The Colorado Avalanche will move Mikko Rantanen by the trade deadline, TVA Sports’ Renaud Lavoie claims. This report seems to have its merits on the surface. Earlier this season, we saw Anson Carter shoot from the hip, talking about the Toronto Maple Leafs and Colorado Avalanche swap pending free agents, Mitch Marner and Mikko Rantanen.
I’m afraid, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to have to call BS on this rumor. As I wrote yesterday, The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun discussed how Colorado could get creative in using deferrals to keep Mikko Rantanen around without blowing past Nathan MacKinnon’s current $12.6 million cap hit.
So, why all of a sudden would the Avs get so desperate that they would be willing to trade Rantanen?
Check out Renaud’s French-language post if you are so inclined.
But let’s give the devil his due. Let’s suppose that Avs were willing to trade Rantanen. Who could be willing to pony up the package the Avs would want in exchange?
First of all, the Avs would need an impact player in return to offset Rantanen’s departure. That alone limits the options of what the Avalanche could do.
Second, a rebuilding team would not have the pieces to make a deal like this work. San Jose, Chicago, Columbus, or Anaheim would lack the pieces to make this sort of deal worth Colorado’s while.
Lastly, there is the issue of re-signing whoever comes back the other way. If the Avs get another pending free agent, the club would need to be certain they could re-sign him. Otherwise, what would be the point of making such a deal?
At the end of the day, trading Rantanen would be a last-ditch effort to salvage something out of what looks to be a sailing ship. The Avs would need to get to an impossible place in order for them to contemplate trading Rantanen before the trade deadline.