Rumor: 2022-2022 Trade Rumors and Free Agency Part 14: Sakic goes back to bed

[Drury_Sakic]

I thought EJ should've been bought out last summer due to his huge salary and massive health issues, but I'll eat my Colorado Avalanche "rivalry night" hat if it happens now.

If EJ leaves, it will be because he retires to LTIR. Win a cup then get paid to not injury yourself to oblivion. On a player with his history, would not be hard to find a "legitimate" LTIRable injury. Guy probably has a job lined up in the front office with the club after his career too.

 

[MarkT]

Alright we have two different philosophies about how to develop players. Putting that aside, how do we afford a stronger 2nd liner while also paying Nuke, Kuemper or another 1G, Manson or another right side D? Or do you just play Rants at 2C and Newhook at the wing, both playing on the other guys natural position. It just reminds me of people saying to play MacKinnon on the wing that he will never be able to center.

I missed this. I'd say play Rants and 2C, which is the position he played in the AHL, so not a foreign concept. Then give Newhook every opportunity to claim the 3C role, probably in competition with Myers. If Newhook thrives or there are injuries, give him a shot at 2C and see how he does. Give him chances to earn it - don't hand it to him.

 

[Vaslof]

I missed this. I'd say play Rants and 2C, which is the position he played in the AHL, so not a foreign concept. Then give Newhook every opportunity to claim the 3C role, probably in competition with Myers. If Newhook thrives or there are injuries, give him a shot at 2C and see how he does. Give him chances to earn it - don't hand it to him.

Who's the sixth top six player then?

 

[Belgican]

If EJ leaves, it will be because he retires to LTIR. Win a cup then get paid to not injury yourself to oblivion. On a player with his history, would not be hard to find a "legitimate" LTIRable injury. Guy probably has a job lined up in the front office with the club after his career too.

I could see EJ retiring if the Avs win the Cup.

EJ‘s money is there to pay MacK anyway. Now if he retires, it will be easier to sign Manson right away, and think about it later.

 

[MarkT]

Who's the sixth top six player then?

A free agent winger or someone we trade for. In other words, someone cheaper to acquire than a 2C.

 

[Vaslof]

I did a quick proof of concept on the money thing. Lehkonen at 4M, Nuke at 7M, Manson at 4.5M, Kuemper at 6M. Plus a cheap sixth line all making around 1M. Got a little over 1M left of cap space with a roster of 21. Something's gotta give if you want a top six player that is better than Newhook or Meyers. If you let Nuke walk, same problem. If you let Kuemper walk, well not having a 1G is worse. If you let Manson walk you'd have about 5M, which is a decent amount but not enough to compete for UFA's. Strome and Trocheck for example made a bit under 5M previously, but will definitely get a much higher offer after 60 point seasons. So that still leaves one option, which is to trade Girard for a 2C, and their cap hit needs to be at max around 6M.

 

[The Abusement Park]

Nuke at 7 is way past the limit for me.

 

[MarkT]

I did a quick proof of concept on the money thing. Lehkonen at 4M, Nuke at 7M, Manson at 4.5M, Kuemper at 6M. Plus a cheap sixth line all making around 1M. Got a little over 1M left of cap space with a roster of 21. Something's gotta give if you want a top six player that is better than Newhook or Meyers. If you let Nuke walk, same problem. If you let Kuemper walk, well not having a 1G is worse. If you let Manson walk you'd have about 5M, which is a decent amount but not enough to compete for UFA's. Strome and Trocheck for example made a bit under 5M previously, but will definitely get a much higher offer after 60 point seasons. So that still leaves one option, which is to trade Girard for a 2C, and their cap hit needs to be at max around 6M.

Um. Or you move Rantanen to 2C, explore cheaper options than Kuemper if he wants 6m at term, trade Compher, see if EJ wants to retire, maybe even trade Girard. We'd probably need to go relatively cheap on our 4th top 6 winger, but there are more options available at wing than there are at center. Maybe someone like Mikheyev, Mason Marchment, or Jarnkrok if not Copp, Niederreiter, Reilly Smith, Rakell or Perron. Or premium guys like Forsberg, Palat, Gaudreau, or Giroux. And that's not even including the trade market. See how going for a winger instead of a center makes a lot of sense?

Edit: I forgot about Nick Paul and Frank Vatrano.

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

If EJ leaves, it will be because he retires to LTIR. Win a cup then get paid to not injury yourself to oblivion. On a player with his history, would not be hard to find a "legitimate" LTIRable injury. Guy probably has a job lined up in the front office with the club after his career too.

He is playing good hockey. He is not retiring.

 

[shadow1]

If EJ leaves, it will be because he retires to LTIR. Win a cup then get paid to not injury yourself to oblivion. On a player with his history, would not be hard to find a "legitimate" LTIRable injury. Guy probably has a job lined up in the front office with the club after his career too.

