Jost has officially entered "tweener" status, if he hadn't already last season.
IMO he should seriously consider going overseas where he has the potential to make some cash and become an impact player.
Jost will make more in NA than most places even as a tweener... but probably more than anything, his NHL pension is going to ramp up the more that he can play. He's played like ~450 games and I'm sure he's been scratched or injured, but on the NHL roster for at least another ~25-40. If he can find a way to claw to 800, he gets the full benefit. If not though, each 20 game segment lifts him another tier. It isn't an insignificant amount either... like 250k a year when he's of retirement age that'll be indexed to some inflation factor.
I don't think covid or the flat cap did the Avs in. IMO it was more window recognition. It is a common mistake with teams, they don't really push until they are a couple or few years into their window. Thinking they have a ton of time, when really 5-6 years is closer to the norm than 7-8-9. Long windows can happen, but it is usually a result of a really young team winning early. The Avs were not super young win they started winning, and they pushed the chips to the middle a couple years too late. The compounded that by not pushing chips back in the middle after winning the Cup. It was frequently stated they wanted to build for now and the future. That they wanted to be good for a long time. Teams can take many paths to building a contender, it doesn't have to drafting or trading or any one thing... but they all have to push at some point. Avs pushed too late and then stopped pushing