This trade... makes me sad. Rare 3 way blockbuster trade where I feel like everyone lost.
Re: Colorado, none of us know what happened behind closed doors wrt salary negotiations, but reportedly Rants was like, "I need to get paid" and my guess is the Avs maybe thought, 'nope we want a team like Boston (not Toronto) where everyone takes a mil or two less to stay here, starting with our superstars.' MacKinnon did this multiple times, in my opinion Makar did, but others did not -- for example I'm not sure Toews is a 7+ mil top pair D man on most teams but the man got paid, with term and a pretty good modified no trade. Also their middle six forwards got paid (Logan O'Connor, Casey Mittlestadt, Ross Colton etc), if they didn't have cap space to sign Rantanen it's their own fault.
This doesn't 'extend' Colorado's cup window, Necas isn't nearly as good and they're still looking for a legit 2nd line center. This trade reminds me of Chicago trading Panarin for Brandon Saad, maybe the balance sheet looks better but this is now a significantly worse team on paper, while giving up this year. Just... why.
Re: Carolina, if Rants wasn't taking a discount in Col he's definitely not taking one to stay in Carolina. Imo the guy will hit UFA and will get paid -- I guess Carolina could afford to pay him once Orlov, Burns and Roslovic hit UFA but if that's the case they could've just waited until the offseason. I guess this deal works if they win the cup this year, but imo it's the wrong time to go all-in -- even with Rants, it's anyone's guess as to whether they can get past Jersey in the first round. There are a few teams that can make the money work (incl Vegas, funny enough), my point is no one would be surprised if Rants signed elsewhere.
Re: Chicago, who knows if they'd get more from waiting, Taylor Hall hasn't been putting up points for the past few years. But you can't really call it a win for them either, even though the third they're getting will be pretty high.
***
I think Taylor Hall wins this trade because now he has a chance to go to the playoffs and stick it to NJ for deciding to trade him while he was still an elite forward. Imo that's about it. But hopefully these teams can go far this year and prove me wrong