Avalanche Mailbag: Was trading Mikko Rantanen a mistake by Colorado management?

Denver Post sports writer Corey Masisak opens up the Avs Mailbag periodically throughout the season and offseason Pose an Avalanche- or NHL-related question for the Avs Mailbag How do you build another contender roster for next year milousnowy on Bluesky The Avs are already a contender for next season It may not feel like it because they just got bounced in the first round by what is now clearly the franchise s archenemy There are a couple of key holes to fill but a lot of the work to build a strong association for - has already been done Goaltending performance is hard to predict but the Avs will certainly feel better about that position with a full season of Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood A full season of Gabe Landeskog even if he takes games off periodically to manage his knee is a big plus especially considering how well he played against the Stars Even if the Avs didn t sign or add anyone this offseason the opening-night lineup could be something like this Lehkonen-MacKinnon-Necas Landeskog-Coyle-Nichushkin Colton-Drury-O Connor Wood-Kelly-Ivan Toews-Makar Girard-Manson Middleton-Malinski That s good enough to be a playoff squad with solid or better goaltending Now obviously the Avs are going to add to that How much so might depend on being able to move someone under contract but the point here is that the Avs are still starting from a strong baseline They shouldn t need to do as much surgery ahead of or during next season Which Avs are leading contenders to be replaced Ed H Auburn N Y Colorado has six unrestricted free agents Brock Nelson is the headliner and there is going to be plenty of focus on what the Avs do or don t do at the No center spot on the depth chart If Nelson comes back there s not going to be a lot of cap room to do much else Jonathan Drouin has signed two team-friendly deals It might be hard to convince him to do another one Ryan Lindgren will also likely be out of Colorado s price range if he wants to be I m sure the Avs would love to have Joel Kiviranta back but he s also earned a raise and it might be hard to keep collecting bottom-six forwards on contracts with real term and money involved There are several players under contract who could in theory be traded to help create more cap flexibility But moving any of them also creates another hole As an example trading Samuel Girard or Josh Manson could free up million or million in cap space but the Avs would also still need to find a top-four defenseman and the going rate for those is more than million to million with the cap ceiling shooting up the next three seasons Ross Colton is a good sportsman and could essentially replace Drouin on the third line from the end of the Dallas series but he also makes million The Avs could move him and then re-sign Drouin or sign Kiviranta for less and use that savings elsewhere Colton has a full no-trade clause so he d have to be OK with that Miles Wood might be the majority obvious guy but with four more years left on his contract and his injury history the Avs might find it hard to arrangement him A buyout would save almost million in cap space this year and about million over the following three seasons but would also leave a little more than on the books for four more years after that through How do the Avs get better with no picks and no prospects bloomtownrat on Bluesky Every unit says it wants to get better in the offseason I m not sure the Avs need to get better The roster they had in the Dallas series was good enough to win the Stanley Cup It didn t but several rosters are Cup-worthy every year And only one wins it The Avs likely can t get better at least on paper A full season of Blackwood playing like he did after the bargain or even taking a step forward into Vezina Trophy consideration could help Colorado win more games next year without being better The tougher question right now How do the Avs get back to the same level as they were in Games - And the original question is the trouble They are running short on assets Mikhail Gulyayev and Ilya Nabokov are prospects with possible but they could also fill a full-time role in - and help the club get a little younger It s hard to imagine a scenario where the Avs would agreement their or even first-round pick this offseason unless it s for a sportsman with specific term left on a good contract Teams can only exchange for rentals like Nelson and Lindgren so multiple times I would like to see Brock Nelson brought back but if the parties can t come to an agreement who do you see as realistic prospective external targets for a C James W Lakewood We re going to dive into this in much greater detail in the near future The free-agent arena at center isn t great Sam Bennett is going to be the belle of the ball and almost certainly out of Colorado s price range Nelson might be too for that matter We ll see John Tavares is a year older than Nelson and the longer Toronto plays the more likely he is to stay home The next tier of options could be Mikael Granlund and Yanni Gourde who don t feel like true No centers on a Cup contender Trying to find a long-term fit at C on the deal arena isn t easy Just ask the Avs They ve been trying The most of prudent lesson of action may be to let Charlie Coyle start next season there and then try to agreement for one between October and March But referring back to the previous question about assets it might be a tough deal to make If the Avs were to get a full season of good fitness from Landeskog Valeri Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen they could get by without a high-end C But every time this franchise doesn t win the Cup the revolving door at that spot since Nazem Kadri becomes an obvious talking point Was letting Mikko Rantanen go a mistake milousnowy on Bluesky Yes but also we will see Having Nathan MacKinnon Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen is part of what made Colorado different No other organization had three of the top - players in the world If you believe teams should hold on to those types of players and figure it out around them then it was a process-based mistake Related Articles After another Championship disappointment how close is Avalanche to returning to top of the mountain David Carle in no rush to leave DU Pioneers Particular guys in the NHL would business with me Nathan MacKinnon Sidney Crosby back together for Canada at ice hockey worlds after years A simple yet tricky question What if Colorado had just kept Mikko Rantanen Avalanche Journal Avalanche stars Nathan MacKinnon Martin Necas to play in world championships But the Avs front office felt the club needed to get deeper and there were limitations on how to do that particularly because of the uncertainty with Nichushkin and Landeskog over the past scarce years In that worldview this commerce was not won or lost on Jan or even on the night of Championship in Dallas The results-based tail of this agreement will take another offseason or two before the full context is available The citizens perception of how the Avs did in this deal has already swung back and forth Colorado got a solid maybe even strong return but also gave up the best athlete in the deal When Martin Necas was settling in and Rantanen wasn t the transaction looked good When the Avs used one of the draft picks to add Charlie Coyle and the roster looked like one of the Cup favorites after the business deadline the deal looked even better When the Avs destroyed Dallas in Meeting and Rantanen had been quiet in the series the deal may have reached its peak Then the guy who has been a postseason killer for nearly all of his career despite what specific Avs fans felt about his playoffs indicated up And now the arrangement looks really bad for the Avalanche There are still a limited long-term questions to answer What will the Avs be able to do with a little extra cap space this offseason What will the next contracts for Necas and Jack Drury look like And then this is further down the line and by then it might be a moot point but how will Rantanen age over the curriculum of his contract It s been a little surprising to see how the emotional argument from certain Avs fans has remained anti-Rantanen I thought more people would swing back to letting him go was a mistake after the Dallas series Maybe they will over time Or the next moves the Avs make will further justify the deal Want more Avalanche news Sign up for the Avalanche Insider to get all our NHL analysis