JT Compher reaches career-high stats in Avalanche 2C role as trade market thins

When Mikko Rantanen scored the overtime goal, J.T. Compher was the first teammate he greeted with an embrace. When he was asked about the goal, Compher was the first name out of his mouth.

His comment was a perfect glance into the high regard for Compher in the Avalanche locker room, just as that bow-on-top ending to Colorado’s improbable 6-5 win over the Oilers on Sunday was a quintessential example of Compher’s value.

It might have been his most important moment on a day when he recorded four points for the second time in his career (the other was earlier this season). Compher was specifically on the ice to take the offensive zone faceoff with 30 seconds remaining in overtime. Losing would cost Colorado possession and likely take the game to a shootout. Winning allowed the team’s best scorer to gather the puck and create a shooting angle.

It allowed the Avalanche (31-195) to snatch a second point after starting the game down 3-0.

But that’s just a microcosm of Compher’s success this season. As the March 3 NHL trade deadline nears, the top-heavy market for a second-line center has thinned rapidly. Bo Horvat was traded to New York. Ryan O’Reilly to Toronto. And just Sunday, after the puck had dropped at Ball Arena, the Blackhawks released a statement from Jonathan Toews detailing the captain’s ongoing struggle with long COVID-19 and chronic immune response syndrome.

He’s on injured reserve because of the illness and will not be traded.

So now where do the Avs turn to replace Nazem Kadri, yesteryear’s exceptional 2C?

Don’t ignore Compher in that conversation. The “Swiss army knife,” as coach Jared Bednar frequently calls him, has been holding down the fort in that role most of this season.

With impeccable timing, Compher offered one of his best performances Sunday after the Toews development, as though to remind everyone in Denver not to forget what’s right in front of them.