Rumor: 2024-2025 Trade Rumors and Free Agency Talk | Part Deux

[dahrougem2]

Avs have currently spent $93,419,981. What are we talking about here? If the cap goes up to 100 mill, Kroenke won’t be willing to spend another 6.5?

I think they'll spend it, but Friedman was indicating he believed Colorado could be one of those teams setting an internal cap.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Just from a ludicrous speed perspective, I hope CMac swings for the fences and adds Barzal

Man I hadn't even really though of Barzal but yeah with the way he's played in New York, if he's available that should for sure be a target.


Just got get all the speed. That's how we're at our best and that's how Bednar's system works the best. Barzal would probably be an incredible fit here.

 

[the_fan]

I think they'll spend it, but Friedman was indicating he believed Colorado could be one of those teams setting an internal cap.

Well, we are 10 mill over the cap right now so.. Obviously Kroenke doesn’t mind it

 

[SoundwaveIsCharisma]

Man I hadn't even really though of Barzal but yeah with the way he's played in New York, if he's available that should for sure be a target.


Just got get all the speed. That's how we're at our best and that's how Bednar's system works the best. Barzal would probably be an incredible fit here.

It would just be so, so funny. Imagine going from Rants and Mitts to Necas and Barzal. I mentioned this before, but we are all likely to get whiplash from that speed change. Barzal is basically a richman's Mitts, but more cocky (which the team may actually need)

 

[dahrougem2]

It would just be so, so funny. Imagine going from Rants and Mitts to Necas and Barzal. I mentioned this before, but we are all likely to get whiplash from that speed change. Barzal is basically a richman's Mitts, but more cocky (which the team may actually need)

F*** it. Go all in.

Barzal
Nelson @ 50%
Romanov @ 50%

for

Mittelstadt
Colton
Wood
Ritchie
Gulyayev
2027 1st

I don't give a FOOOOOOK I want another Stanley Cup.

 

[SimpleJack]

Mittelstadt really that bad that he has to go or else there's zero hope for a formidable 2nd line? Wasn't he one of the best 2C's in the league for the better part of last season and the beginning of this season? Could this just be a slump and now he's starting to work his way out of it with these past few games showing improvement already? When there was an uproar over replacing Ryan Johanssen and how badly it needed to happen i understood because he was truly that detrimental. But i don't view this as being nearly as dire of a situation. I think with a healthy Nuke and a potential further addition at the TDL(plus maybe even Landy too) the overall forward depth should be fine IMO.

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

Really hope we stay away from Murphy from the Hawks, he wouldn't be able to keep up with this team in terms of speed.

Would much rather use one of the 2nd round picks + Malinski on a retained Dumoulin who's having a great year and can still skate

Another guy I keep wanting is Kesselring from Ewwtah but they're probably reluctant to trade him. I'd easily give the NYR 2nd or Guly up for him.

Other RHD targets that I'd look at would be Jensen or Marino, if their teams are out of it near the deadline

I am not too worried they will try to add another slow player to our roster after the failed RyJo trade. It's too fresh.

Mittelstadt really that bad that he has to go or else there's zero hope for a formidable 2nd line? Wasn't he one of the best 2C's in the league for the better part of last season and the beginning of this season? Could this just be a slump and now he's starting to work his way out of it with these past few games showing improvement already? When there was an uproar over replacing Ryan Johanssen and how badly it needed to happen i understood because he was truly that detrimental. But i don't view this as being nearly as dire of a situation. I think with a healthy Nuke and a potential further addition at the TDL(plus maybe even Landy too) the overall forward depth should be fine IMO.

RyJo never even gave hope of working out. That guy was just done done. Mitts had his good times. This is just terrible slump.

 

[SoundwaveIsCharisma]

Mittelstadt really that bad that he has to go or else there's zero hope for a formidable 2nd line? Wasn't he one of the best 2C's in the league for the better part of last season and the beginning of this season? Could this just be a slump and now he's starting to work his way out of it with these past few games showing improvement already? When there was an uproar over replacing Ryan Johanssen and how badly it needed to happen i understood because he was truly that detrimental. But i don't view this as being nearly as dire of a situation. I think with a healthy Nuke and a potential further addition at the TDL(plus maybe even Landy too) the overall forward depth should be fine IMO.

I think Mitts has a chance to truly become the 2C we want. His reputation in Buffalo was not that of a slacker, and even through this slump I don't think he's been lazy. He's looked like he has either been injured or his confidence was shaken. He's shown glimpses of coming out of that slump, but at the same time, I just don't know if he's got the playstyle that works long-term for the Avs. His skating speed is clearly slow compared to the rest of the roster, which I think will always make it that extra bit harder for him to truly do well.

