Rebuilding Avs entering major offseason stretch
The NHL’s busiest off-ice time of the season is upon us, with next weekend’s entry draft followed by the July 1 opening of free agency. This year there is additional activity with the expansion Vegas Golden Knights, who will pluck one player from each of the 30 existing teams Wednesday during the 2017 NHL awards ceremony in Las Vegas.
In Colorado, it’s a particularly busy and important time of the year for — ahem — the laughingstock of the league. The Avalanche, coming off its worst season in club history (22-56-2) and having produced the fewest points (48) since the expansion Atlanta Thrashers in 1999-2000 (Denver’s NCAA hockey team had 11 more wins in 38 fewer games than the Avalanche) is understandably thinking about change throughout its player personnel. Significant change. Perhaps even drastic change.
General manager Joe Sakic has said his roster needs to get younger and the blue line must be rebuilt. But it goes beyond that, considering the Avs finished last in average goals for (2.01) and goals against (3.37) last season. The 23-man opening-night roster in October could feature half as many new faces, and popular standouts Matt Duchene and Gabe Landeskog could be playing elsewhere.
To begin this key stretch of the offseason, the Avs will lose a player Wednesday in the expansion draft. The good teams are worried about losing a player to the Golden Knights. The bad teams don’t have much to lose. But leaguewide trading won’t heat up until the expansion draft ends.
So who will Colorado lose? I believe the Avs will protect eight forwards/defensemen and a goalie — opposed to the seven forwards, three defensemen and a goalie route — and shield Duchene, Landeskog and fellow forwards Nathan MacKinnon and Sven Andrighetto; defensemen Erik Johnson, Tyson Barrie, Nikita Zadorov and Mark Barbario; and goalie Calvin Pickard. First- and second-year players and unsigned prospects are exempt from the expansion draft.
Many teams have announced their protected lists; the Avs have not. I’m projecting Vegas to choose a forward, Mikhail Grigorenko, 23, or Matt Nieto, 24, if the Avs don’t protect one of them.
This week’s entry draft begins with the first round Friday night. The Avs pick fourth in the first round and first in rounds 2,4, 5, 6 and 7. They also have the 21st pick in the fourth round for trading defenseman Nick Holden to the New York Rangers last summer. The draft’s top-rated defenseman is not worthy of the fourth pick, so chances are decent the Avs will trade down to select a D-man in the first round for just the third time since 2007.
Then again, they might stick with the fourth pick and choose a forward, while knowing they’re bound to trade Duchene or Landeskog for that young elite defenseman.
To be sure, the Avs would relish the opportunity to select Kelowna Rockets defenseman Cal Foote, the eldest son of former Avalanche captain Adam Foote. Cal, who is ranked 12th among draft-eligible North American skaters, was born in Denver in 1998 and mostly raised in Colorado. At 6foot-4 and 215 pounds, he is the draft’s thirdhighest rated North American defenseman, behind Canadian junior-A’s Brooks Makar (5-11, 187) and Finnish-born Juuso Valimaki (6-2, 211) of Tri-City in the Western Hockey League.
A week after the draft, the Avalanche will be highly active in free agency to improve its team and stock of its minor-league system. Currently, the Avs have 14 big-league players under contract for 2017-18 at approximately $54 million, some $19 million under last year’s salary cap of $73 million (the new cap ceiling hasn’t been announced, but is expected to increase to $75 million or more). Colorado’s 14 contracts don’t include signed youngsters such as forward A.J. Greer, 20, and 22-year-old defensemen Chris Bigras, Andrei Mironov and Anton Lindholm, who each will compete for a roster spot in training camp.
Because of Sakic’s youth movement, perhaps every unrestricted free agent — and some restricted free agents — won’t be resigned to more than a two-way contract.
UFA forwards Rene Bourque, 35, and John Mitchell, 32, almost certainly won’t be back, along with UFA defensemen Fedor Tyutin, 33, and Cody Goloubef, 27. RFA defensemen Patrick Wiercioch and Eric Gelinas likely won’t get qualifying offers to remain, and it’s questionable about what the Avs will do with RFA forwards Grigorenko and Nieto.
On the trade front, Sakic has said only a handful of young forwards — MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Tyson Jost — are considered untouchable, but that was before MacKinnon, 21, finished the season with a disappointing 16 goals in a full 82-game season. I don’t believe MacKinnon is untouchable, and certainly the Avs could move him for an elite young defenseman and wind up keeping Duchene, 26, and Landeskog, 24.
As for unfavorable contracts, I suspect the Avalanche will do what it can to get out of the deal with forward Carl Soderberg, who is under contract at $4.75 million annually through 2019-20. But the Avs used a compliance buyout last week on defenseman Francois Beauchemin ($4.5 million next season), just a year after buying out defenseman Brad Stuart ($3.6 million last season). Sodberberg appears untradeable, so Colorado can only hope he rebounds from a six-goal, 14-point and minus-26 season.