Rumor: 2024-2025 Trade Rumors and Free Agency - Offseason Edition

[Ararana]

He's clearly at least the 3rd most marketed player on the team behind MacK and Makar.

I get the appeal of the trading of Rants, but it is just not a realistic thing to have happen.

From a PR perspective, the loses of letting a guy like Mikko go are already somewhat negated when you have MacKinnon and Makar to work with. I'd argue the Avs have never fully benifited from Mikko's marketability because he's third banana at best.

And in a season where Landeskog probably makes a come back, that nets it out even more.

 

[The Abusement Park]

I don’t really get the Mikko is the “3rd wheel” so fans wouldn’t be as upset if he got moved cuz there’s still Mack and Makar. If the Lightning traded Point to gain cap space and retool casual fans would very obviously react negatively to that.

 

[NorthernAvsFan]

I’d be careful about big money on Drouin.

He’s not as young as you’d think. I would love to have him back between 4-5M$, but if that can’t be accomplished I’m ok with letting him go.

I do think it’s a no-brainer to bring him back if Rantanen is moved (not likely) and Nichushkin is terminated, but you have to be careful on the AAV.

The team needs clarity on Landeskog by the draft, if they know he’s full-go, it opens up options to move out other players.

I still think Cal Ritchie plays for this team next year. Where in the lineup that is, I don’t know, but the Avs are going to give him every opportunity. Especially since he’s on an ELC.

 

[henchman21]

From a PR perspective, the loses of letting a guy like Mikko go is somewhat negated when you have MacKinnon and Makar to work with. And in a season where Landeskog probably makes a come back, that nets it out even more.

It is still a large hit... a team that is losing its top winger who is a multiple 100+ point season guy and was a key factor in winning a Cup. The ability to thread the needle on a PR workable deal is very small. You're basically trying to find a Cheese/Hubi swap out there, and those trades are very, very rare. This isn't like losing Forsberg, but it is only a slight step away from that.

I completely get the merit of the idea, but there is almost zero chance that it actually happens.

 

[Mighty Makar]

If Drouin wants $6M, he can get it elsewhere. I wouldn’t go more than $4M for him.

 

[Ararana]

It is still a large hit... a team that is losing its top winger who is a multiple 100+ point season guy and was a key factor in winning a Cup. The ability to thread the needle on a PR workable deal is very small. You're basically trying to find a Cheese/Hubi swap out there, and those trades are very, very rare. This isn't like losing Forsberg, but it is only a slight step away from that.

I completely get the merit of the idea, but there is almost zero chance that it actually happens.

I agree in that I have very little hope the Avs actually trade Rantanen. But I think that has far more to do with their one-ice concerns than off-ice. I just don't think cMac has the balls to trade a 100 point winger, even if it what's best for his team.

 

[henchman21]

I agree in that I have very little hope the Avs actually trade Rantanen. But I think that has far more to do with their one-ice concerns than off-ice. I just don't think cMac has the balls to trade a 100 point winger, even if it what's best for his team.

It is really all of it.. on ice, you're losing a top end winger... while even flawed is top 5 at his position. That's not an easy player to replace. Off ice the optics are just horrible.

 

[NorthernAvsFan]

Really one of Landeskog, Rantanen, or Nichushkin will have to go just to make the cap work.

Landeskog can’t be moved and it would be a PR nightmare. Rantanen is highly unlikely given his status. Nichushkin being terminated is the most likely.

I just don’t see how else they’re creating the cap space to field a team next season without moving on from one of those guys.

I think the bold move is to trade Rantanen and terminate Nichushkin. That locks you into MacK, Landeskog, and Toews as the only ‘old’ vets that you commit to long term.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens, because moves have to be made even if CMac doesn’t feel like going for a lot of roster turnover.

 

[henchman21]

Really one of Landeskog, Rantanen, or Nichushkin will have to go just to make the cap work.

Landeskog can’t be moved and it would be a PR nightmare. Rantanen is highly unlikely given his status. Nichushkin being terminated is the most likely.

I just don’t see how else they’re creating the cap space to field a team next season without moving on from one of those guys.

I think the bold move is to trade Rantanen and terminate Nichushkin. That locks you into MacK, Landeskog, and Toews as the only ‘old’ vets that you commit to long term.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens, because moves have to be made even if CMac doesn’t feel like going for a lot of roster turnover.

