Paul Stastny’s contract is up after this season, when he could become an unrestricted free agent. He’s playing for a team that probably could use more help on defense and has two top-quality young centers already. Does that mean Stastny likely is gone in the spring as trade bait or when the market opens next summer for free agents?

Maybe not. You can never have too much pitching in baseball, and Avalanche coach and vice president of hockey operations Patrick Roy said Thursday an NHL team can never have enough quality centers.

“It’s a beautiful problem to have,” Roy said. “I’d rather deal with this than having no centers. Honestly, it hasn’t been a problem so far. Everybody is having their share of ice time. We’re very lucky. You look at all the teams at the top of the standings, they all have three very good centers and four good lines. When you build a team, you want to build it (up) the middle.”

Stastny, 27, is in the final year of a contract paying $6.6 million. A lot of teams might be happy to call him their No. 1 center, but the Avs might be different. In Matt Duchene and Nathan MacKinnon, they have two blue-chip centers who figure to be around for years. Also, fourth-line center John Mitchell probably deserves a promotion in line rankings.

Stastny’s agent, Matt Keator, said there have been no talks with the Avalanche about an extension of the center’s contract. Keator and his client seem to be OK with that.

“Whether it’s in the back of my mind or not, it’s something you can’t really worry about,” said Stastny, a former University of Denver star. “It’s out of your control. If you’re part of the solution, then you are. If you’re not, you’re not. I’m just having fun with this team right now and doing anything I can to help it win.”

In the Avalanche’s 8-1 start, Stastny has one goal, five points and a plus-4 rating.

“I’m very happy with Paul,” Roy said. “We had some fun (Thursday) morning, because I like to see him shooting more. On the power play, he passed on almost an open-net situation, but this is the way Paul is. He’s a center who loves to pass the puck. This is a line (with Gabe Landeskog and Alex Tanguay) that we have to remind them, ‘One of you will have to shoot at one point if you want to score a goal.’ But he has a good view of the game and loves to talk about the game.”

Adrian Dater: adater@denverpost.com or twitter.com/adater