3 potential Colorado Avalanche MVPs for the 2024-25 season

2. Mikko Rantanen, F

Despite being in the news regarding an upcoming contract extension with the Colorado Avalanche, I don’t know if Mikko Rantanen is getting the attention and credit that he deserves. He’s a monster on the ice,

He is on the top line with Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin, and is very fortunate to be on that line with the former, who is the best player in the world (again, I suppose that will be up for debate with Edmonton Oiler fans). Head coach Jared Bednar did the right thing in having Rantanen play on that line, despite the early-season shuffling of the lines. He found what worked and it has done wonders for this team.

Rantanen played in 80 of 82 games last season, recording 42 goals—the second-most amount of goals for his career—and 62 assists, the most amount of assists in his career. Needless to say, it was an absolute beast of a year for Rantanen and there should be nobody in the universe that would say he does not deserve a massive contract extension.

Sometimes in sports, you will have players who regress after getting paid. I highly doubt that will happen to Rantanen, given how much of a team sport hockey is. What the Avalanche have going on the top line is pretty close to as perfect as you can get.