The Avs roster faces 2 big questions this summer

The Colorado Avalanche roster faces change this summer but it is in solid shape as the Avs look toward the NHL Draft and free agency. Upon losing to the Dallas Stars in six games last week, the organization shifted its focus to this summer where they face significant precariousness with two big-money contracts and what we will generously call a fluid salary cap situation.

Avs already under contract

Forward (7)

Nathan MacKinnon
Mikko Rantanen
Artturi Lehkonen
Ross Colton
Miles Wood
Nikolai Kovalenko
Logan O’Connor

This group is straightforward. There might be another player or two from the AHL ranks that could jump into this mix, such as Chris Wagner or Jean-Luc Foudy, but right now these are the players you should be comfortable you’ll see on the roster on opening night. There is obviously some work to do here.

Defense (4)

Cale Makar
Devon Toews
Sam Girard
Josh Manson

The top four of the defense remains under contract. I’m not convinced all four return next year as Girard and Manson might present opportunities to find more cost-efficient opportunities but right now both are still on the books. I didn’t include him here but Sam Malinski should be in strong consideration for the NHL next year and he is also under contract for one more season.

Goalie (2)

Alexandar Georgiev
Justus Annunen

It was an up-and-down season for Georgiev and his postseason performance started horribly before turning it around encouragingly. Annunen already signed for two more years and loses his waiver eligibility next season so I’m finally a believer that he will be a full-time NHLer after his strong showings late in the season. They could always make a move here but finding a cost-efficient upgrade on Georgiev would represent the main challenge to that approach.

Unsigned Avs

Forwards

Andrew Cogliano
Zach Parise
Joel Kiviranta
Yakov Trenin
Brandon Duhaime
Jonathan Drouin

Parise has already said he’s retiring and Cogliano should follow suit but even if he doesn’t, the Avalanche should move on from a player whose game cratered this last year. Kiviranta was the definition of a replacement-level player until the postseason began and we saw his best hockey of the season, but he fell off against the Stars. Trenin and Duhaime were deadline acquisitions that made cases to stay but weren’t overwhelming enough to say the Avs have to keep them. Drouin badly wants to stay, but his career-best year will make it hard to find the money, depending on the situation below.

Defense

Jack Johnson
Sean Walker
Caleb Jones

The team loves Johnson’s reliability but the footspeed continues to slip and he has had a consistently adverse effect on every partner in his Avalanche tenure despite his isolated play seeming to be passable at times. Walker will likely leave because he should command good money on the open market. Jones could return as a rotational guy or seek better opportunities elsewhere but I wouldn’t mind if he came back.

The elephants in the room

According to the great folks over at CapFriendly, the Avalanche currently sit at $15.9 million in cap space. That counts the money for Gabe Landeskog ($7M) but not the cap hit for Valeri Nichushkin ($6.125M).

Those are the two situations that make projecting their summer the most difficult because the only certainty is uncertainty.

Landeskog has missed the last two seasons with a knee injury that required experimental surgery last May with a projected recovery time of 12-18 months. Landeskog was lightly skating and participating in sporadic drills with the team at the end of the season but nothing that came close to ramping up for NHL action.

Last offseason, general manager Chris MacFarland operated with confidence that Landeskog would not be returning and was able to freely spend the $7M that otherwise would have gone to Landeskog. It was a clear-cut situation that allowed the Avalanche to build a roster with the thought that if things went extremely well, Landeskog might be an addition to the roster deep in a playoff run.

The concern this summer is that it mirrors two years ago, when MacFarland had to operate under the idea that Landeskog was returning. The timeline on his return got pushed back at the onset of training camp and continued being delayed until the postseason began and the club announced Landeskog’s surgery.

That murkiness meant the Avs were unable to spend that money in the summer or at the trade deadline because they were constantly accounting for Landeskog’s return. When that never happened, the team operated at a de facto $7M deficit all season and the ensuing depth problems spoke to that.

Colorado is once again in that situation and with the importance of Landeskog to the franchise, he has earned the right to try to resume his NHL career. The front office has done right by him and you can understand the loyalty driving the decision-making here.

