Confirmed with Link: [COL, CAR, CHI] Rantanen-Hall to CAR, Necas-Drury-25 2nd-26 4th to COL, Chi 25 3rd to Chi (Ret 50% on Mikko)

[a mangy Meowth]

That was FIVE YEARS ago. Since then Rantanen has regressed and if anything, MacKinnon has evolved

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

I'm not going to quote all the posts, but I just find it funny/annoying how everyone just plain ignores 7/9 years Rantanen played here and just focuses on the last one and a half seasons.

"Rantanen was not a line driver, he just leeched off from MacKinnon and Makar and advanced stats back that up".

Yes, during the last two seasons this was the case. Not so much for the previous 7 though, and you can look at advanced stats there too. There were one or two seasons there where Rantanen actually produced better without MacKinnon, and MacKinnon's production was brought up when playing with Rantanen.

It might've been the right time to cut bait with Rantanen, if his best years are already in his past. Necas seems to be trending upwards. We should be happy for that. Don't have to resort to bashing and full out lying about what Rantanen was able to achieve with this team.

I think Rantanen just got too comfortable imo. It makes sense as well because he played with MacK and Makar. Those guys drive the play so much, that all you need to do is finish plays really. That will make you lazy. It makes perfect sense.

Now we will see if he has another gear in him. Was it just motivation or bad habits of playing with insanely good players? Time will tell.

 

[LOFIN]

That was FIVE YEARS ago. Since then Rantanen has regressed and if anything, MacKinnon has evolved

Yes, was I disputing that? I literally said, it's very likely that the best years of Rantanen are behind him, and what we've seen during the last two years is what you see going forward.

It's really going to be interesting the rest of the year to see how this trade looks. For Colorado as long as Necas plays reasonably and Drury continues his solid 3rd line play it's a win. Carolina pretty much has to win the Cup or re-sign 96 long term for it to be a successful trade.

Or they flip him, who knows. Necas was very likely going to be traded in the offseason the latest from Carolina, so it's not exactly the same as it is for us.

It will also be interesting to see if we manage to re-sign Necas to a reasonable cap hit. There's not an insignificant chance that we are doing the same song and dance with Necas as we did with Mikko, when he's playing at 1.3PPG pace a year from now.

 

[Bender]

So when are the canes fans on the main board thread going to go from :

"Avs fans have a tremendous amount of cope" to....

 

[a mangy Meowth]

Yes, was I disputing that? I literally said, it's very likely that the best years of Rantanen are behind him, and what we've seen during the last two years is what you see going forward.

Seems odd to be policing other people for being happy about the trade then. Not every single post has to acknowledge Rantanen's legacy here (one we'll all remember fondly)

 

[Balthazar]

Mack creates opportunities for him and others. Rantanen is an ace at catching opportunities created by others.

 

[a mangy Meowth]

So when are the canes fans on the main board thread going to go from :

"Avs fans have a tremendous amount of cope" to....

View attachment 973828

No, now it's "the whole team has perpetual diarrhea"

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

Mack creates opportunities for him and others. Rantanen is an ace at catching opportunities created by others.

Spot on.

 

[AllAboutAvs]

I posted that in the Trade/Rumors thread. Here it goes again.

Like I have always said about trading a star player...it is always about the return and Oh man! Am I loving this return!

Necas is so exciting moving his feet constantly which creates so much chaos. Drury is the cherry on top.

Oh and Necas is able to stay on his feet.

Oh and one more thing.....he doesn't take stupid penalties.

I could go on.........Great deal.

 

[Foppberg]

I don't know if Rantanen is ever going to be a good fit in a Brind'Amour system that preaches on hard forchecking and cycling. He just gets too easily knocked off the puck these days for some unknown reason.

Lehkonen's dad was right. Something changed with Rantanen where he got way too comfortable on Mackinnons line and stopped moving his feet.

Where'd you hear this at?

 

[a mangy Meowth]

Where'd you hear this at?

Avalanche's Rantanen calls out teammate's dad after criticism in Finnish media

Colorado Avalanche forward Mikko Rantanen said he had added incentive for his big game Monday night after taking offence to comments from the dad of one of his teammates concerning his off-season work ethic.

www.sportsnet.ca

 

[Avsfan1921]

There's not an insignificant chance that we are doing the same song and dance with Necas as we did with Mikko, when he's playing at 1.3PPG pace a year from now.

If his play is worth it, then I think it could be ok. That was most of the problem a lot of people had with Rants, was that his play didn’t match his excellent results and therefore people were worried on how the near-term outlook of a huge contract would look, let alone the long-term. Regardless of how he plays I don’t think he asks to be the highest paid winger in the league but we’ll see I suppose.

As well, just another reason to try him on his own line at some point to see if we can spread the caphit throughout the lineup to create depth internally.

 

[a mangy Meowth]

It will also be interesting to see if we manage to re-sign Necas to a reasonable cap hit. There's not an insignificant chance that we are doing the same song and dance with Necas as we did with Mikko, when he's playing at 1.3PPG pace a year from now.

Thing is, he doesn't have nearly the same resume to use in negotiations as Rantanen did with back to back 105 pt seasons and the current one with good production.

I'm hoping we get him at like 10M per for 8 years. At the end of the day, I doubt he gets much more than 11M AAV because I think we will have an offer ready for him to sign right after July 1st to get ahead of any insane production he might have next year - in fact I'm guessing they're already discussing frameworks with him & his agent.

