I like the trade for Colorado more than most around here. Hard to judge if they made the 'right' decision to not extend him without hearing the actual numbers that had been discussed, but once the decision to move him was made, I like the return they got.
I think Necas is a good fit for their style and worst case scenario they can get 1.5 years out of him. He was pretty clearly heading toward UFA in Carolina, but that always seemed to be related to getting out of Carolina and not a pure desire to hit UFA. He's not going to replace Rants 1 for 1, but he could absolutely be an 85+ point player in Colorado. Drury isn't a huge needle mover, but he starts to address their lack of depth. The picks help replenish some of the picks they have traded in the last few years chasing Cups. From a cap perspective, they freed up about $2M in space this year and then Necas will be about $6M less than Rants next season. If Necas extends, I'd wager that it will be for $3-5M less than what it would have taken to extend Rants (depending on how well he fits in Colorado).
They need to use that space to add someone to the roster for this trade to truly work out, but they added quite a bit of cap flexibility to make that other move. I see the justification to downgrade 20-30 points out of a top line winger in order to get a couple years younger, push the extension decision down the line a year, and create long-term cap flexibility. I think this was better than simply trying to get a pure futures return for Rants and I understand not being willing to give him $13M+ if that was truly the requirement to get Rants extended.