Nuke is the one gone... one way or another, he won't be back. It'll still be troublesome to fill the roster, but that is the easier cancer to cut.

 

[The Abusement Park]

I agree in that I have very little hope the Avs actually trade Rantanen. But I think that has far more to do with their one-ice concerns than off-ice. I just don't think cMac has the balls to trade a 100 point winger, even if it what's best for his team.

I mean the chances of winning a Mikko trade are slim as it is. Say we go by your blue chip winger and a 1st idea. Like Benson/Leonard and a 1st. What if they only become ~50pt solid 2nd line wingers? Then your down a top 5 winger, most likely Nuke in the same off season and replace him with Drouin, who’s fine in his own right, but that’s a talent drop on the wing that will be hard to come back from.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

I dunno if Nuke can even be bought out while in the player assisance program and suspended, but I honestly think that's the best course of action for the Avs for so many reasons:


1. It gives you clarity on the situation before the draft even begins. You know your cap situation heading into this summer and you know what it will look like in future seasons.

2. Not only would we get the full cap relief of $6.125M this year. We'd even get an extra $180k "charge back" on the buyout for the 2024-25 season. Meaning we'd create $6.35M in cap space.

3. Next year, the buyout penalty would still only be $520k. Easily manageable, and with a $92M cap, it would only be 0.6% of the cap.

4. Even years 3 and 4 of the buyout, we're looking at a $3M buyout penalty. Realistically, that isn't very far off what the termination settlement penalty would like as well, which likely ends up in the $2-3M range anyways.



IMO the value of wiping our hands clean of the situation before this summer begins, while basically getting full cap relief for 2 years is simply the worthwhile move to make. It would create a clear cut window where management should absolutely be going all in for the next 2 years. At that point, our entire core would all be past their prime years anyway and it would be the appropriate time to start preparing for the future.



The downside to a Nichushkin buyout is a $1.6M cap penalty all the way until 2034. Which is a long time. But at the same time, we're almost certainly in full rebuild mode by like 2030 anyway. And, we're probably looking at a ~110M+ salary cap by that point as well quite frankly(Especially if Gary gets to expand to 34 teams like he wants to do). A $1.6M cap hit against a $110M salary cap is only 1.4% of the cap. Again, quite manageable if somehow the Avs are still a contender in 2030 lol.

 

[MacKaRant]

It is still a large hit... a team that is losing its top winger who is a multiple 100+ point season guy and was a key factor in winning a Cup. The ability to thread the needle on a PR workable deal is very small. You're basically trying to find a Cheese/Hubi swap out there, and those trades are very, very rare. This isn't like losing Forsberg, but it is only a slight step away from that.

I completely get the merit of the idea, but there is almost zero chance that it actually happens.

Despite my HFAvs handle, I can't see Mikko as anything but the third wheel.

One guy is about to win the Hart trophy and has been the team's star player for years.

Other guy has won the Norris, Smythe, and will almost certainly win more in the future.

The third guy has a knack for scoring goals, has a charmingly goofy public persona by hockey player standards, and falls down quite a bit when skating. Yes, he's marketed, but so was Tyson Jost.

Most teams don't have a single player as good as the first two and yet people still come to games.

From a business decision perspective, I'm not sure the casual fan is coming to the game to see Mikko when you have two superstar NHLers who have won trophies for being the best at their respective positions.

 

[Ararana]

I mean the chances of winning a Mikko trade are slim as it is.

There's no way you trade Mikko and "win the trade". You trade Mikko to better balance your roster, that's where you "win".

 

[henchman21]

Despite my HFAvs handle, I can't see Mikko as anything but the third wheel.

One guy is about to win the Hart trophy and has been the team's star player for years.

Other guy has won the Norris, Smythe, and will almost certainly win more in the future.

The third guy has a knack for scoring goals, has a charmingly goofy public persona by hockey player standards, and falls down quite a bit when skating. Yes, he's marketed, but so was Tyson Jost.

Most teams don't have a single player as good as the first two and yet people still come to games.

From a business decision perspective, I'm not sure the casual fan is coming to the game to see Mikko when you have two superstar NHLers who have won trophies for being the best at their respective positions.

