Brindley returns to AHL Eagles, eyes Avalanche shot after playoff run
Gavin Brindley is back with the Eagles, but his AHL playoff run is really an NHL tryout for the Avalanche after 56 games and 13 points in Colorado.
Gavin Brindley is back in the AHL with far more at stake than a Calder Cup chase. Colorado has sent the 21-year-old right-shot forward to the Eagles, and every shift now doubles as a test of whether he has done enough to push himself back into the Avalanche roster conversation for the fall.
Brindley already spent most of this season in Colorado, where he played 56 NHL games and finished with 6 goals and 7 assists for 13 points. The Avalanche had acquired him from Columbus on June 27, 2025, in a deal that sent Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood to the Blue Jackets along with a 2025 third-round pick and a conditional 2027 second-round pick. Colorado then signed him to a two-year extension on November 11, 2025, locking him in through the 2027-28 season.
He was reassigned to AHL Colorado on March 27, 2026, and the move has only sharpened the pressure on what comes next. At 5-foot-8 and 172 pounds, Brindley does not have much margin for error in a league where playoff hockey gets heavier by the round. The Eagles list him with 9 regular-season AHL games this season, and his postseason line has been more telling: 11 playoff games, 3 goals and 3 assists.
That production has mattered in real moments, not just on the score sheet. Brindley scored a one-timer in Game 4 against the Coachella Valley Firebirds, a goal that helped send the Eagles to the Western Conference Final for the first time in team history. Colorado opened the spring by losing only two games through its first three playoff rounds, including a sweep of the San Diego Gulls, and the run has carried into a June series against the Chicago Wolves.
For Brindley, the assignment is larger than a typical return to the minors. The Eagles are the Avalanche’s AHL affiliate, but this playoff stretch functions like an audition: Can Brindley handle tougher minutes, produce when the bracket tightens, and keep showing he already belongs beyond the American Hockey League? If Colorado is looking for proof before next season, this is the stage where he has to deliver it.
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