If the Colorado Avalanche pursue an aging veteran like Joe Pavelski in free agency, is that a mistake for the team or a good bridge deal?
The Colorado Avalanche are looking to make a splash in free agency. Maybe not a tidal wave splash, but more than a little drip.
Colorado knows it’s on the cusp of being a contender for years to come.The team has many of the right pieces in place. Many of those pieces were Avs draftees who are currently making good, including our whole top line and some of the secondary scoring.
Many of the rest of those pieces the Avs acquired in trade, including foundational players such as Erik Johnson and Philipp Grubauer. We have a smattering of free agents filling in as role players, including Team Dad Matt Calvert and Team Tough Guy Ian Cole.
Colorado hasn’t been making a big splash in free agency in recent years. Picking up role players is pretty much par for the course. But, as I noted, this offseason is different.
Superstar Nathan MacKinnon gives every indication that he’s entered his prime, and Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Lanedskog are buoying him up while enjoying their own career years. We have a relatively young, relatively cheap goalie who can steal games. And we have a defensive core made up of a good mix of steady veterans and talented youngsters.
Right now the only thing Colorado is missing is a true second-line center, one who can provide stability while winning some faceoffs and scoring some goals.
Enter Joe Pavelski.
As I started my list of potential free agents to cover, I didn’t include anyone over 30. Colorado is a young team, and the indication is there that the Avs want to stay young. GM Joe Sakic once stated he wanted the kids to grow up together.
But, have they grown up enough that he might consider an older player as a bridge? A player who can take some of the pressure off the youngsters to be a true second-line center — someone who can even teach them how to grow into that role?
Again, enter Joe Pavelski.
I bring this name up because Matt Larkin of The Hockey News proposed him this morning:
If the Karlsson deal ends up pricing Pavelski out of town, I could not see a better suitor for him than the Colorado Avalanche. He is the EXACT player they need, and Avs have the cap space to pursue if he'd listen.
— Matt Larkin (@MLarkinHockey) June 17, 2019
Larkin is referring to the news that the San Jose Sharks have reportedly signed defenseman Erik Karlsson to a contract worth around $11.5 million per year. Term doesn’t matter (eight years) so much as how that cap hit annihilates their cap space. Meaning they might be saying goodbye to their captain.
My initial reaction to Larkin’s tweet was pretty much what everyone in the thread responded with — nope, no way, too old. Colorado isn’t in the business of signing aging veterans anymore. We learned our lesson with Jarome Iginla, Brad Stuart and Francois Beauchemin.
But as I started writing this post and seeing some of the other reactions on Twitter, the idea started to make more sense. As Larkin noted, Colorado has the cap space. Right now the team has $37 million in cap space — the best in the NHL. But, they need to get JT Compher, Alexander Kerfoot, Nikita Zadorov, and, especially, Mikko Rantanen signed. That’s probably half of the available cap space right there.
Still — $18 million isn’t too shabby a number to go into free agency with. Would a chunk of that be
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enough to entice Pavelski away from giving San Jose a discount? Do we want the Avs to throw a bunch of money at Pavelski for, say, three years?
It’s a tough question to answer. Joe’s last contract carried a cap hit of $6 million. He can’t expect that from San Jose, but he’d want that from another team.
Pavelski has been a pretty solid 60- to 70-point goal scorer his entire career. That’s going to drop off eventually, and that eventually might be as soon as this year. Is $6 million fine for a 50-point scorer even if Colorado can afford it?
He’d instantly be the oldest guy in the room — older even than Big Ol’ Carl Soderberg. Is that too much veteran presence, or just right?
I can never predict what Joe Sakic is going to do. In the past he’s made deals like the one I’m talking about, but he seemed to have gotten off that train after the Avs had to buy out the Francous Beauchemin contract. In more recent years he’s been content to make a smaller splash.
However, he remarked this year that the Avalanche are going to be “more aggressive” in pursuing free agents this offseason. He was talking about specific ones the team had in mind, but who knows which players are on that list.
What say you, Avs Nation? Should the Colorado Avalanche consider pursuing Joe Pavelski if he hits the free agency market?