Rumor: 2024-2025 Trade Rumors and Free Agency Talk | The Slow Crawl to the Season

[Balthazar]

It's pretty simple, you can't expect to win the trade if you are trading the best player in the deal.

You can easily win the trade with the lesser player(s) as long as you understand that cap space is a huge asset in a cap world.

 

[Ararana]

You can easily win the trade as long as you understand that cap space is a huge asset in a cap world.

I feel like I'm trying to explain math to three year olds who want every toy at the store.

 

[LOFIN]

You can easily win the trade with the lesser player(s) as long as you understand that cap space is a huge asset in a cap world.

And use it on what?

 

[henchman21]

You need depth (especially at important positions) and elite talent to win Cups. There are outliers, but they are rare. This is why winning a Cup is really difficult. A specific set of things has to fall in place, and you need some breaks.

 

[Balthazar]

And use it on what?

Anything. Cap space is a currency in itself. Montreal just got Laine for cap space alone.

Look at the Avs roster, we sure could use some cap space for some upgrades.

You need depth (especially at important positions) and elite talent to win Cups.

Avs have 2 top 5 players in the league still in their prime, we have the elite talent part covered with or without Rantanen.

 

[henchman21]

Avs have 2 top 5 players in the league still in their prime, we have the elite talent part covered with or without Rantanen.

There's a lot of history to suggest you need one elite wing. The rest can lack, but one guy on the wing who can create a lot of offense out of nothing.

I'm not saying that moving Rants would have been a horrible move a season or two ago, but today where you're getting a rental return, punting a season, and maybe rise back up after MacK turns 30... it doesn't make much sense.

 

[Balthazar]

There's a lot of history to suggest you need one elite wing. The rest can lack, but one guy on the wing who can create a lot of offense out of nothing.

I'm not saying that moving Rants would have been a horrible move a season or two ago, but today where you're getting a rental return, punting a season, and maybe rise back up after MacK turns 30... it doesn't make much sense.

If the goal is to win another cup with Mack and Makar we know it's not happening with the current depth and we need to act fast.

On the other hand, if we sit on the "we already won a cup" idea then yea, we go full Penguins, sign Rantaten to an 8 year deal and watch Makar waste the rest of his prime on a rapidly declining team. If he's lucky we'll trade him at age 34 so he can have another run at the cup somewhere else before retiring.

 

[Alienblood]

You can easily win the trade with the lesser player(s) as long as you understand that cap space is a huge asset in a cap world.

you dont even have to trade like you say the cap space alone is a trade.

When the Islanders let Tavares walk for example, they won that deal as they had money to spend on someone else.

 

[Alienblood]

And use it on what?

other top notch free agents

 

[The Abusement Park]

If the goal is to win another cup with Mack and Makar we know it's not happening with the current depth and we need to act fast.

On the other hand, if we sit on the "we already won a cup" idea then yea, we go full Penguins, sign Rantaten to an 8 year deal and watch Makar waste the rest of his prime on a rapidly declining team. If he's lucky we'll trade him at age 34 so he can have another run at the cup somewhere else before retiring.

Or we could trade Mikko for a 1st, a 2nd, a prospect that could be a top 6 player in 2 years and a couple depth pieces while having a worse team this upcoming year and 100% not winning the cup in a fading contention window. That also sounds good.

 

[LOFIN]

Or we could trade Mikko for a 1st, a 2nd, a prospect that could be a top 6 player in 2 years and a couple depth pieces while having a worse team this upcoming year and 100% not winning the cup in a fading contention window. That also sounds good.

If that type of trade was available, it would actually be worth considering. Hell, I'd do it now.

But it isn't, unless we are talking about trading him for retained and to a team that is willing to re-sign him (and Rantanen is willing to re-sign there).

 

[henchman21]

If the goal is to win another cup with Mack and Makar we know it's not happening with the current depth and we need to act fast.

On the other hand, if we sit on the "we already won a cup" idea then yea, we go full Penguins, sign Rantaten to an 8 year deal and watch Makar waste the rest of his prime on a rapidly declining team. If he's lucky we'll trade him at age 34 so he can have another run at the cup somewhere else before retiring.

The time to make the move was a season or two ago... we are past the that expiration date now. A moving or simply losing Rants sets the team back this and next season at an absolute minimum. At that point, pretty much all of the core is over 30 except Makar and G and both of them will be 28. That may not sound old, but is pretty old.

 

[Pokecheque]

Jesus Christ dude...get a Hyman style winger, staple him next to Mack, put him on PP1 and you get 80% of Rants production for half the AAV.

The first line don't need Rantanen to produce offensively.

Again, you're not dealing with reality here. Where is a "Zach Hyman-style winger" available? Where, exactly? How are you gonna get him?

You act as if there's a plethora of top-six talent just sitting around waiting to be snatched up. It's not.

 

[The Abusement Park]

If that type of trade was available, it would actually be worth considering. Hell, I'd do it now.

But it isn't, unless we are talking about trading him for retained and to a team that is willing to re-sign him (and Rantanen is willing to re-sign there).