From a casual fan perspective (not mine or those of us who post here religiously). A contending level team trades a superstar winger for lesser players and futures. This simply send the signal that the team is not trying to contend. Denver is a bandwagon market and if a team isn't trying to contend, they don't show up. The Jost days were on hopes and prayers for a bad team. That is injecting any new energy they possibly can. This is a team that casual fans see as a contender that would be actively deciding to get worse.

This is just a small step below letting Foppa walk. The reasoning wouldn't even be that different as it would be a cap issue.

 

[BobRossColton]

 

[Chiarelli]

Not popular but I would do everything to avoid having long term dead cap from Nuke - including bringing him back.
I'm operating on the assumption that another f*** up and he's done with no cap penalty, or that you get a stud player for 6.3 million going forward.

Also, to me the most logical roster moves to make are ditching Georgiev and Colton.

 

[henchman21]

Not popular but I would do everything to avoid having long term dead cap from Nuke - including bringing him back.
I'm operating on the assumption that another f*** up and he's done with no cap penalty, or that you get a stud player for 6.3 million going forward.

Also, to me the most logical roster moves to make are ditching Georgiev and Colton.

This is absolutely not a guarantee.

 

[shadow1]

I keep opening Armchair GM thinking the solution to a deep, competitve team is suddenly going to jump out to me. Like, oh, just make that trade and that signing and boom. But damn, I'm struggling to come up with realistic ideas that would fix everything.

I think it's going to be a lean off-season, similar to 2021. After the demoralizing Vegas loss, Colorado became dramatically worse on paper (Bellemare, Donskoi, Graves, Grubauer, Saad -> Helm, Johnson, Kuemper, MacDermid, Murray). We know the deadline additions are what put the team over the top that year, but the club was rolling heading into the trade deadline. Part of that were the off-season changes; Kuemper had a career year, while Helm and Johnson were sneaky good depth pickups.

That said, last off-season's landscape looked horrible too. Landeskog and Nichushkin were in similar spots and the team had little cap space relative to how many holes it had. After a few trades and inexpensive signings, the club landed Colton, Drouin, Johansen, Kiviranta, Olofsson, Tatar, and Wood. Those moves worked out to varying degrees, but the point is Colorado's front office is crafty. I can't sit here and look at free agents like Barabonov, Beauvillier, Labanc, Kapanen, Olofsson, etc. and say for sure any one of them has a chance of rebounding because they're all coming off rancid seasons. But if one or more of those guys end up with the Avalanche, recent history gives us reason to be optimistic.

 

[The Abusement Park]

There's no way you trade Mikko and "win the trade". You trade Mikko to better balance your roster, that's where you "win".

I don’t mean win as in get the better player but win as in keep the roster competitive for a cup.

 

[henchman21]

I don’t mean win as in get the better player but win as in keep the roster competitive for a cup.

It would be risky, the move would more likely blow up in the Avs' face. It is rather rare that a team giving up the best player in the deal wins. It happens, but it isn't the norm.

 

[MacKaRant]

It would be risky, the move would more likely blow up in the Avs' face. It is rather rare that a team giving up the best player in the deal wins. It happens, but it isn't the norm.

What if the "best" player in the deal gave Pierre Luc Dubois-level efforts for much of last season?

 

[henchman21]

What if the "best" player in the deal gave Pierre Luc Dubois-level efforts for much of last season?

It is hyperbole he was that bad... but even with the effort he gave, he was a 100 point player.

 

[The Abusement Park]

What if the "best" player in the deal gave Pierre Luc Dubois-level efforts for much of last season?

What if the best player you get in return is a Bura(Avs Bura) level guy?

 

[dahrougem2]

From a casual fan perspective (not mine or those of us who post here religiously). A contending level team trades a superstar winger for lesser players and futures. This simply send the signal that the team is not trying to contend. Denver is a bandwagon market and if a team isn't trying to contend, they don't show up. The Jost days were on hopes and prayers for a bad team. That is injecting any new energy they possibly can. This is a team that casual fans see as a contender that would be actively deciding to get worse.

This is just a small step below letting Foppa walk. The reasoning wouldn't even be that different as it would be a cap issue.

Didn't the Avs still sell out games after Forsberg left lol

 

[ABasin]

IMO the value of wiping our hands clean of the situation before this summer begins, while basically getting full cap relief for 2 years is simply the worthwhile move to make.

Can they do that though? Or does time stand still until the 6 month suspension is up?