Confirmed Signing with Link: [COL] Darren Helm signs with the Avalanche (1 year, $1M)

[Hasbro]

So how many players have went directly from Red Wings to Avalanche and vice versa? I know Bernier, Nemeth and now Helm.

Uwe Krupp.

Todd Gill

 

[Cursed Lemon]

Other Darren Helm highlights:

Breakaway goal vs the Ducks
Series winner vs. Chicago
Goal flipping over the goalie vs. NYI
Two big hits vs. Columbus
Two amazing goals vs. Nashville
Steal and score vs. Penguins
First career hat trick vs. Leafs
Saving a goal vs. Columbus
Beautiful fake to deke vs. NYI

 

[ShelbyZ]

Think that was in during the final years of Hollands tenure

Holland gave him a 5 year 3.850M contract starting from 2016-2017 by the time he had injuries piling on and was older on a near rebuilding Red wings team. The deal also had a NTC for the first 3 years which probably pissed fans of the team off

It was hard to get pissed off about NTC's when Holland would rarely give up his own guys during those "just get in" years anyway.

Anger over Helm came from:

A. Him joining Abdelkader and Ericsson as guys that were rewarded decent money and long term after playing higher in the line up than what was ideal for their skillset/talent. Prior to the signing, Helm had been pretty healthy for two years and had been playing wing in the top 6.

B. He was a last minute panic signing. Unlike the aforementioned Abdelkader and Ericsson who signed their infamous extensions well in advance of reaching the UFA market, the Wings went into free agency in the summer of 2016 having decided not to give Helm another contract and letting him test the market. The reason for this was likely to have the extra space on top of the recently deleted $7.5M cap hit from Datsyuk to enter the Stamkos sweepstakes. Turned out Stamkos didn't even want to visit Detroit, and after he re-signed with Tampa shortly before free agency officially opened, Holland used the cap space to sign lock up Nielsen till he's 38YO and circle back and overpay Helm longterm.

It certainly didn't help that Helm went back to being injury prone during the first year of the contract.

He obviously didn't live up to the contract, but he was otherwise quietly effective when relegated to a role that suited him better the past couple of seasons. He he's been a decent defensive forward and penalty killer.

To put some perspective on it... For the historically disastrous 19-20 season, Helm lead all Wings that played at least 25 games in +/- with a -6. The teams total +/- for the year was -123. He did this while taking on defensive assignments often being matched against opposing teams top forwards. This past season, his deployment further trended toward defensive assignments and he was a -3.

He's probably going to be a great fit in the bottom 6 on a better team that won't be relying on him to shoulder a huge chunk of the defensive and PK workload.