The Colorado Avalanche have $38 Million in cap space according to CapFriendly.com after trading Carl Soderberg to the Arizona Coyotes.
Playing ArmChair GM, I will indulge into the process of creating my perfect offseason for the Colorado Avalanche.
The first move I will make is the most obvious one. Signing Artemi Panarin. I know the Avalanche are considered underdogs to sign Panarin, but we shouldn’t be. If he values winning and getting paid, the Avalanche are the only team who can fulfill both of those values. By signing Panarin, the Avalanche have another superstar on their team, who can play with Mackinnon or carry his own line.
Prediction: 7 years worth $77 million.
After the signing of Panarin I would sign Mikko Rantanen to a long-term deal. We all know Rantanen’s value to this team. I hope he will take a discount to solidify his future but I’m not sure we’ll be so lucky.
Prediction: 8 years worth $80 million.
After this $21 million spent, the Avalanche still have $17 million remaining which is still an abundance of cap space, however the majority of that will go to RFA’s Compher, Kerfoot, Zadorov, Kamenev etc.
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The Avalanche will likely only have about $7 million remaining and there’s no reason to spend it on a Joe Pavelski for 3 or 4 years because we will eventually have to sign Makar, Girard, the rest of our D core and 4 years from now, spend a big chunk of our cap on Nathan Mackinnon.
I could see the Colorado Avalanche signing a guy like Corey Perry, but there’s no way they spend more than a couple million dollars and a year long contract on an aging veteran.
Obviously, my numbers will be different than the actual signings, and there’s no guarantee that we sign Panarin. If we don’t sign him, there are a countless number of other ways we could have a successful offseason.
We could afford a guy like Pavelski if we don’t sign Panarin. Anders Lee might be an option, but for no longer than 4 years. The Avalanche still have the ability to trade Tyson Barrie for a top 2 center, however it would be tough to trade TB4. Paul Stastny is another name that could come in play for the Avalanche. With Vegas above the cap, they could try and offload Stastny, and I would love for Pauly Walnuts to come back.
Joe Sakic and company have a lot of work to do, but he’s put himself in a prime position to bring Lord Stanley back to Denver.