Colorado Avalanche reportedly made offer to Steven Stamkos

It’s been a wild day in the NHL with teams signing free agents and losing some of their own. For the Colorado Avalanche’s latest moves, check out our tracker here.

Among reports comes one of the more interesting tidbits, as the Colorado Avalanche were reportedly in the mix for Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning. The team reportedly made an offer to Stamkos before he decided to sign with the Nashville Predators. That’s quite some news.

Stamkos signed a 4-year, $8 million AAV deal with Nashville, which the Avalanche honestly could not compete with. The Avalanche are tight against the camp and have to fill out their roster. They successfully signed Jonathan Drouin to a 1-year, $2.5 million deal and that could be the highest amount of money the team is willing to sign a player for given their salary cap situation.

Stamkos is 34-years old and is attached to the Predators until he’s 38, and right now, that didn’t make sense for the Avalanche even if he came a little cheaper.

The Avalanche are planning for this season, and likely this season only, right now. It’s hard to game plan for things that they don’t know, so it makes perfect sense.

Would it have been cool to have Stamkos be a member of the Colorado Avalanche? Perhaps. He would have reunited with Drouin and Drouin could have had two former teammates be on the same team.

This time around, the Avalanche get outbid by another team and unfortunately, that team is a division opponent. I just hope that this doesn’t end up biting the Avalanche in the you-know-what in the future. Either way, it’s awesome for the Predators and could end up making the matchup against the Avalanche more fun than it already is.

Stay tuned for more Colorado Avalanche signings and departures.