{"id":106667,"date":"2021-07-29T13:54:05","date_gmt":"2021-07-29T17:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=106667"},"modified":"2021-07-29T14:47:48","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T18:47:48","slug":"darren-helm-colorado-avalanche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/07\/29\/darren-helm-colorado-avalanche\/","title":{"rendered":"Darren Helm Signs with Colorado Avalanche"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Darren Helm<\/strong> has left the only NHL team he&#8217;s played for in his 14-year career. The long time Detroit Red Wings centre is headed to the Colorado Avalanche. He signs a one-year deal worth $1 million. Darren Dreger was first with the news.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Darren Helm signs 1 year, $1 million in Colorado.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DarrenDreger\/status\/1420802943394197506?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 29, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Colorado Avalanche Sign <strong>Darren Helm<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The 34-year old veteran has built a 700+ game NHL career of being a reliable bottom-six player. Colorado knows what they&#8217;re getting with the versatile Helm. Over the last six seasons, he&#8217;s been a staple of the Red Wings&#8217; penalty kill, and this past year has formed a decent trio on a bad team with <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/glendlu01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luke Glendening<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/e\/ernead01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adam Erne<\/a><\/strong>. His obvious place now would be something similar with his new team. Helm does bring a Stanley Cup ring &#8211; earned in his first season &#8211; and has 82 games of playoff experience. On the other hand, he hasn&#8217;t been to the second season since 2016. This is another chance for him as well.<\/p>\n<p>The only real knock against Helm is his difficulty staying healthy, a side effect of his physical game. In an ironic twist, the 2020-21 season was his healthiest in years before the league paused. He has missed a few games this season, but nothing serious. Any team trading for him is getting an insurance policy, not a scorer. He&#8217;s an extra piece at this point in his career. A good one, but the vital component.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means for the Future<\/h3>\n<p>Helm is coming off of a five-year contract and is taking a pay cut from the $3.85 million he made on that deal. If anything, he&#8217;s looking to bookend his career perfectly: A Cup at the start, a Cup at the finish. With the Avalanche, he will certainly get a chance to do that.<\/p>\n<p>For Detroit, it&#8217;s a continuation <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/03\/26\/red-wings-future-who-stays-and-who-goes\/\" target=\"_self\">of their turnover<\/a>. Youth is stepping into place after five years of missing the playoffs. While the possibility of Helm&#8217;s return down the road exists, he has likely played his last game with the Red Wings.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Avalanche also added depth with a pair of two-way contracts for Dylan Sikura and Stefan Matteau.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Avs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Avs<\/a> officially announce signings of forwards Dylan Sikura and Stefan Matteau. Both one-year deals<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Mike Chambers (@MikeChambers) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MikeChambers\/status\/1420815143500271618?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 29, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Darren Helm has left the only NHL team he&#8217;s played for in his 14-year career. The long time Detroit Red Wings centre is headed to the Colorado Avalanche. He signs a one-year deal worth $1 million. Darren Dreger was first with the news. Darren Helm signs 1 year, $1 million in Colorado. \u2014 Darren Dreger [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3171,"featured_media":10272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,4547,34,4548],"tags":[6688,342],"class_list":["post-106667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-redwings","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-2021-nhl-trade-deadline","tag-darren-helm"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}