Colorado Avalanche: Ranking How Likely Players are to be Traded

TORONTO, ON - JANUARY 14: Colorado Avalanche Left Wing Gabriel Landeskog (92) celebrates his goal with Right Wing Mikko Rantanen (96), Center Nathan MacKinnon (29) and Defenceman Tyson Barrie (4) during the second period of the NHL regular season game between the Colorado Avalanche and the Toronto Maple Leafs on January 14, 2019, at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, ON, Canada. (Photo by Julian Avram/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
TORONTO, ON - JANUARY 14: Colorado Avalanche Left Wing Gabriel Landeskog (92) celebrates his goal with Right Wing Mikko Rantanen (96), Center Nathan MacKinnon (29) and Defenceman Tyson Barrie (4) during the second period of the NHL regular season game between the Colorado Avalanche and the Toronto Maple Leafs on January 14, 2019, at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, ON, Canada. (Photo by Julian Avram/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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DENVER, CO – NOVEMBER 28: Team members celebrate a second period goal by Colorado Avalanche defenseman Erik Johnson (6) during a regular season game between the Colorado Avalanche and the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins on November 28, 2018 at the Pepsi Center in Denver, CO. (Photo by Russell Lansford/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Though the Colorado Avalanche aren’t sellers for this year’s Trade Deadline, they may make a deal. Ranking players who could be traded.

At the time of writing, in the middle of the bye-week, the Colorado Avalanche were still in a playoff spot. Though it’s a tenuous foothold on that spot, general wisdom holds that a team won’t start wholesale trading while still in a playoff position.

However, with the fragility of their hold on the spot, and with many issues still needing to be addressed to get the team back into good positioning, GM Joe Sakic may decide to start trading players.

The NHL Trade Deadline is February 25, only one month away. So, if Sakic is going to make a big or even small trade, it will have to be done in the next four weeks.

I probably should use some complicated rubric driven by analytics to help determine who the Colorado Avalanche might trade. However, I don’t think that’s how Sakic operates. I think he’s still old-school enough to be driven by his gut and pragmatic enough to evaluate almost any offer made to him.

So, let’s do a ranking of players within the system who might be up for trade by the deadline.