If the goal is to win a cup a trade like that would not accomplish that. I think it would extend the Avs window of being decent but not elite. If we made that trade tomorrow our forward group would be

Drouin-Mack-Lehky
Landy-Mitts-LOC*?
Wood-Colton-potential new guy
Kelly-Wagner/Potential new guy-Kivi/potential new guy

*until Nuke comes back but his return is very likely finite as it is

Thats… a bad forward group. How obviously there would be more assets to fill up the top 6 and forward group. I just don’t see how moving Mikko is an easy or obvious solution. If you do that you have to hit on every subsequent move to make the team contender worthy again.

Again, you're not dealing with reality here. Where is a "Zach Hyman-style winger" available? Where, exactly? How are you gonna get him?

You act as if there's a plethora of top-six talent just sitting around waiting to be snatched up. It's not.

Just do it. It’s not that hard get the good depth and make team good. It’s so easy as long as there’s some cap space.

 

[LOFIN]

Just do it. It’s not that hard get the good depth and make team good. It’s so easy as long as there’s some cap space.

If it was so easy, everybody in the league would be doing it

 

[AslanRH]

You can easily win the trade with the lesser player(s) as long as you understand that cap space is a huge asset in a cap world.

I feel like I'm trying to explain math to three year olds who want every toy at the store.

Oh, I do like toy stores though

 

[Hasbro]

In retrospect, yeah. Turned out great. But it wasn't perceived as this huge win.

Teh trade thread is still here. We were pretty happy about it that night.

 

[The Abusement Park]

If it was so easy, everybody in the league would be doing it

I was being sarcastic. That’s the point I keep trying to make here, everyone keeps saying don’t sign Mikko and get good depth, but who and how are we getting them?

 

[Pokecheque]

Just do it. It’s not that hard get the good depth and make team good. It’s so easy as long as there’s some cap space.

All due respect that's overly simplistic and not in tune with the reality of the situation. Taking an elite scoring winger out of the picture and just assuming there's enough B-level talent to make up for his absence is a lofty gamble at best. More than likely you're replacing him with a vastly inferior set of players who will only exacerbate the issue from last year, which was overworking MacKinnon and Makar to the point of complete exhaustion.

It reminds of the time when the cap was first implemented, Boston and Edmonton both let top talent walk to clear cap room because they thought they could just fill the roster via free agency. When they realized there wasn't any talent available, they scrambled like hell and signed inferior players to inflated sums. The Oilers even signed pancake enthusiast Dustin Penner to a desperation offer sheet (and this is coming from someone who actually liked Penner as a player).

I'd be all for letting Mikko go via trade if I honestly believed there was a path to make the team better overall, but that simply isn't going to happen. At best, they take a step back this year and probably next year, and by then--as Henchy points out--the core will likely be too old to contend.

Again, the only way to have really staved off what we're seeing now would have been to draft better, and the Avs are doing far too little far too late to correct that now.

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

 

[The Abusement Park]

All due respect that's overly simplistic and not in tune with the reality of the situation. Taking an elite scoring winger out of the picture and just assuming there's enough B-level talent to make up for his absence is a lofty gamble at best. More than likely you're replacing him with a vastly inferior set of players who will only exacerbate the issue from last year, which was overworking MacKinnon and Makar to the point of complete exhaustion.

It reminds of the time when the cap was first implemented, Boston and Edmonton both let top talent walk to clear cap room because they thought they could just fill the roster via free agency. When they realized there wasn't any talent available, they scrambled like hell and signed inferior players to inflated sums. The Oilers even signed pancake enthusiast Dustin Penner to a desperation offer sheet (and this is coming from someone who actually liked Penner as a player).

I'd be all for letting Mikko go via trade if I honestly believed there was a path to make the team better overall, but that simply isn't going to happen. At best, they take a step back this year and probably next year, and by then--as Henchy points out--the core will likely be too old to contend.

Again, the only way to have really staved off what we're seeing now would have been to draft better, and the Avs are doing far too little far too late to correct that now.

Sorry I was being facetious there. I agree with you that what everyone wants to do isn’t nearly as easy as they’re saying it is.

 

[Pokecheque]

Sorry I was being facetious there. I agree with you that what everyone wants to do isn’t nearly as easy as they’re saying it is.

 

[The Abusement Park]

In hindsight I can see how my post didn’t come off as facetious

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

 

[Pokecheque]

i dont call preventing dynastys and creating a bunch of mediocre teams playing boring hockey determined by power plays working

They wanted parity, and that's pretty much what they got.

And really, there's not much argument to be made that there were many "dynasties" before the cap was implemented. Yes, it tended to be the same handful of teams in the mix every year, but the days of Edmonton or Montreal just running away with it were long since gone by then.

Also, the quality of hockey was MUCH worse before the rule changes that accompanied the cap. And offense has increased almost every year since then, I think it only took a step back this last season or something. That's not to say that I don't think there are problems with the quality of the on-ice product, but the cap didn't do that. Bad management, overcoaching, and a league that just can't get out of its own way is all responsible.