Frankly I'd be comfortable going up to 12.5x8 I think, if it had to be done. By the time the extension would start, the cap is already well over $100M. Plus he's only 26 and hasn't had much of a history of injuries. An 8 year deal would start when he's 27 and a half, and go until he's 36.

Smart piece of work by the Avs FO, IMO.

 

[AvBuff]

Can somebody give me an informed, no BS, legit opinion on what has happened to Casey Middelstadt? That guy looked very good- to-borderline great after the trade last year.

As of right now, he's should probably be scratched, but for the fact that the Avs don't have any options. And no, I don't want Necas in his spot.

Is he hurt? Depressed? A poor fit? Or just not very good? I'm mystified.

 

[Balthazar]

Can somebody give me an informed, no BS, legit opinion on what has happened to Casey Middelstadt? That guy looked very good- to-borderline great after the trade last year.

As of right now, he's should probably be scratched, but for the fact that the Avs don't have any options. And no, I don't want Necas in his spot.

Is he hurt? Depressed? A poor fit? Or just not very good? I'm mystified.

Hard to tell if he has personal issues or just a poor fit. Only thing we know is he had more bad games than good games in his Avs tenure so far and that's including last year.

 

[Chiarelli]

Rantanen is not going to continue to be as bad as he has in his first 6 games. But there are holes in his game, without 29 covering them up, they are very obvious.

Necas is showing that his offensive game was held back in Carolina, and is now also getting the 29 boost.

It's really going to be interesting the rest of the year to see how this trade looks. For Colorado as long as Necas plays reasonably and Drury continues his solid 3rd line play it's a win. Carolina pretty much has to win the Cup or re-sign 96 long term for it to be a successful trade.

I'd add a caveat that the contract needs to be somewhat reasonable as well (I'd say less than $13 aav x 8 years).

 

[Tommy Shelby]

Let's see how Mikko and the Canes do after the 4 nations. Apparently they've all got the Spanish Flu or something

Hopefully Mikko doesn't bunk with Lehky

 

[a mangy Meowth]

Can somebody give me an informed, no BS, legit opinion on what has happened to Casey Middelstadt? That guy looked very good- to-borderline great after the trade last year.

As of right now, he's should probably be scratched, but for the fact that the Avs don't have any options. And no, I don't want Necas in his spot.

Is he hurt? Depressed? A poor fit? Or just not very good? I'm mystified.

I'll try:

I think he lost his confidence after the hot start. It resulted in him playing fewer minutes, being taken off the top PP unit, and playing with less talented linemates. Created a feedback loop of negativity. This was further exacerbated by injuries to Nuke, who can carry the 2nd line, and for a while also Drouin who is one of our only other top-6 level guys. So inconsistency in linemates as well. Probably also just some bad puck luck.

He likes to scan a lot sometimes and needs to just move his feet more, get himself into better position to work with teammates. His brain can handle playing fast, but sometimes he just tries to play slow and the game gets past him.

 

[CobraAcesS]

Can somebody give me an informed, no BS, legit opinion on what has happened to Casey Middelstadt? That guy looked very good- to-borderline great after the trade last year.

As of right now, he's should probably be scratched, but for the fact that the Avs don't have any options. And no, I don't want Necas in his spot.

Is he hurt? Depressed? A poor fit? Or just not very good? I'm mystified.

My theory is he didn't take his conditioning to the level needed to play a full season in Bednar's system.

No one knows the truth except Casey Mittelstadt.

 

[PAZ]

If we can sign Necas this offseason I bet it'll be between $9-10 mil. I'll be surprised if it's $10+ mil unless he has a big playoff performance.

He was probably aiming for a 6-8 yr x 7-8 mil contract with the Canes. He's having a fantastic year and looks like a great fit here, but I think he'll be happy with an extra 2-3 mil pay bump by playing in the Avs' system.

 

[AllAboutAvs]

Yeah Necas really seems to love playing on the Avs and our system along with Mack and Makar. That might help a lot when it is time to negotiate. Something Mikko forgot.

 

[RoyIsALegend]

Yeah Necas really seems to love playing on the Avs and our system along with Mack and Makar. That might help a lot when it is time to negotiate. Something Mikko forgot.

Yeah, how could he not?

"Here's more ice-time than you've ever had before, including PP1. Strategy? Skate, kid. Fly up the ice, use your speed, go go go."

 

[CobraAcesS]

Mikko will need to Eric Staal himself over the off-season.

 

[dahrougem2]

Can somebody give me an informed, no BS, legit opinion on what has happened to Casey Middelstadt? That guy looked very good- to-borderline great after the trade last year.

As of right now, he's should probably be scratched, but for the fact that the Avs don't have any options. And no, I don't want Necas in his spot.

Is he hurt? Depressed? A poor fit? Or just not very good? I'm mystified.

Who knows what happened, but what I do know is this is a guy who struggled tremendously his first 4 professional seasons, then suddenly found offense his next two seasons - one of which was a contract year - and is back to looking like the guy from his first 4 seasons (if you remove October he's scoring at a 35 point pace which is just barely above his first 4 season average).

What COULD be an explanation - which is terrifying for us - is this is who he is and the previous two seasons given one was a contract year are the outliers.