EJ's injury history is bad, but the only truly brutal year was 2021, when he played only 4 games. He played 59-of-69 in 2020, and 80-of-82 in 2019. His injury history is honestly no worse than Adam Foote's, and Foote played forever.

You could be right, but like I said in my last post, Johnson just turned 34. When he hits free agency next year, I could easily see him landing the same deal 35-year-old Alex Goligoski signed with Minnesota ($2x2). Even the bare minimum of 750K is probably way more than he'd be making in a front office job with the Avs.

 

[Vaslof]

Um. Or you move Rantanen to 2C, explore cheaper options than Kuemper if he wants 6m at term, trade Compher, see if EJ wants to retire, maybe even trade Girard. We'd probably need to go relatively cheap on our 4th top 6 winger, but there are more options available at wing than there are at center. Maybe someone like Mikheyev, Mason Marchment, or Jarnkrok if not Copp, Niederreiter, Reilly Smith, Rakell or Perron. Or premium guys like Forsberg, Palat, Gaudreau, or Giroux. And that's not even including the trade market. See how going for a winger instead of a center makes a lot of sense?

Edit: I forgot about Nick Paul and Frank Vatrano.

What makes you think Compher or EJ are going anywhere if they didn't go last offseason?

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Nuke at 7 is way past the limit for me.

Yup easily.


I think 6M is probably my max. At that point you pivot to free agency. Actually all of those values are way over my max on each guy. No way in hell am I paying Manson 4.5M. Anything above 3.5M and the team that signs him will greatly regret it.


I'm still hopeful we get Nuke at $5M. Genuinely think he wants to be here and enjoys playing with this team, seeing his role go from healthy scratch when he started with us to now Top line next to Mackinnon and scoring huge goals in the conference finals of the playoffs for us.... I think he ends up taking a fair deal to stick around 5x5M sort of deal. Maybe 6 years even.


And with the goaltending, I'd keep Kuemper around but I wouldn't be willing to overpay either. 4.5-5M is what I'd be willing to go to, 3-4 years. If he wants to chase more money elsewhere(I would guess Edmonton and maybe Toronto at least would offer him more) then by all means chase it. At that point I'd look to Husso or Fleury in free agency. Despite us lighting up Husso a little in round 2, he had a great year overall and I think he's a solid goalie who would look good with us. I think he ends up signing for ~3.5-4M this summer as I think the bigger money will go to DK and Campbell with the larger body of work then Husso. Fleury I would look at only if Francouz continues to look great in these playoffs and they end up deciding to go with a 1A/1B tandem with the plan to give Frank a bunch more starts. I think Fleury is pretty average at this point but on a 1 year cup chasing deal I think he's only going to sign for like 2-3M.

 

[MarkT]

What makes you think Compher or EJ are going anywhere if they didn't go last offseason?

Because last offseason we had enough cap room to fill all the slots on the team without moving them. In term of EJ, assuming we win the cup, he'd be much more likely to retire this offseason than last offseason. To be fair, I don't expect him to retire, but that was just one of the options I presented for how we could afford a new top 6 winger.

 

[nammerus]

You are right. But it was very spotty, up and down, with little consistency. Their development was poor. Again, maybe they all would never have made the jump with even the best of development - but the Avs did not do themselves any favors. Having all 3 also made it more complicated.

Newhook at the least was delayed a year. Jost started to early, he should have been forced to play one more season in College.

I am not opposed to the Avs looking to the market for a center upgrade -- just that arguably they have the answer in Newhook and giving that a real go for 30-40 games is IMO the answer given that they have some pieces to trade if not. The alternative is to probably make a trade for a player like Miller this summer -- with Newhook probably being the big piece in that deal. Maybe that is the answer, but maybe you see what you have first?

Guess we will get some sort of look these next few games to see what way to go as well.

It was spotty cause they were all awful in the 2C role.

Newhook is medicore defensively, terrible at FO’s and has well below average possession numbers. He has shown absolute zero ability to play pivot at the NHL level, whether it be 2nd/3rd/4th line.

 

[dahrougem2]

I did a quick proof of concept on the money thing. Lehkonen at 4M, Nuke at 7M, Manson at 4.5M, Kuemper at 6M. Plus a cheap sixth line all making around 1M. Got a little over 1M left of cap space with a roster of 21. Something's gotta give if you want a top six player that is better than Newhook or Meyers. If you let Nuke walk, same problem. If you let Kuemper walk, well not having a 1G is worse. If you let Manson walk you'd have about 5M, which is a decent amount but not enough to compete for UFA's. Strome and Trocheck for example made a bit under 5M previously, but will definitely get a much higher offer after 60 point seasons. So that still leaves one option, which is to trade Girard for a 2C, and their cap hit needs to be at max around 6M.

