Islanders trade Toews to Colorado
Defenseman was a former star for Sound Tigers, Quinnipiac
In a salary-cap crunch, the New York Islanders traded one of their young restricted free agents, former Quinnipiac and Bridgeport Sound Tigers defenseman Devon Toews, on Monday.
Toews, 26, went to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for second-round draft picks in 2021 and 2022. He’d been a key contributor on defense and on the power play for the Islanders, who last month reached their first conference final since 1993.
Toews had opted for salary arbitration. That decision was announced on Saturday, the day he got married.
“(The cap situation, flat because of the COVID-19 pandemic) certainly played a role, I’ll be straightforward on it, unfortunately,” Islanders general manager Lou Lamoriello said. “The combination of the player going to arbitration, with the unknown, and being able to acquire assets which we sort of used in previous trades, it’s all-encompassing.”
The Islanders don’t have their own 2021 secondrounder, traded to New Jersey in the spring for Andy Greene.
Toews was an Islanders fourth-round draft pick in 2014 after his freshman year at Quinnipiac, turning pro after helping the Bobcats to the national championship game in his junior season.
He played two and a half seasons with the Sound Tigers; he was an AHL all-star as a rookie, winning the fastest-skater competition, and scored 45 points that season to earn a spot on the league’s allrookie team. He was promoted to the NHL and had played 116 games plus 30