Right now the 4th line does not have a center. Getting someone who can play 4C for now and move to the 3rd line when Helm returns would help. Helm may not return or if he does, may be a healthy scratch, filling in as necessary on the bottom 6. Getting either Barbashev or Acciari could be that person. If Helm does return, they can then move to the 3rd line. They can stay on the 3rd line and add scoring, so that you can have a 3rd line of Nieto-Newhook-Rodrigues.

Landeskog may not return until mid March or later. I do not know if the Avs can afford to continue to play with 11 forwards until then. Help now would ease the minutes on others and help contribute to an offense that is one dimensional.

Here is what PittsburghHockeyNow says: “St. Louis Third Liners
There’s a buzz about Ivan Barbashev, but Noel Accairi is a wrecking-ball center with speed and physicality. Imagine a heavier Josh Archibald.
Barbashev is not great on the faceoff dot, while Accairi is nearly a 55% faceoff guy. Accairi doesn’t have as much offense as Barbashev, but the “truculence” factor more than balances out that shortcoming and he has a respectable 18 points (10-8-18) in 51 games.

I like Accairi here. Cheap contract, cheaper acquisition, physical. He might be the perfect fallback option.

Both will cost much less than O’Reilly and be easier to fit under the salary cap. Barbashev is a pending UFA with a $2.25 million cap hit. Acciari seems like a much easier get and is easily affordable at $1.25 million.” https://pittsburghhockeynow.com/pittsburgh-penguins-trade-talk-is-big-name-third-liner-center-possible/

The lower cost of getting 3rd line help would also make it easier to get a depth d-man.