The Colorado Avalanche are one of the few organizations in the league that have avoided bonehead moves. But even the best teams make mistakes.
Such was the case of the Avalanche and Casey Mittelstadt. And now the Boston Bruins are about to make the same mistake the Avalanche did.
The Mittelstadt mistake was actually 2-in-1. The Avalanche traded away Bowen Byram, hoping that Mittelstadt would be the replacement for the then-departed Nazem Kadri. Then, Colorado doubled down on that mistake by extending Mittelstadt.
The situation got to the point where the Avalanche had to dump Mittelstadt on somebody. Fortunately, the Avs managed to actually make a good deal in sending Mittelstadt to Boston.
In Boston, the former Avalanche hasn’t been bad. But he hasn’t exactly been a superstar. Last season, he appeared in 71 games for the Bruins, scoring 15 goals and 42 points. That’s not too bad. But it’s hardly worth the purported four-year, $26 million extension floating around.
If the Bruins do sign Mittelstadt to such a deal, they risk locking themselves into a player that won’t produce up to a $6.5 million cap hit.
Avalanche were right to get out from under Mittelstadt when they did
There’s a tendency in business to hold on to declining assets for far too long. You see this with investors who hold on to stocks, hoping that they will rebound at some point.
The best investors know that there’s a point where they have to cut their losses. And that’s exactly what the Avalanche did with Mittelstadt.
The situation got to a point where the Avs had to do something about Mittlestadt. His $5.75 million cap hit was clearly a mistake, though it didn't seem like it at the time. Colorado overpaid, expecting that the 27-year-old could blossom into that second-line center the organization really needed.
Well, it didn’t happen. And while Charlie Coyle, the player the Avalanche got back from the Bruins, didn’t stick around, the deal eventually led to Gavin Brindley. If Brindley can eventually become a mainstay in the Avalanche lineup, the ultimate deal would have been worth it.
Mittelstadt now a middle-six winger than top-six center
At the end of the day, it seems that Mittelstadt became more of a middle-six winger than a top-six center. The Bruins hoped that Mittelstadt would find his ceiling in Boston, but that just didn’t seem to be the case.
That’s what makes the situation all the more perplexing. The Bruins are willing to actually give Mittelstadt a raise when the organization could make better use of $6.5 million in cap space.
Well, that’s their problem. As for the Avalanche, it’s clear the team sidestepped a pretty significant problem. The worst thing that Avs could have done was keep Mittelstadt, hoping he’d work out.
Perhaps you could argue that Colorado sold too soon on him. But given what he’s shown in Boston, it seems the Avalanche did the right thing.
Let’s see if the Bruins follow through. While it wouldn’t be a bad idea to extend Mittelstadt, Boston would do well to avoid overpaying.
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