Rumor: 2022-2023 Trade Rumors and Free Agency: Let’s Run it Back!

[Ceremony]

Gone at the idea Fleury should be sought after

He's an athletic goalie who's about a hundred years old, is a known playoff choker and has a shit beard and big teeth. I'd rather keep Kuemper and hope his eye starts working again

 

[redacted]

Wouldn't you also need to replace the contracts of guys that freed up that cap (EJ, Compher, and the three players you added)? Even if you go with very low replacement value players, you're looking at the rest of that 5M being eaten up immediately in those contracts.

When you consider guys like EJ and Compher coming off the books and accounting for raises for Mack and others, you always have to factor in replacing them too.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding the back and forth here...

You do and that typically becomes the issue with contending and cap issues. Need contracts coming up on ELCs one way or another to continue the push. It is realistic that in 23-24 ~48.5m is divided between MacK, Rants, Makar, Landy, Byram and Toews or G (not both included in that number). If Toews is kept over G, 24-25 may have another $4m on that number. 25-26 is likely to have another ~3m on it from Rants. That is less than 40m each year to fill out the rest of the roster (reasonably could be low 30s in 24-26). Yeah it is possible, but the depth gets tested more and more.

 

[jabubenice]

The good thing about Darcy playoff run, proved that we don't need a brilliant goalie jus a competent one. So we don't need to overspend in that area

 

[redacted]

Yes, they would need to be replaced. I was more so making the point that the core guys could all stay in place.



I think the reality of the situation is in 2 years time this team is f***ed either way you spin it. Might as well go all in again this summer because after that some very hard decisions will have to be made and the team will get weaker for them.

Absolutely go all in this year. Worry about the future later. It might get painful, but who cares if you have Cups (even this year's Cup is good enough).

 

[Richard88]

Fleury @$2M
Trocheck @$5.5M
Forsberg @$8.5M
Lehkonen @$4M
Nuke @$5.5M
Edler @$1.75M

Trade Girard to NYI for 2023 1st + 2023 2nd + Scott Mayfield



Nuke - Mack - Mikko
Landy - Trocheck - Forsberg
Lehky - JTC - Newhook
LOC - Meyers - Cogliano
Sedlak


Toews - Makar
Byram - Mayfield
Edler - Johnson
MacDermid

Fleury
Francouz

By my count that's about $81.8M

Not really. JTC’s contract will expire and we would need to deal with raises to two RFAs (Byram and Newhook) and eventually re-up Mayfield. At goalie then we would have the option to check if Varly would like a “MAF special” to win a cup. Definitely doable.

Coming off the books in 2023:
- EJ $6m
- Compher $3.5m
- Fleury $2m
- Edler $1.75m
- Mayfield $1.45m
- Cogliano $1.25m
- Sedlak $800k
Total: $16.75m capspace

Let's also assume:
- Cap rises another $1m to $83.5m; and
- There are no bonus overages (even though I doubt overages will be zero with Byram and Newhook on bonuses).

That gives you $17.75m in capspace with the roster below:

Nichuskin - *MacKinnon* - Rantanen
Landeskog - Trocheck ------ Forsberg
Lehkonen --- *Meyers* ---- *Newhook*
xxxxxx ---------- xxxxxxx ----- O'Connor
xxxxx

Toews - Makar
*Byram* - xxxxx
xxxxxx - xxxxx
MacDermid

xxxxxx
Francouz

Being conservative let's estimate the following contracts:

- MacKinnon $11m ($4.7m raise)
- Byram $4.5m bridge ($3.5m raise)
- Newhook $2.5m bridge ($1.5m raise)
- Meyers $2m bridge ($1m raise)

Those contracts eat $10.7m of the $17.75m. So you then have $7.05m to fill these seven spots:

- 2nd pair RHD
- 3rd pair RHD
- 3rd pair LHD
- 4LW
- 4C
- 13F
- Starting goalie

Even if you scrape the absolute bottom of the bargain bin on all your depth forwards and bottom pair Dmen (5 X $750k, total $3.75m) that leaves you with only $3.3m for a starting goalie and 2nd pair RHD.

Counting on Varlamov or whoever to give you a big discount at $2m seems fanciful, but sure let's go with that. And then have $1.3m for your 2RHD.

So yeah, I guess mathematically it's possible, BUT:
- Your goalie will be a huge question mark; and
- The depth will be terrible, especially on D.

And let's also remember that the contracts were conservative and I assumed that there are no overages. If any contract is higher or if there are overages, then this roster is caput. It would be fun though, so I'm onboard!