No team in the league is giving Valeri Nichushkin 7M per season. There are only 22 wingers in the league making 7+M per season so not even 1 per team, and some of those players signed their contracts long ago so they're awful.

Nichushkin is probably going to cost anywhere from 4.5-5.5M to retain long term.

 

[Alienblood]

I don't know everything I would do in the offeason, but re-signing Nuke and Manson would be top of my list along with extending MacKinnon. If I can get away without trading Girard then I'd do it. I'd also be looking for guys willing to take a pay cut to play here and win.

As much as I love Kadri, he's earned his big payday and his agent is Darren Ferris, so unless he's ready to take a lot less to stay, you wish him well and move on. Then, unless someone like Bergeron, Trocheck or Malkin falls in your lap, just go with Rantanen at 2C next season with the idea that Newhook (or Myers) can take on that role eventually so Rantanen can move back to the wing, unless of course Rants really thrives in the 2C role. It might be good to also sign someone else who can play center if necessary (Johan Larsson? Chris Tierney? Nick Paul!!), especially if trading Compher becomes necessary.

do you have a friend in Denver that goes ti Avs games ? PM me if u want

 

[Hasbro]

Goaltending can't be solved by free agency. Very mediocre goalies available and everyone ask for huge money. Kuemper is the best available.

Varlamov.

Tough spot. That's why I hated the trade. We are exactly same spot as previous summer. The trade was a waste .

Well Grubauer's been awful, Anderson didn't suit up for the playoffs, francouz was coming off an injury and not ready until December, Timmins has been injured, Kemper got 37 wins 2.54 and .921 and outbidding Holland for him forced the current playoff opponent to run with 41 year old Mike Smith. For the #31 pick.

 

[Perratrooper]

I wonder if Schmaltz could be our target in AZ as a 2C. He fits our core age, is signed to a reasonable deal and can skate. He has had some injury issues, but put up good numbers on a very bad team this year.

 

[Peter Peckerwood]

Varlamov.

Well Grubauer's been awful, Anderson didn't suit up for the playoffs, francouz was coming off an injury and not ready until December, Timmins has been injured, Kemper got 37 wins 2.54 and .921 and outbidding Holland for him forced the current playoff opponent to run with 41 year old Mike Smith. For the #31 pick.

Isn't Varly a little expensive?
Side note: I forgot about DiPietro. Holy Smokes.

 

[Hasbro]

Isn't Varly a little expensive?
Side note: I forgot about DiPietro. Holy Smokes.

$5 million so only $500K more than Kuemper's current cap hit. Rumor also has it he nixed a trade to Deadmonton at the deadline.

I wonder if Schmaltz could be our target in AZ as a 2C. He fits our core age, is signed to a reasonable deal and can skate. He has had some injury issues, but put up good numbers on a very bad team this year.

His real dollar salary balloons after next season and the Yotes will be playing in a college arena.

 

[Perratrooper]

$5 million so only $500K more than Kuemper's current cap hit. Rumor also has it he nixed a trade to Deadmonton at the deadline.


His real dollar salary balloons after next season and the Yotes will be playing in a college arena.

View attachment 556366

Oh yeah does it ever, looks like it jumps big time for the next 3 years. Great catch!! Just adds to the reasons of why he might be a good 2C here.

 

[Hasbro]

Oh yeah does it ever, looks like it jumps big time for the next 3 years. Great catch!! Just adds to the reasons of why he might be a good 2C here.

I'm playing Arizona in an offseason mock and my priority was to get above the cap floor with contracts with a higher cap hit than cash value. Of course, Shmaltz is still below so that does give them a year to hold on.

 

[Perratrooper]

I'm playing Arizona in an offseason mock and my priority was to get above the cap floor with contracts with a higher cap hit than cash value. Of course, Shmaltz is still below so that does give them a year to hold on.

Completely fair, but it is something that is on the horizon. Sending someone like JTC over could help balance some of the cap being sent to Colorado and reduce their long term commitment to a player who’s salary with exceed his cap hit very soon.

 

[Hasbro]

Completely fair, but it is something that is on the horizon. Sending someone like JTC over could help balance some of the cap being sent to Colorado and reduce their long term commitment to a player who’s salary with exceed his cap hit very soon.

That would only save them $1M next year though.

I can see Zona getting another Hall of Famer to join them like Pronger, Hossa and Datsyuk.

I think Chicago is the best shot for a trade of JTC.

Compher for Killorn?

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

That would only save them $1M next year though.

I can see Zona getting another Hall of Famer to join them like Pronger, Hossa and Datsyuk.

I think Chicago is the best shot for a trade of JTC.

Compher for Killorn?

Why would Colorado do that?


The purpose of trading JTC if you trade him is for cap space. Killorn does the opposite of creating cap space.