Trade deadline targets for the Avalanche to avoid

With the Colorado Avalanche already hard at work on their trade deadline roster adjustments, we here at DNVR are also working away to cover as many of the trade bases as we can. We started with a breakdown of the Sam Girard-Brett Kulak swap and added the “Best Fits” piece yesterday, so today we’re going the other direction and talking about the players the Avs should be avoiding.

Why a team should avoid a specific player doesn’t always come down to just if the player is good or not, but it’s really building off of the “fit” piece. When building out this list, I asked myself a few key questions:

• Is the player any good?
• Does the player add something the Avalanche don’t have?
• Does the player play “Avalanche style” hockey?
• What is the player’s contract situation?

All of those factors go into the valuation process and how I go about identifying the guys who have potential to blow up in the face of the Avalanche if they acquire them. This isn’t to say they are guaranteed to flop, but they carry enough risk before even getting to Denver that they should probably not even be on the list.

Let’s get into some guys who scare me ahead of the deadline.

The “So many red flags, this shouldn’t even be a conversation for the Avs” tier

Evander Kane, F, Vancouver Canucks

Where to even begin? Let’s acknowledge off the top that there are a lot of very real character questions that dog him to this day and that people around the league aren’t a fan of him for a reason. It isn’t just the off-ice headlines with betting, COVID passports, and his explosive relationship with ex-wife Anna Kane. Those are all things the league easily overlooks if the player shows up to work, puts his head down, and does things the right way. It’s gross that that’s the truth, but it is.

No, the character concerns come from within the locker room. He’s selfish, and that is not something that plays well when you’re a role player at this point in your career. That brings us to the hockey player.

Whoever acquires Kane (and it still could be Colorado) will espouse his physicality and hard-nosed playstyle as a major selling point, as well as his hands around the net and ability to pot some goals. That combination has made him a unique player for years, but both of those traits have been hard to come by in Vancouver this season. He has just 10 goals in 57 games, but also 96 hits (1.6 per game). For comparison, he had 250 hits in 77 games (3.2 per game) last season.

That’s an enormous drop-off, and while hits are certainly not a perfect measurement of physicality, it’s a significant red flag. The drop in goal production is also a concern, though his shooting percentage right now would be the lowest in his entire career and by far the lowest since 2015-16. Is it an anomaly, or is Kane slipping at the two things that teams care most about?

Add in the extreme penalty problems that have plagued him his entire career, and it’s fair to wonder why a team would even bother. I don’t even care much about the acquisition cost. A fourth-round pick would be cheap and the Avs have plenty of them lying around, but the salary ($5.125M), even retained, would mean the Avs don’t make a move elsewhere and that’s a significant cost in itself.

Kane has been a decent postseason performer for the Edmonton Oilers the past few years, but again, is the juice worth the squeeze given all of the problems that follow? He plays the way the Avs want, but he doesn’t walk the line well enough for this to make sense to me.

The “This player just isn’t very good” tier

Logan Stanley, D, Winnipeg Jets

Stanley has made waves this year because he’s having a huge offensive season (for him). He had five career goals coming into this year but has scored nine, so, you know, that’s different. Despite having elite size at 6’7″, 231 pounds, Stanley has struggled to be a lineup regular for the Jets over the years because he is extremely mistake-prone.

The Jets would be very wise to sell high on him now as he approaches free agency this summer, but the Jets do a lot of dumb stuff, so who knows? Anyway, Stanley is still a penalty machine (fourth-most minor penalties this season) who has no real offensive upside (unless you are buying stock in whatever this season is) and with the addition of Brett Kulak, why would the Avalanche pay high on a player who ideally wouldn’t play a game for them in the postseason?

I think the only thing I can buy that makes any sense is that he’s left-handed, so that’s nice.

Luke Schenn, D, Winnipeg Jets

Remember a few years ago when I was pounding the table for the Avs to land Schenn at the deadline because he was a reliable bottom-pairing defenseman who was on a very cheap contract? Well, a few things have changed since then. Well, basically, all of it has changed.

Schenn has been an anchor on the Jets blueline this season. He’s been primarily partnered with Stanley and their 5v5 expected goals for is 43.52%. Okay, two players with nearly zero puck skill have trouble keeping the puck out of their own end? Not a shock, right? But Schenn pulls down every single player he gets paired with. Even Dylan Samberg, one of the league’s most underrated defensive defensemen, has a 42% expected goals for alongside Schenn and Samberg has a positive impact on every other pairing he’s been part of.

