LAS VEGAS — It’s becoming clearer that without trading a significant player off the current roster, it could be a pretty quiet week ahead for the Colorado Avalanche.
The Avs signed Casey Mittelstadt to a three-year contract to kickstart their offseason. They can sign Mikko Rantanen to a long-term extension for the 2025-26 season and beyond once the calendar flips to July.
But the math is the math, and the Avs don’t have room below the salary cap ceiling to make a big addition to the 2024-25 roster without removing someone who was important in 2023-24. That includes bringing back Jonathan Drouin, something the player and team both want but the salary cap just might not allow.
“It’s a challenging one,” general manager Chris MacFarland said. “We are cap-challenged, so there’s those competing factors. Both parties want to get it done, but finding that sweet spot is the challenge.”
The cap ceiling is set at $88 million for next season. With Mittelstadt signed, the Avs are nearly out of room to add players who make anything beyond the league minimum. If we include Nikolai Kovalenko, Sam Malinski and Jean-Luc Foudy, plus three players on veteran minimum contracts to fill out the lineup, the Avs are left with less than $400,000 in cap space.
There is a path to more space that doesn’t involve trading someone off the current roster, but it comes with an asterisk. Valeri Nichushkin’s $6.125 million cap hit will not count toward the $88 million ceiling for as long as he’s suspended, which is until at least mid-November.
Once he’s reinstated by the NHL, the Avs would need to get back down below the $88 million limit. If they had a player who needs to go on long-term injured reserve, it could be another temporary solution, but the most likely fix would be a trade.
At least as of Friday night, that did not sound like a plan that enticed MacFarland.
“You really can’t go over $88 (million),” he said. “There are sort of two tracks that you go on. Last year, we knew (Gabe Landeskog) was out for the year. This year, thankfully, we don’t know that. … We know Val’s going to be reinstated at some point, assuming everything goes good, which obviously that’s what we’re hoping for for him and for us. At some point in November, it’s not like we can go and spend $6 million and then go, ‘OK, we got to get rid of $6 million’ three weeks into the season. That’s not how it works.
“It’s not simple to create those escape hatches. And most teams when they know you need to do something, it’s not the best situation to be in.”
Drouin was a wonderful story this past season, a great candidate for comeback player of the year if such an NHL award existed. He quickly fit in the with club and eventually became an integral player.
He set a career high with 56 points and became a trusted two-way player for coach Jared …read more
Source:: The Denver Post – Sports