That said, there is also loyalty to the players who are healthy and trying to win another Stanley Cup. If Landeskog has shown no progress by the time the NHL Draft rolls around (June 28-29), the team should strongly consider spending that $7M and if Landeskog gets healthy at some point, they figure it out from there. Of course, that’s easy for me to say from behind my keyboard.

Nichushkin’s situation is significantly harder to predict, if only because we are in uncharted territory right now. No player has ever gotten to Stage Three of the NHL’s Player Assistance Program, which requires a six-month suspension without pay and a chance for reinstatement after those six months.

In the meantime, Nichushkin’s cap hit will not count against the Avalanche. When he is eligible to return in mid-November, however, he would resume counting against the cap if he is ultimately reinstated by the league.

There has been a lot of discussion about what options Colorado has to move on from Nichushkin before November, from buying him out to terminating his contract and inevitably entering a legal battle with the NHLPA in search of a financial settlement, a la Mike Richards and the Los Angeles Kings.

I don’t know how this ends, but the only thing that we should be able to say with confidence is that Nichushkin will not resume his career in Colorado. The organization just cannot continue paying top dollar to a guy who has left the team in each of the last two postseasons.

For those curious, here is what a Nichushkin buyout would look like (if they’re even allowed to, which they may not be), per CapFriendly:

That’s a tough sell for a team that needs every dollar to chase their second Stanley Cup with this core.

Time to lock up their second-line center

When the organization decided to trade Bowen Byram to Buffalo for Casey Mittelstadt, it acquired their second-line center for this season but also for years to come. It was not a move done solely with the immediate in mind, but potentially the next half-decade.

The 25-year-old Mittelstadt had a strong postseason debut for Colorado with nine points in 11 games, including an excellent series against the Winnipeg Jets before struggling against the deeper Stars while also battling injuries.

All in all, it was an encouraging beginning to Mittelstadt’s Avalanche career. He displayed strong board work, dazzling puck skills, and a high hockey IQ that the team could further tap into next season.

Mittelstadt heads into the offseason a restricted free agent, so he will be back with the Avalanche next year, the only question is what his next contract will look like. We have seen the Avs go through this a few times in recent years and some players have gotten long-term deals (Artturi Lehkonen) and some have gotten shorter deals (Byram) so there isn’t a tried and true organizational philosophy here.

Smart money says to bet on the Avs to try to lock Mittelstadt up for at least five years and current contract projection models have him coming out to about $6M per season following back-to-back years of 59 and 57 points.

If the Avs want to go with a shorter team of 2-3 years to try to keep the annual average value (AAV) down, they can try that, too, but it might cost them in the long run if Mittelstadt blows up statistically as many Avs have done in the last five years.

Prospect graduations

The second-hardest part of guessing the Avalanche offseason is trying to predict which prospects they feel can help them in the NHL. I already mentioned Malinski above, who will be in the mix at the very least, but will touch on a few other high-profile prospects who could find their way to the NHL.

Jean-Luc Foudy

Foudy has seen action each of the last two years but injuries continue to plague him despite his breakout at the AHL level. The real problem with Foudy is finding a role for him as he isn’t a hard-checking center and there aren’t any middle-six jobs currently open.

Oskar Olausson

Olausson’s season ended with a shoulder injury but he did have an improvement in his point-per-game rate at the AHL and continues to grow his game beyond his lethal shooting ability. His size and skating have gotten him one NHL game each of the last two years. Like Foudy, role is a major sticking point as he is purely a wing.

Calum Ritchie

Ritchie’s strong breakout season has a lot of people wondering if he might be able to make the jump to the NHL next season. Rudo talked with Director of Player Development Brian Willsie about Ritchie’s future so you should go read that here (Diehards only) but it doesn’t sound like he’s part of the mix yet.

Sean Behrens

After an extremely decorated college career that saw him win two national championships in his three seasons, Behrens jumped to the AHL and played two games with the Colorado Eagles. It’s too soon to believe he’s going to be in the mix for an NHL job but his hockey IQ and competitiveness will be attributes that draw him to Jared Bednar.