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

His brain works fast though and his passing skill is definitely top notch.

 

[SoundwaveIsCharisma]

His brain works fast though and his passing skill is definitely top notch.

I really like Mitts, but I just don't know if he's going to work out here with the way the Avs like to play. When he's at his best his stellar on board battles, good defensive awareness as a result of his willingness and ability to battle, and his playmaking is top notch. When he started the season red hot he was also shooting a lot more, which he really needs to do consistently. It's one of those crappy situations where the Avs just can't wait to be patient and hope he can get back on track. We've also seen how Beds treats players he doesn't trust, it takes forever for him to actually get that trust back (if it ever does happen)

 

[SoundwaveIsCharisma]

I just learned about Rasmus Andersson's trademark celly where he stares down an opposing fan (and apparently gives them a T-Shirt letting everyone know they got stared down). Now I want him on the team.

 

[Pokecheque]

No, he's on Ottawa who I occasionally watch, and I tend to come away impressed.

Fair enough, admittedly I’ve not seen much of him but I recall him being viewed as an odd pick by Dorion at the time.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Mittelstadt really that bad that he has to go or else there's zero hope for a formidable 2nd line? Wasn't he one of the best 2C's in the league for the better part of last season and the beginning of this season? Could this just be a slump and now he's starting to work his way out of it with these past few games showing improvement already? When there was an uproar over replacing Ryan Johanssen and how badly it needed to happen i understood because he was truly that detrimental. But i don't view this as being nearly as dire of a situation. I think with a healthy Nuke and a potential further addition at the TDL(plus maybe even Landy too) the overall forward depth should be fine IMO.

No. People here are for sure exaggerating with Mitts. Some of them simply made their mind up that he was a failure the moment they traded for him, because of who he was traded for.

But he definitely needs to be better and ultimately even at his very best there's some fair arguments that he isn't the best stylistic fit. He slows the game down a bunch and plays slower then most of our guys. He's got ridiculously good vision when he's on his game but quite frankly sometimes his creativity is so much even his own teammates struggle to read what he's doing. A decent number of his "turnovers" are actually the results of really good passes, but passes nobody else saw and thus nobody was ready to pick up. It's part of why Drouin is such a good fit with him IMO, maybe the only other guy on the team who can see some of the plays Mitts is trying to make.


Long story short, he's a good player that's going through an extended slump(And there's signs he's breaking out of the slump right now, 5 points in his last 5 games for example), but the Avs also all of a sudden have the cap space to make a few upgrades on the roster and Mitts makes sense as one of those possible upgrades.

 

[forsbergavs32]

If we got Barzal and a defensive upgrade this team would be loaded as shit

 

[SoundwaveIsCharisma]

No. People here are for sure exaggerating with Mitts. Some of them simply made their mind up that he was a failure the moment they traded for him, because of who he was traded for.

But he definitely needs to be better and ultimately even at his very best there's some fair arguments that he isn't the best stylistic fit. He slows the game down a bunch and plays slower then most of our guys. He's got ridiculously good vision when he's on his game but quite frankly sometimes his creativity is so much even his own teammates struggle to read what he's doing. A decent number of his "turnovers" are actually the results of really good passes, but passes nobody else saw and thus nobody was ready to pick up. It's part of why Drouin is such a good fit with him IMO, maybe the only other guy on the team who can see some of the plays Mitts is trying to make.


Long story short, he's a good player that's going through an extended slump(And there's signs he's breaking out of the slump right now, 5 points in his last 5 games for example), but the Avs also all of a sudden have the cap space to make a few upgrades on the roster and Mitts makes sense as one of those possible upgrades.

I could see Mitts doing really well on a structured, slower team. One that relies heavily on a strong cycle and dominating battles against the wall. Him being paired with a high IQ sniper would be scary. I actually think he'd be killing it right now in Dubois' spot between Protas and Wilson.

 

[JLo217]

If we got Barzal and a defensive upgrade this team would be loaded as shit

We need guys that shoot

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

We need guys that shoot

True.

 

[John Mandalorian]

If we got Barzal and a defensive upgrade this team would be loaded as shit

If you want to have a hypothetical idea of the cost, just ask @Perratrooper. He’s probably been to each teams board inquiring about players and has likely offered Ritchie in trade at least 47 times.

It seems like he thinks “the power of Grayskull” gives him agency in making offers to other teams. Could be wrong though.

 

[RoyIsALegend]

@Perratrooper explain yourself!

