Colorado Avalanche Roundtable: Trades the Team Should Avoid

If the Colorado Avalanche turn out to be buyers at the NHL Trade Deadline, fans are not going to be happy — especially if they sell away their future.

The Colorado Avalanche shouldn’t be approaching the 2018 NHL Trade Deadline as buyers. However, you never know what a team is going to do at the deadline. Joe Sakic could well decide to do a little shopping.

As part of our Trade Deadline roundtable series, I asked Mile High Sticking contributors to share what deadline move would really set them off.

Ross Kleppe was very specific:

“There are two. One – Over-paying for some bottom six or bottom defensive pairing “character” player. Heart and grit is good and all that, but if the guy isn’t good with the puck on his stick, I don’t want him.

“Two – DON’T SELL TYSON BARRIE!!! His play from the back is so important to the offense, and he’s extra good on the power play. I know the Avs could get a good return for him but there’s a reason for that. He’s a top 4 right-handed offensive defenseman. Many teams would kill for a player like Barrie and to trade him to me seems absurd.”

Well, if teams would kill for Barrie, maybe they’d overpay for him. However, as I noted in a previous post, the Avalanche are more likely to trade Barrie at the NHL Draft.

Anthony Noga had some pretty strong opinions of his own:

“The Avs better not make the same damn mistakes they’ve made at almost every deadline since 2010. No veteran rentals, no character-y journeymen, no selling off picks and prospects for some pending UFA who will have no appreciable impact on the team this year or any other.

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“The other pitfall to avoid is taking on too bad of a contract as another
team’s cap dump.

“Aside from something totally insane like trading away the best players or prospects, those are about the only way Sakic can mess this deadline up.”

Noga definitely had some frustration with previous trade deadline deals.

Tom Janz was less specific. However, he definitely had an opinion:

“There is no specific move that would anger me at the trade deadline. With that said, I don’t think the team should be looking at any sort of Shawn Matthias, or Mikkel Boedker rental deals. I also don’t think they will.”

Shawn Matthias was actually a pre-deadline deal — the Avalanche traded for him about a week before the deadline in 2016. I like both him and Boedker at the time, but I agree that they did nothing for the team in the long-run, and very little in the short-term.

Besides trading away one of the rookies, the only trade that would really anger me would be selling off other parts of the future — draft picks or prospects — for a rental player. In other words, I concur with Anthony and Tom. The Colorado Avalanche aren’t even in a good playoff position — ie., any playoff position — so it’s highly doubtful Joe Sakic would do that.

The 2018 NHL Trade Deadline is February 26 at 1:00 pm MT.

Next: Dream Trade Deadline Move for the Avs

Next: What the Avs Should do at the Deadline

To conclude our roundtable series, next time we’ll look at what we actually think Joe Sakic will do at the deadline.