Young forwards receive opportunity
NHL free agency went well for the Avalanche. It didn’t sign center John Tavares, and Colorado still has a gaping (unproved) hole with its No. 2 center, but 29 other teams failed to sign Tavares or lacked the salary cap space to do so.
As a consolation prize, the Avs got defenseman Ian Cole and forward Matt Calvert from Columbus and will stand between $10 million to $13 million under the salary cap when the season begins. They will have the flexibility to make moves in 2018-19 without behind strapped with a $11 million annual cap, which is what Toronto now has by winning the Tavares sweepstakes.
Tavares is a great player and would have worked well with Avs star center Nathan Mackinnon. The Avs could have been the next Sakic-forsberg in Colorado and given the franchise a potent two-line punch — assuming young forwards Tyson Jost, Alex Kerfoot, J.T. Compher and Vladislav Kamenev met expectations.
Without Tavares, it’s all up to the young forwards — all rookies last season — to establish the secondary scoring Colorado didn’t have enough of in 2017-18. Jost or Kerfoot will probably be that No. 2 center, but all four are capable of playing in the middle or the wing.
“We’ve got a young forward group, some young centermen, and we look forward for them to make that next step,” Avs general manager Joe Sakic said. “Obviously, we’d like to improve our secondary scoring and we’ll continue to look at avenues to accomplish that. But yeah, I’m excited to give these guys that opportunity.”
Cole and Calvert are welcomed additions. They won’t make Colorado better as much as help prevent a relapse. Cole, a two-time Stanley Cup champion with Pittsburgh, adds depth to a suddenly deep blue line. And Calvert, 28, replaces winger Blake Comeau, 32, who signed with Dallas as a free agent.
Cole, 6-foot-1 and 220 pounds, gives Colorado four veteran big guys on the back end, plus the intermediate-sized Mark Barberio, probably paired with the more offensive savvy and smaller Tyson Barrie, Sam Girard and perhaps rookie Conor Timmins.
“He’s a winner — two-time Stanley Cup champion,” Sakic said of Cole, 29. “He’s really good on the PK. He’s a strong, heavy defender (who) can get the puck out of the zone, which is how we want to play.
“Right now, we just like our depth with him, E.J. (Erik Johnson), Z (Nikita Zadorov), (Patrik) Nemeth — we got some big, strong defensemen to go with your Barries, your Girards, soonto-be Timmins and (Cale) Makar. We feel we have depth there that we really wanted to have.”
Failing to sign Tavares also gives Colorado flexibility down the road. After next season, a handful of key players will require bigger contracts coming out of their modest entry-level or bridge deals — most notably right winger Mikko Rantanen ($894,167 current cap hit) and Zadorov ($2,15 million).
Kerfoot, Compher and fellow entry-level contract forward Dominic Toninato — each with a $925,000 cap hit — and defenseman Anton Linholm ($717,500) also will be restricted free agents. Jost ($885,833) and Girard ($728,333) each have two years remaining on their entrylevel contracts.
“We know, internally, we got a lot of guys in the next few years that we’re going to have to pay,” Sakic said. “We want to make sure we don’t get stuck, or handcuffed, with some longer-term deals.”
Signing Tavares would have been a blockbuster move for the Avalanche and its fans. But seeing him go elsewhere seemingly makes it easier for the team to
operate.
Mike Chambers: mchambers @denverpost.com or @mikechambers