Colorado Avalanche Mailbag: Barrie's contract, Gormley waived, and the mysterious John Mitchell

Good morning Avalanche fans and welcome to another edition of the Mailbag! Shockingly enough, almost every single question we received this week was actually Avalanche related. Which is a first. That means I had to put on my hockey hat and dust off my Hockey-Reference.com account.

This week, we take a glimpse at a potential contract for Tyson Barrie. We also speculate as to why the Avalanche are carrying fifty contracts and waiving the players they do. Then for the cherry on the mailbag sundae, we explain why John Mitchell is the David Bowie of the roster.

What’s a fair price for a contract for Tyson Barrie? Do you think another team will offer him big money? Something he can’t refuse? – @manoftomorrow01

Myself and fellow staffer AJ Haefele have both said at various points that an AAV of $6 million would be a bit high for Barrie, but I think if another team offered him up to that much, the Avalanche should match it. It’s not outside the realm of possibility to imagine another team giving Barrie an offer sheet in the six million dollar range, but anything more than that would surprise me.

Barrie is a competent young defenseman and one of the Avalanche’s best, but there are still little gaps in his game and he has yet to have a seven million dollar year. Offer sheets are rare enough as it is; an offer sheet based on future speculation is a big risk for an NHL club to take.

I think the Avalanche offer him somewhere between $5 and $5.75 million, probably on the higher end of that. Also, I think they lock him up for a decent term. I’d be thrilled if they could go for $5.5 million over six years.

With the Avs at 50 contracts, many are speculating a minor trade is coming. Who makes the most sense to deal away? – @DNFTO

I think this depends entirely on how hard the Avalanche are pushing for promising Tampa Bay Lightning prospect Jonathan Drouin. We have explored the Drouin situation in depth and the Avalanche keep coming up as someone who’s in the discussion. There are rumblings Tampa is close to a deal.

Any trade that saw Drouin to the Avalanche would likely see a few players go Tampa’s way. A combination of high-level defensive talent like one of Nikita Zadorov, Chris Bigras, or Duncan Siemens would have to go alongside some current roster talent. Tampa is looking down the barrel of a brutal cap crunch, so sending them cheap but decent depth players like Andreas Martinsen would also be an option, although the front office seems to like Martinsen a great deal.

If the Avalanche aren’t in the conversation for Drouin, then honestly, a minor trade could be anything. The trade that sent prospect Stefan Elliott to Arizona in exchange for Brandon Gormley caught a lot of us by surprise. Obviously a straight player-for-player swap in this case wouldn’t alleviate the contract cap issue, just using it as an example that when minor trades happen, there often isn’t a lot of smoke before the fire, so to speak.

Brandon Gormley was exposed to waivers and not claimed. Do you think he’s the weakest link of the Avalanche’s d-corps? Can you try to explain what do Sakic and Roy see in Nate Guenin that virtually nobody else is able to see? Do you believe the team has a better chance of winning with him in the line-up than with waived Gormley? And should we fear a contract extension for him (Guenin)? – Peter from Slovakia via email

First off, nope, I don’t think Gormley is the weakest link of the Avalanche’s defense. Gormley has stood out above both Guenin and sophomore Av Zach Redmond this year. I was both surprised and relieved to see that he wasn’t claimed.

As far as Guenin, it’s tough to say exactly what management sees in him as I can’t read their minds. They have praised him as a hard worker in the past and that’s certainly true. He puts fantastic effort into his play. Unfortunately, he just can’t keep up with the rest of the team and often gets caught out of position, leading to costly mistakes. At 33, he’s also older than Gormley and Redmond both.

I don’t believe the team has a better chance of winning with Guenin in the lineup, no. Gormley was doing his absolute best to cover whenever they were paired together, often flying all over the ice trying to compensate. In a way, playing with Guenin brought out a lot of the best in Gormley because of the extra work he had to do.

I don’t think the Avalanche sign Guenin to another contract, but then again, stranger things have happened. And given the 50 contracts situation, it’s possible they are gearing up to deal some pieces away. If they deal enough of said pieces, who knows what that means for a Nate Guenin extension. The Avalanche have a glut of cheap bottom-pair defenders at the moment–I’m interested to see who sticks.

What current or former Avs player is the most ‘David Bowie’? – @JRobotLord

This is tough, because there are so many Bowies to choose from. And also, by what metrics do we rank this? Cody McLeod definitely has that famous “cover of Aladdin Sane” red hair going on. Former Avalanche player Ryan O’Reilly covered the musical angle, with his mad bluegrass skills. But I’m going with an option that might surprise you.

John Mitchell.

Why?

Because one of Bowie’s trademarks was that he was a chameleon. He changed and altered himself, setting trends along the way, fitting into counter-cultures here and there and abandoning them at the drop of a hat. Whether it was strolling bleach-blond through the Australian outback in Let’s Dance or letting Tilda Swinton play himself in drag in The Stars (Are Out Tonight), Bowie played a bunch of different roles and set his own pace.

John Mitchell, at various points of his hockey career and currently, is a similar sort of fellow to me. He’s played on every line of this current iteration of the Avalanche. He’s filled in on special teams or played a ‘skilled grinder’ type role in the bottom six. He can fit into the wing or up the middle depending on the team’s needs. He’s a versatile, adaptive chap.

Also, in any photo you find of John Mitchell with other Avalanche players, he is always off doing his own rad thing. Observe:

Want to know what the #Avs did yesterday during their time off in NYC? Wonder no more: https://t.co/Btdv9dolKopic.twitter.com/DghIicX1ML

— Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) December 3, 2015

Does this look like a man who lets other people dictate his fashion? No. John Mitchell does what he wants.

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As always, thank you everyone who submitted questions this week! We had a whole bunch of questions submitted this time–which was excellent–so if yours wasn’t answered this week, be sure to check back next Tuesday! If you’d like to join the conversation, email us at BSNAvalanche@gmail.com or tweet @CaseyDownUnder or @BSNAvalanche with the hashtag #BSNMailbag!