I think some people are just huge Mikko fans, and I don't really want to take that away from them.
But the fact is, the Avs are a better team today and will be for the foreseeable future with Necas instead of Mikko. I honestly feel bad on some level for the dude... but you have to remember... this is what he ASKED for and WANTED. The Avs gave him a deal that would have made him the highest paid winger in the league. He turned it down. He's got nobody but himself to blame for the mess he is in or the shit contract he's going to get. Don't get me wrong...he's still going to be making bank (players on league minimum are making bank compared to me and probably most of us here), but don't think for a second he hasn't cost himself a lot of money already.
Since Mikko has left the Avs he's been in free-fall. Necas hasn't been though? Why? I think heart, conditioning, and effort are the three primary reasons. Mikko was a stud. But Mikko became a one-trick pony. His trick is an absolute world beater, but that's what he brings to the table. He doesn't bring a forecheck, he doesn't bring a backcheck, he doesn't bring a pickpocket, he doesn't bring success from battles along the board. What he does is finish one-timers placed perfectly on his stick like a damned champion. But no team can afford to pay him what he wants for that one thing only. Mikko was wasting a good 10-14 of his 22 minutes a night doing absolutely nothing but coasting around trying not to fall.
I'm not sure if it was him or his agent... but somebody miscalculated big time here.
Personally, Mikko was only my 6th or 7th favorite Av in recent times, and I understood why they traded him, and didn't think they could build a contending team with another $12M+ salary. That's all totally reasonable IMO.
I'm not directing this towards you or anyone else, but my reason for taking issue with the commentary about this, is that we've treated him as bad if not worse than we treated Val for choosing to party, over making sure he's clean and available to help the team in the playoffs. Twice.
We didn't treat Burakovsky this badly for playing lazier hockey than Mikko and wanting more money than he's worth. We didn't treat Grubauer this poorly after wanting more money and saying the Avs window was closed. The only players we treated like this are Val and Duchene. Which doesn't seem fair to me.
Objectively, there seems to really only be two reasons people are upset with Mikko.
1) He might have taken his foot off the gas slightly the last couple years, while still producing at a 40+ goal 100+ point pace.
2) He wanted to be paid close to, or exactly what Nate made at $12.6M, when his market value at the time was probably in the $13M+ range.
Is that really a reason to pile on a guy every day who we cheered for over a decade, helped us win a Stanley Cup, was one of the all time great Avalanche players, always seemed like a very nice dude who was very welcoming to fans, and a possible Hall of Famer?
I just wish instead of the "f*** Mikko Rantanen" kind of commentary it was more along the lines of "We couldn't afford you, thanks for everything you did, we wish you luck" just like it is for most players, let alone all time greats on a team that parted over business reasons. It wasn't even his decision to leave.
