Banged up Avalanche recall Rantanen

Saturday morning the Colorado Avalanche announced via twitter that they had recalled Mikko Rantanen from the San Antonio Rampage:

UPDATE: Mikko Rantanen has been recalled from @sarampage.

— Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) March 19, 2016

The Avalanche selected Rantanen 10th overall at last year’s NHL Entry Draft.  The Finnish power forward made the Avalanche’s opening night roster, but was quickly demoted to the AHL when the team struggled out of the gate and Rantanen went pointless with a -5 rating over his first six games. In the AHL, however, Rantanen would establish himself not only as one of the league’s most dominant young players, but as one of the league’s best players outright.

In 44 games with the Rampage, Rantanen has 21 goals and 31 assists for an impressive 52 points. Rantanen’s 52 points rank first in the AHL among rookies and 6th in overall AHL scoring. What’s more impressive is that Rantanen has produced so many point despite playing notably fewer games than his AHL counterparts. Rantanen missed significant AHL time to participate in the World Junior Championship where he captained team Finland to a gold medal and earned player of the game honors in the championship game. Rantanen was also the Rampage’s sole representative at the AHL All-Star Game.

In short, the 19 year old Rantanen has proven that he can dominate at the AHL level:

It will be interesting to see how long the Avalanche keep Mikko Rantanen on the NHL roster.  If he participates in four more NHL games, then the Avalanche will burn through the first year of his Entry Level Contract.  Allowing Rantanen’s ELC to slide a year could give the Avalanche a competitive advantage in the future, but with the Avalanche in the thick of a playoff race and hurting for forwards, it may be difficult to show restraint and demote Rantanen before his 10th game.

The Avalanche made the callup after losing both Eric Gelinas and Nathan MacKinnon to injury during Friday’s game against the Calgary Flames. They also lost their star forward and leading scorer, Matt Duchene, earlier in the day. As per Roger Millions at Sportsnet, Duchene will miss 7-10 days with a knee injury. Gelinas is out indefinitely with an elbow injury, while Nathan MacKinnon is being evaluated for a knee injury. The team has not announced a time table for MacKinnon, but finally calling up Rantanen (after resisting the temptation for months) could be a bad sign for the Avs’ top center.