours segment from the Colorado Avalanche. Unfortunately for Colorado, the rumour is that forward Jonathan Drouin has made a decision on his future, find out what here.
NHL Rumours: Drouin Decides On Future
Rumour: It seems that Drouin’s agent, Allan Walsh, is breaking this one for us. He is saying Jonathan Drouin is going to test the free agency market.
Jonathan Drouin will be going to the free agent market on July 1st. Over the last 2 seasons in Colorado, he’s registered 93 points in 112 games (0.83 Pts/Gm).
— Allan Walsh
(@walsha) June 29, 2025
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Analysis: This makes sense for the 30-year-old Drouin. His scoring efficiency has risen in recent years, and he deserves a shot at a big deal.
We are not necessarily suggesting he will get a big payday, however, it is possible. In 2024, Drouin had 37 points in 43 games. Drouin’s only regular linemate was, well none other than, you know, the 116-point man, you may have heard of him, Nathan MacKinnon. Furthermore, one of the key tells for Drouin having turned the corner on establishing consistent production at the NHL level is his ice time. He was over 18-minutes-a-game in 2024-25. In some sense, there’s no reason he can’t go out there and do it again.
A Review of Drouin Statistically
For these NHL Rumours, one interesting stat for Drouin in 2024-25, was his extremely good shooting percentage. He only took 56 shots, scored 11, for a 19.6 S%. In addition, it is possible that he isn’t regarded as highly amongst some teams, due to his low xGoals rating. Among forwards in Colorado last year at 5v5, he ranked 13th, with only 5.1. Now, playmakers like Drouin sometimes have lower values at this metric, but still. Plus it was reduced by the fact he only played just over half the season. For a comparison, Tim Stutzle played 82 games, and had an xGoals of 11.4. Therefore, the upside of his xGoals, is that it shows he is highly-efficient at goal scoring. Similar to Stutzle in fact.
So, it seems like Drouin has earned himself at a payday reflective of being a top-six, point-producing forward. However, that begs the question, how much will he command in free agency? If he is banking that last year was his show me the money year, he’s going to want four-or-five years, with a nice annual average value. Conversely, the market might not look at it that way, and rather, give him a comfy one-year deal, to try to bide his time. He earned $2.5 million last year, but based on his rate of scoring, he could command $4-5M, if not more.
Let the Market Dictate on These NHL Rumours
It just seems that Colorado doesn’t want to give him what he could potentially be worth. We have seen with trades involving Charlie Coyle, Mikko Rantanen, and Brock Nelson over the past few months, Colorado isn’t afraid of big shake ups. It seems they have a plan in mind, as they have been freeing up cap space. Maybe they don’t want to use too much on Drouin in hopes of landing a major player on the market.
Main Photo Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
The post NHL Rumours: Current Colorado Avalanche, Former Top NHL Prospect, Headed to Free Agency appeared first on Last Word On Hockey.