Everyone said CMac went all in at the trade deadline, but i don’t think he did. Going truly all in would mean getting another RD. EJ coming back is good for the locker room and stuff, but we really needed an upgrade there, especially knowing that Manson has been injured all year. So technically CMac didn’t really go all in. We still have a hole on defense
The roster is 25 guys deep, 26 if you add Landeskog. There are no top 100 picks left for the next two drafts. And they traded their top forward prospect away. That's probably as "all in" as one could reasonably expect a team to go.
Yeah, they could have gotten Carlo, but realistically they would have needed more retention than the 15% Toronto got to make it work *or taking Wood back), so to win that bidding war they'd not only have had to match the 1st + Minten part, and then add on top of that for more retention. It just wasn't going to happen as the assets weren't there once Toronto pushed their chips in.
Well besides Jones and Carlo what other RDs were even possible or available that would have been true upgrades? Boston obviously liked what Tor was offering better than the Col offer.
Jokiharju moved for a 4th to Boston, but he's not the stylistic fit the Avs were looking for.
Ristolainen could've been had, but paying Philadelphia's asking price would've been dumb.
Savard was another alternative but he's hardly any better than EJ at this point and would have cost a lot more than EJ too.
Exactly and from my understanding he tried both these options but Jones didn't want Denver and Carlo was too expensive for the assets paid. Cmac got everything he could.
Yeah there's only so much CMac could do. You can't make RHD's appear out of thin air or force teams to trade them to you.
Could have maybe tried to get someone like Gudas. I’m sure there would be some options out there but CMac really prioritized getting the centers we needed. I mean if Manson wasn’t so injured this year, I wouldn’t worry about it too much, but we are getting thin on D without Josh, and one more injury, we gonna have Middleton and EJ playing meaningful minutes which won’t be good
Gudas maybe would have been available, but GM Verbeek is apparently notoriously difficult to negotiate with and you can't force him to give up guys signed with term without an insane overpayment. Gudas was brought in to be a leader on that young team and I there probably wasn't much appetite to move him given how little his name was rumoured to be available.
Yeah I think I might have been leading that charge. Been saying that all year.
It just wasn't wise to gamble on Manson and Malinksi as the only RD behind Makar. Manson's injury prone. Malinski's inexperienced and has double with physical forechecks sometimes. Makar's had his own injury problems too.
EJ helps, but he's about to turn 37, and is injury prone himself. Ideally, he should be a #7 at this point on a contending team.
It's also a matter of goals. They needed another goal scoring D man. Ideally they needed a RD with size, that was solid defensively, and had a big shot that could help chip in goals. That's why Jones would have been a good fit.
The way things look now, especially with how they paired Manson and Lindgren together a lot, it feels like they were planning on adding another RD, but didn't have the assets after the Nelson trade. I wonder if the plan was to go after Coyle and Carlo, but after they heard Mikko migth go to Dallas, they decided to ge more aggressive and bring in Nelson too?
EJ already
is the 7D on this team.
As for the other paragraph in bold, the Avs really don't need another goal-scoring D man. They need someone in the Manson mould, someone who can kill penalties and battles in front of the net and along the boards as a partner for Girard. Helleson would be a good target if Anaheim are open to moving him.