Schenn is also right-handed, which is the last thing the Avalanche need at this point. Schenn’s contract expires this year, but at $2.75M he’s far more expensive than he should be given the catastrophic impact he has on the Jets defense. In my eyes, the time has passed for the Avs and Schenn to make it work.

Simon Benoit, D, Toronto Maple Leafs

See, I love that Benoit has made a career for himself. He went undrafted, forced himself onto the Anaheim Ducks roster when he was 23, and has hung around on the fringes of the NHL ever since. He’s gotten steady minutes and he plays the game the right way, approaches the job like a professional and draws the admiration of the two organizations he’s been in.

Benoit is a classic heart-and-soul type of player who blocks shots, throws his body around, and actually has some upside on denying zone entries. There’s so much to like about Benoit the person and his acceptance of who he is as a player. He doesn’t take a ton of penalties and plays within himself.

The problem is that he just isn’t very good. If the Avalanche wanted to try to do the Ryan Lindgren trade again, Benoit is the right target. He’s signed for another year at $1.35M and he’s left-handed, so at least you could make an argument about him as a seventh defender, but he’s just too limited a player to work for the Avs. He’d be a perfect Dallas Star, though, since they don’t believe in acquiring right-handed defensemen.

The “Doesn’t really make sense but it’s out there for some reason” tier

Tyler Myers, D, Vancouver Canucks

If the Stars did want a right-handed defender who makes sense for them, Myers would be a good place to start. He’s not as much a fit in Colorado because they already have a top six that is ready to roll and there’s no way he’s waiving his trade protection to be Colorado’s seventh defenseman, especially with other playoff-bound teams sniffing around him.

Myers, at 6’8″ and 229 pounds, is nicknamed “Chaos Giraffe” for a reason and those reasons aren’t historically good. He brings a lot of uncertainty to the blueline and while he used to be a capable player with the puck, that part of his game has eroded along with his skating. To me, it looks like he’s hit the wall pretty hard and he’s signed for $3M next season, too, so any team acquiring him is making a commitment beyond just this spring.

I don’t really understand this unless the Avalanche are convinced that Brent Burns isn’t their guy anymore, which seems like it wouldn’t be a thing they would do to such a well-respected veteran. I’m only including this because his name continues to be prominent trade fodder and the Avs have been linked to him and I wanted to say they should be a hard pass here.

The “This contract makes me very nervous” tier

Brayden Schenn, C, St. Louis Blues

Schenn is a complicated player on this list and by far the player I would have the least objection to if the Avs acquired him. Let’s do this in bullet points because I think it’s the only way I can keep this succinct.

• Schenn is overpaid at $6.5M with two more years left on his deal
• He’s playing too many hard minutes for the Blues and his results show he shouldn’t be a top-six forward anymore
• He’s still a decent goal scorer and excels as a playmaker
• His intangibles are elite. Players around the league love him because he will go to war every night
• His physicality would be an excellent fit in a checking role, especially with his strong faceoff results

There’s no getting around Schenn’s problematic contract. The Blues would have to eat some of that money to make this palatable, but I struggle to see them retaining the maximum allowable 50%. If they could get it down under $5M, it would be an acceptable cap charge. Schenn has slowed in all facets, but he’s still a player who can help a team.

There’s a common refrain that coming to Colorado would help lighten his workload because he’d only be a third-line center, but he’s only averaging 16:51 of ice time per game. Colorado’s current 3C, Jack Drury, is averaging 14:52, so we aren’t talking about a huge drop-off in ice time for Schenn. He is averaging the third-most even-strength time on ice for the Blues, so he would still be looking at a drastic role reduction.

Schenn is also already 34, so the two years remaining on the deal after this are a significant concern. If he was on an expiring deal, I’d be a lot more gung-ho about this, but as is, this contract makes me very nervous if he is the “big” addition the Avs make this year.

Who knows about the veracity of the reports that the Schenn brothers are only interested in being moved if they go to the same team, but if that is the case, that would have to be a hard “no” from me. Brayden has his upsides, but Luke’s time appears finished.