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Coming off the books in 2023:
- EJ $6m
- Compher $3.5m
- Fleury $2m
- Edler $1.75m
- Mayfield $1.45m
- Cogliano $1.25m
- Sedlak $800k
Total: $16.75m capspace

Let's also assume:
- Cap rises another $1m to $83.5m; and
- There are no bonus overages (even though I doubt overages will be zero with Byram and Newhook on bonuses).

That gives you $17.75m in capspace with the roster below:

Nichuskin - *MacKinnon* - Rantanen
Landeskog - Trocheck ------ Forsberg
Lehkonen --- *Meyers* ---- *Newhook*
xxxxxx ---------- xxxxxxx ----- O'Connor
xxxxx

Toews - Makar
*Byram* - xxxxx
xxxxxx - xxxxx
MacDermid

xxxxxx
Francouz

Being conservative let's estimate the following contracts:

- MacKinnon $11m ($4.7m raise)
- Byram $4.5m bridge ($3.5m raise)
- Newhook $2.5m bridge ($1.5m raise)
- Meyers $2m bridge ($1m raise)

Those contracts eat $10.7m of the $17.75m. So you then have $7.05m to fill these seven spots:

- 2nd pair RHD
- 3rd pair RHD
- 3rd pair LHD
- 4LW
- 4C
- 13F
- Starting goalie

Even if you scrape the absolute bottom of the bargain bin on all your depth forwards and bottom pair Dmen (5 X $750k, total $3.75m) that leaves you with only $3.3m for a starting goalie and 2nd pair RHD.

Counting on Varlamov or whoever to give you a big discount at $2m seems fanciful, but sure let's go with that. And then have $1.3m for your 2RHD.

So yeah, I guess mathematically it's possible, BUT:
- Your goalie will be a huge question mark; and
- The depth will be terrible, especially on D.

And let's also remember that the contracts were conservative and I assumed that there are no overages. If any contract is higher or if there are overages, then this roster is caput. It would be fun though, so I'm onboard!

You're basically just proving my point here.


Ya its tight, but it can be done which was the point. And to be honest it isn't even all that tight. Its no different then what every other top contender is dealing with right now. The biggest factor is whether the Avs will have young players on ELCs that can come in and play important roles for cheap. That's how you extend cup windows is by having cheap ELC depth.


For example, if Behrens, Ranta, Olausson, and Foudy all pan out the way we need/hope they do... That fills out 4 of those 7 roster spots all for under 900k each.

But look around at a bunch of other contenders this current summer, and they're all in that super tight cap situation. Florida right now has just $3M in cap space with 6 open roster spots. Toronto has $6.5M in cap space and 5 roster spots. Edmonton has $7M in space and 8 open roster spots. Tampa is over the salary cap already with 3 roster spots left to fill.


The Avs have been fortunate enough that our first 3 years of our window have occurred while Mackinnon is basically on the best contract in the entire NHL. And while Makar was on an ELC for 2 years. But that's all changing now, guys are starting to get fairly paid like the rest of the leagues contenders and the pressure on the scouts to draft good players that can provide value on ELCs is becoming ever more important in the coming years.


The Avs simply have to get contributions from our ELC guys, or the window will shut in 2 years time regardless of what happens. Which is why I think we should be completely all in again next year. Winning 1 cup has already made every ache and pain down the road worth it.... But winning b2b cups would be even more amazing and you happily enter another 4-5 year rebuild in a few years from now at that point.

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

 

[GirardSpinorama]

Great? Only one of those goaltenders could be described as great, and it is not Kuemper. Do you think Kuemper was great last year?

He wasn't worse than Fleury.

 

[dahrougem2]

There's reasons. He was inconsistent and downright terrible some games, but also showed up in a big way some games and played very well in the latter part of the season. We don't really know how much his eye affected his game, so there's that too. Just out of curiosity, who would you replace him with?

Anyone willing to play for 3M or less.

If you build just as good a team next season, you can win with barely .900 goaltending as we did with Kuemper.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

Joe outta start a rumor that he's looking at Girard for Duchene, just to f*** with Matty for old times sake. Obviously, he should let G know what he's doing.

 

[Richard88]

You're basically just proving my point here.


Ya its tight, but it can be done which was the point. And to be honest it isn't even all that tight. Its no different then what every other top contender is dealing with right now. The biggest factor is whether the Avs will have young players on ELCs that can come in and play important roles for cheap. That's how you extend cup windows is by having cheap ELC depth.


For example, if Behrens, Ranta, Olausson, and Foudy all pan out the way we need/hope they do... That fills out 4 of those 7 roster spots all for under 900k each.

But look around at a bunch of other contenders this current summer, and they're all in that super tight cap situation. Florida right now has just $3M in cap space with 6 open roster spots. Toronto has $6.5M in cap space and 5 roster spots. Edmonton has $7M in space and 8 open roster spots. Tampa is over the salary cap already with 3 roster spots left to fill.