 

[Richard88]

Yeah it's pretty crazy how much space there is when playing around on capwages. Necas at $6.5m and having 3C boxed off for two years at $1.725m compared to Rantanen at $12m+ opens up so many permutations. I definitely see the Avs bringing Drouin back now and possibly even being players in the offseason (especially if Landeskog is done).

Further to that CMac will surely have in mind the contracts coming up for Necas/Manson in 2026 and Makar/Girard/Colton/Lehkonen in 2027 and not overcommit to players with term. Players with 1-2 years of term at a reasonable caphit probably make the most sense to target in order to keep cap flexibility ahead of the Necas and Makar contracts (like Rasmus Andersson for example).

 

[Richard88]

Yep, and the thing is they have lots of space and not really a lot of roster spots to fill... Assuming they dont move any other roster guys out... For next year we're looking at:



Drouin - Mack - Necas
Lehky - Mitts - Nuke
Colton - Drury - LOC


Toews - Makar
G - Manson

Woods

As of right now, the entire Top 9F and Top 4D, and both 1 and 2 Goalies are signed. Drouin technically isn't but I guarantee he re-signs now and probably for like $3-3.5M...

That group above comes in at just $79.725M. That's gonna be over $15M in cap space for sure. Probably even more since at this point I'm expecting a cap of $97-98M rather then $95M. So maybe even $18M in space.

And again, that's without moving a single guy out. One obvious move they might make is to move Colton out, and drop Landy in his spot for next year. So that would ultimately be +$3M, but still leaves them with anywhere from $12-15M in space.

Suffice to say, they have real money right now to spend, if they wanted to upgrade on Mitts. They could easily drop $2M more to get a guy for $7.5-8M in that spot instead. If they wanted to upgrade on Manson, could easily spend $2-3M to upgrade that spot as well.


Like they could reasonably add Kadri and Jones if they wanted to. Or Miller and Jones. Or Brock Nelson. Or, they could be players in Free Agency. Target guys like Sam Bennett, Brock Boeser, Nik Ehlers, etc....

They could be big players on a few guys.

Not sure they have the assets for it now that Rantanen is gone but they could fit Pettersson in fairly easily if they wanted to.

 

[Richard88]

I agree. He’s a great fit. Can log big minutes, rangy, can skate, etc. I described him as a taller Sam Girard earlier in the week.

I just think the cap rentention required is a monstrous hurdle. 5 years of retention is substantial. And it’s not like the Avs would need .5M to 1M retention. They likely would want minimum 2+M.

I’m not sure the Avs want to spend the assets necessary for that amount of cost.

How negative would you guys say that Jones' value at full caphit is?

Ideally we'd get $2m+ retention but if that's not possible it might still make sense if you can get some decent asset(s) out of it that you can flip for another value contract.

 

[Richard88]

Yeah true, trades are the way to go. But then that's also where I think the Avs run into the issue of not having the assets to get the trades done that they need to get done.


Ritchie is the one big prize they have. Otherwise, our prospect pool is pretty underwhelming, No 1st round pick this year, no 3rd round picks for the rest of time.


Guys like Colton, Mittelstadt, Manson will be of interest if available, but they wont be main pieces really either.

CMac has shown that he can be pretty creative with trades so I wouldn't put it past him to acquire assets he can package to make competitive offers even without those A grade assets. Like how he used Newhook to pickup the asset he needed for Colton for example.

I wouldn’t mind Jones if we could get him at $7m and unload some of our less favorable contracts (Wood). However that somewhat goes against what C-Mac said he was looking for in having better depth.

I think we see us add another middle 6 forward and a bottom pair defender.

Adding Jones (and pushing Manson to 3RHD) would do more for depth than adding a typical bottom pair Dman.

 

[Richard88]

You don't go big game hunting in UFA. They should be able to get good deals for some depth pieces or vets though.

CMac rarely goes big game hunting with UFA's (other than signing internal UFA's). The rare exception was Donskoi (4 X $3.9m). He's far more likely to trade for Rfa's.

Do the Blackhawks have a retention spot left yes or no?

Per capwages Chicago are currently using 2 slots to retain on Rantanen and McCabe until this summer, then they have all 3 spots open again. So retention spots shouldn't be an issue if they did want to retain on Jones.

 

[Richard88]

Well someone did say they offered Rantanen to go to Chicago or Carolina. Reasonable to assume. Chicago was evaluating a big offer for Rantanen too. And Cmac used then to handle the money instead since everyone was already talking and they wanted to get rid of Hall.

I like the 'Jones is still in play' alternate reality better though.

Rantanen's reaction in the interview yesterday doesn't suggest that he knew he was being traded to Chicago or Carolina.