When Joe Sakic and Bill Guerin spoke Tuesday afternoon about swapping third-pair defensemen Ian Cole and Greg Pateryn, the trade made sense to each general manager in part because the Colorado Avalanche were in Los Angeles and the Wild in Anaheim.
There are pages and pages of COVID-19 protocols this season, and any commercial air travel after a trade would require a quarantine.
But with the Avs right up the freeway, private car transportation would technically make Pateryn available to the Avs if they wished to play him against the Kings on Tuesday night and Cole available to make his Wild debut Wednesday night against the Ducks.
“Ian is a guy I know well from my Pittsburgh days and somebody that I trust on the ice. I like the way he carries himself,” Guerin said. “And when Joe told me he’d be available, we worked on it quickly and we got something done. I think the fact that they were right down the street in L.A., and we’re…