The Avs have been fortunate enough that our first 3 years of our window have occurred while Mackinnon is basically on the best contract in the entire NHL. And while Makar was on an ELC for 2 years. But that's all changing now, guys are starting to get fairly paid like the rest of the leagues contenders and the pressure on the scouts to draft good players that can provide value on ELCs is becoming ever more important in the coming years.


The Avs simply have to get contributions from our ELC guys, or the window will shut in 2 years time regardless of what happens. Which is why I think we should be completely all in again next year. Winning 1 cup has already made every ache and pain down the road worth it.... But winning b2b cups would be even more amazing and you happily enter another 4-5 year rebuild in a few years from now at that point.

Yeah I did inadvertently prove your point lol, and I'm happy I did.

As I said at the end of my post I'm fully onboard with the cap mayhem your roster would create. We'd just need to hope to get a few more cheap but good depth adds like Helm, Cogliano, and JJ to fill out the roster, along with a couple of ELC's.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Please St. Louis, give Zads 4x4.75M. PLEASE DO IT!

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

 

[Azrael89]

I would be ecstatic if the Blues gave Zads a 4x4 contract.

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

Upper 4s? Uh... no thanks.

 

[Richard88]

I like the fit from Zadorov's perspective, but the Blues aren't gonna be very good if their plan is to play Zadorov in the top 4.

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

Imagine having to trade Pukechuk in order to keep Johnny Floppy

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Yeah I did inadvertently prove your point lol, and I'm happy I did.

As I said at the end of my post I'm fully onboard with the cap mayhem your roster would create. We'd just need to hope to get a few more cheap but good depth adds like Helm, Cogliano, and JJ to fill out the roster, along with a couple of ELC's.

Yeah, and tbh just look at Tampa this year.


They finished the season with 11 guys on the roster making $1.5M or less. They also have a bunch of guys on ELCs they were able to use for half the year and then trade at the deadline for upgrades. Toronto as well finished with 11 guys making under $1.5M I believe.

Katchouk and Raddysh went to Chicago in the Hagel trade, Joseph went to Ottawa in the Paul trade I believe.

But now that we are cup winners, its a lot easier to find the Helm/Cogliano/Perry/Maroon/Spezza/Giordano/etc. sort of veteran guys for real cheap. But the biggest key is going to be our youth. If Behrens can step in for the 2023/24 season as a bottom pairing LD at 900k, Olausson could step in as a 3rd line winger at 900k, Foudy can step in as the 4C at 900k.... etc. etc. That's the type of cheap depth that allows you to push the limits of a top heavy roster.

And of course the Avs could always become players of the LTIR game like Tampa and Vegas are doing.

 

[jabubenice]

Imagine having to trade Pukechuk in order to keep Johnny Floppy

hmmm decisions decisions!!

 

[The Kingslayer]

I like the fit from Zadorov's perspective, but the Blues aren't gonna be very good if their plan is to play Zadorov in the top 4.

precisely why they should do it

 

[Vaslof]

I would be ecstatic if the Blues gave Zads a 4x4 contract.

I would prefer Zads to be in another division. For Byram's heads' sake.

 

[dahrougem2]

Over the last three years I think it's become quite obvious Andy Strickland is one of the least connected media people in hockey. He is Dater level speculative.

 

[Hasbro]

Please St. Louis, give Zads 4x4.75M. PLEASE DO IT!

So the Blues sent Zad an offer through Strickland.

 

[Azrael89]

Over the last three years I think it's become quite obvious Andy Strickland is one of the least connected media people in hockey. He is Dater level speculative.

He’s also a bitter little bitch. Him and Dater have a lot in common.

 

[AllAboutAvs]

Yeah, and tbh just look at Tampa this year.


They finished the season with 11 guys on the roster making $1.5M or less. They also have a bunch of guys on ELCs they were able to use for half the year and then trade at the deadline for upgrades. Toronto as well finished with 11 guys making under $1.5M I believe.

Katchouk and Raddysh went to Chicago in the Hagel trade, Joseph went to Ottawa in the Paul trade I believe.

But now that we are cup winners, its a lot easier to find the Helm/Cogliano/Perry/Maroon/Spezza/Giordano/etc. sort of veteran guys for real cheap. But the biggest key is going to be our youth. If Behrens can step in for the 2023/24 season as a bottom pairing LD at 900k, Olausson could step in as a 3rd line winger at 900k, Foudy can step in as the 4C at 900k.... etc. etc. That's the type of cheap depth that allows you to push the limits of a top heavy roster.

And of course the Avs could always become players of the LTIR game like Tampa and Vegas are doing.

Zhu could also be ready for the 23-24 season to take the 3LD if Behrens needs more time.