Brandon Saad already likes Colorado but can the Avs afford to re-sign him?

When a team brings in new players, there are always questions about how they’ll fit into their new organization. They’re living in a new city, playing in a different system with different teammates and adjusting to a completely different culture.

That said, Colorado’s offseason was relatively quiet in that there wasn’t significant player movement in or out. As a championship contender already, there wasn’t a lot of work that needed to be done but the Avs still managed to get a little done.

Bringing in Devon Toews and Brandon Saad, the Avs got two very different players at different points in their careers. Toews is an ascending, underrated top-four defender who signed a fresh four-year contract that further solidifies Colorado’s defense.

Saad, however, is in a more precarious position in his career. At 28 and entering the final year of his contract, he is preparing to enter free agency next summer in a time where the salary cap is expected to be flat for the foreseeable future and where his recent track of record of production doesn’t scream for him to get a long-term contract.

He will be playing in a loaded top six, however, and a return to previous form where he scores 20+ goals and 50+ points is certainly possible. Should that happen, he immediately positions himself to be one of the top available UFAs in what is likely to be a very weak group on the open market.

Before ever suiting up for the Avalanche, Saad has expressed desire to stay in Colorado long-term. In an interview recently with the NHL’s “@TheRink” Podcast, Saad was not shy about a growing fondness for his new home city.

“We haven’t had any discussions, I think it’s a bit early, especially with not really knowing what’s going on with the season and all that, but for me, thinking about it, Colorado has always been in my top because I want to win again,” Saad said on the show. “So to be in a great spot like that, on a great team, and then you hear wonders about the city, so really, it seems like a great place where I want to play for a long time.”

Later in the interview Saad touched on his initial visit to Denver and spending some time taking a look around his new digs, including going for a hike in the mountains. It’s obvious there’s an openness from Saad to stay in Denver. The question on the other side is how realistic is it for the Avs?

The more I listened to Saad in the interview, the more curious I grew about Colorado’s cap situation and if they could manage to make it work.

Of course, there’s another pending UFA already on the roster that’s going to take center stage if a new contract is not worked out before the start of the year: Gabe Landeskog.

I asked Joe Sakic near the end of his last press conference about a new deal with Landeskog and he said they had conversations in Edmonton and will revisit it later in the offseason. That was before they had signed Toews to his deal, though, and they now have a clear picture of the salary cap next moving forward.

With the salary cap not expected to move from $81.5M, Colorado sits with just over $26M in cap space next offseason. It sounds like a lot but they have several players whose contracts expire, including Landeskog and Saad. The other big-ticket names are Cale Makar and Philipp Grubauer, while depth guys such as Ian Cole, Matt Calvert, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Tyson Jost are all on the final year of their current deals.

You can pretty fairly assume the team will prioritize signing Landeskog and at least keeping space open for Makar. Grubauer is a trickier situation because his Colorado career has been so inconsistent to this point that a lot of how the team feels about his next contract will be instructed by his play next season.

The trio of Cole, Calvert and Bellemare will probably be allowed to test the free agent waters as a bevy of talented Avalanche forward prospects are pushing for graduation to full-time NHL players, including Eagles mainstays Martin Kaut, Shane Bowers and Logan O’Connor.

Cole’s spot is likely to be taken by the combination of Bowen Byram and Conor Timmins, possibly this next year, in which case Cole would be relegated to reliable veteran presence on the bench who can come in when injuries or poor play inevitably become a factor.

Looking at all of this, I ventured on over to CapFriendly and used their Armchair GM tool to take a swing at the roster and see what chances the Avs would have at keeping Saad. Here’s what I came up with:

This is essentially a full roster without Saad and I had $575,833 left under the salary cap, which isn’t enough to sign anybody to a veteran minimum, let alone Saad to a new contract. There are a few things to consider here, of course, because this is purely guesswork on my part on multiple contracts. For example, my signed deals were:

• Landeskog for six years at $7.25M AAV
• Makar for six years at $9M AAV
• Jost for one year at $900K
• Grubauer for three years at $4.5M AAV

With Landeskog and Makar, I went with what I think are reasonable projections and Jost I likely low-balled. Grubauer is a pretty strong stab in the dark because if he justifies that kind of a raise, he’s likely getting more than three years. The length wasn’t very relevant on that contract, though, and was just a mid-level guess.

Keep in mind if the Avs decide to let Grubauer leave in free agency, they’d still have to replace him with someone so it isn’t like they suddenly have all of that money to throw towards keeping Saad.

Another major factor to consider is the expansion draft. One of these players is likely gone (for the moment, I’ll assume one of Compher/Donskoi/Jost/Graves/Francouz) to go play for the Kraken. Depending on which of those players is selected, that opens some cap space right away.

Before getting to the big elephant in the room, it’s important to mention Alex Newhook as part of this conversation, too. Assuming he doesn’t have a total meltdown in his sophomore year at BC, he is likely to sign his ELC in the spring and turn pro.

Players of Newhook’s caliber very rarely sign ELCs to go play in the AHL so before trying to write off Newhook as bound for the Eagles, keep that in mind. Newhook profiles as a future top-six player and could slot into Colorado’s lineup as either the replacement for a forward being selected by Seattle (3C?)…or he slides right into Saad’s old spot on the left wing.

A rookie year on the left wing while Nazem Kadri plays out the final year of his deal is not an unrealistic approach, either.

If Colorado wanted to put Newhook in the lineup and retain Saad, that’s where the elephant in the room comes into play.

That elephant is actually more of a bird. Erik Johnson will have two years remaining on his current deal paying him $6M AAV when the Avs are making all of these decisions. Certainly not without meaning is the presence of Johnson’s No-Movement Clause, which is grounds for automatic protection in the expansion draft.

I won’t get too into the weeds in this piece about the expansion draft but will do in a future piece (probably tomorrow). Assuming Johnson is still on the roster after the expansion draft, his salary is the next area where the Avalanche can try to find some avenue of relief. If both Byram and Timmins force their way onto the roster, Johnson’s cap hit becomes onerous and the option of buying him out becomes more realistic.

A buyout of Johnson’s deal spreads the cap hit over four years but the charge is just $2M each season. With the salary cap unlikely to move for the next couple of years, can the Avs afford to make that kind of decision just to keep Saad, a player who will enter his 30s on his next contract and could already be in the process of his decline?

That’s the spot the Avalanche finds itself in at the moment. There are plenty of other ways they could try to clear up cap space, of course, as other buyouts or trades are always an option. For now, though, it looks like if the Avs and Brandon Saad want to make this a long-term relationship, they’re going to have a lot of work ahead of them.