For Avalanche and Landeskog, this goes beyond just business

“At the end of the day, it’s a business.”

Every year, we hear this phrase over and over when teams and players go through the occasionally painful process of negotiating a contract. Players have an extremely limited window to capitalize on their athletic abilities and teams have a salary cap under which to operate.

It really is a business, after all.

When it comes to the Colorado Avalanche and their ongoing and sometimes ugly negotiation with pending free agent Gabe Landeskog, it’s so much more than that.

Drafted second overall in 2011 and named (at the time) the youngest captain in league history, Landeskog was part of Colorado’s first true attempt at a rebuild. While Matt Duchene was the flash, Landeskog was the heart.

Things didn’t go very well at times and we all know how the franchise deteriorated into a bottoming out in 2016-17. During that time, players such as Duchene, among others, asked management to trade them for fresh starts. They had tried to help resurrect the previous glory of the Avalanche and decided it was time to move on.

It’s just a business, remember?

Landeskog was not one of those players, however. He asked for the opposite, in fact. He wanted to stay and be part of the turnaround, be part of the solution, not the face of a promising group that couldn’t even make the postseason on a regular basis.

Gabe Landeskog wanted to be a member of the Colorado Avalanche when it was least desirable to do so.

Things are different in Colorado these days, however. The franchise is once again the odds-on favorite to win the Stanley Cup next season. There are three legitimate superstars on the roster and an exciting and talented wave of young players just arriving in the NHL.

Landeskog was the captain and public face of the franchise when times were bad and now that times are good, he remains the effervescent leader of the organization. He is the epitome of what a franchise wants from the leader of their locker room.

All of this brings us to today. The drama of the Avalanche leaving Landeskog unprotected in the Seattle expansion draft already feels ancient. The Kraken and Landeskog reportedly never made much traction in contract talks and Seattle selected Joonas Donskoi instead.

The NHL Draft came and went and while many teams around the league made headline-grabbing moves, the Avalanche sat tight and selected four players and in the middle of that re-signed Cale Makar to a six-year contract.

Makar’s contract is key here because the Avs now know the actual salary cap hit for Makar for the next six years. Anyone who has ever tried to make a budget understands the security of fixed costs. Colorado has that with Makar and now can resume conversations with Landeskog.

About those conversations…

Landeskog has publicly stated in an interview with The Athletic that he is disappointed it even got to this point, that he would’ve preferred having this done last offseason.

For a player of his stature, it’s fair to wonder how the Avalanche let it get to this point.

From the reporting we here at DNVR have done on the conversations, we have reported that a contract offer from the Avalanche of seven years for $7M per season was rejected by Landeskog’s camp.

For a contract that would pay Landeskog $49 million through his age-35 season, it’s fair to wonder how his side feels that’s not a reasonable offer.

This leads me to the question that this process has consistently gotten to in my mind: What’s wrong with everyone involved in this process?

The Avalanche, on the ice and off, is better with Gabe Landeskog. Without him, they’re looking to replace their top left wing on what has been one of the NHL’s best lines the last three seasons and, oh, by the way, their captain.

From the other side, Landeskog has, according to CapFriendly, made $41 million in his career already. He turns 29 in the fall and this is likely the last big-money contract he signs in his life. In the time since he signed his seven-year pact with the Avalanche in 2011, he has gotten married and had two beautiful children. He has every right to maximize the earning potential of being an elite athlete approaching the second half of his career.

I bring up Landeskog’s past earnings not to try and shame Landeskog for trying to get what he views as a fair value contract for him and his family, but rather to say that he has already made in his career more money than 99% of all NHL players. He isn’t in a desperate position to extract every single dollar to make it count. He can, if he wants to, afford to shave off a few dollars in favor of certain lifestyle perks.

The perks of staying in Denver are obvious to everyone. He’s already been living here for the last decade and has started a family here. It’s a city notorious for pro athletes sticking around when their playing days are over. The team is also the best it has ever been in Landeskog’s tenure as they are coming off winning the President’s Trophy before bowing out in the second round of the playoffs for the third straight year.

You can either look at the second-round losses as a team that can’t get over the hump or a team that’s right on the verge of breaking through. That interpretation is up to all of us as individuals, including Landeskog.

While players may not consider this kind of thing often during their playing days, there’s a legacy on the line in this contract stalemate.

Landeskog is fourth in Avalanche history in games played and fifth in points. Securing one more long-term deal in Colorado and playing it out would very likely guarantee he takes over the games played mantle and sets himself up to have his jersey retired with the ‘C’ on its chest in the rafters of Ball Arena.

Landeskog, absolutely beloved by the Avalanche fan base and potentially on his way to securing his status as an all-time great Av, should look to former teammate Paul Stastny as a cautionary tale of what can happen when a player leaves.

Stastny went for big money and to go back home to where he grew up in St. Louis. When he left, Stastny’s 538 games in an Avalanche sweater had him on the same path as Landeskog. Had he stayed, he would likely be finishing up his career as one of the great Avs in history.

Instead, Stastny didn’t even finish that big UFA contract in the city in which he signed it. The Blues traded him to Winnipeg, where he left in free agency for Vegas, only to be traded back to Winnipeg, where he is once again a free agent and looking for a home.

Stastny’s lasting legacy will be of a good player who made a lot of money. I feel it’s important to state that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but Landeskog is in the position where he can have more…if he wants it.

This part of the conversation, however, is a two-way street.

Landeskog doesn’t owe it to the Avalanche to leave money on the table because of everything he’s already done in a Colorado sweater. His last three years have been his most prolific as a player on a per-game basis. While many would argue he’s been the beneficiary of playing next to Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen, both players would (and have already) said they benefit greatly from the presence of Landeskog’s hearty two-way acumen.

The same legacy is on the line for the members of this front office, namely general manager Joe Sakic. As the longtime captain who instilled a culture of accountability that brought two Stanley Cup championships to Denver during his playing days, it seems unfathomable the same man would allow his captain and the soul of this franchise to walk away over a squabble about money.

Sakic has garnered a reputation as GM similar to that of his playing self as a cool customer who can get the job done. He’s widely viewed around the league as one of the best GMs in the business and he is trying to build a career as an executive that rivals the one he put together as a Hall of Fame player.

This has always felt like it should have been a slam dunk from both sides.

The Avs are better with Landeskog, trying to fight their way through the second round with one of the league’s top lines being backed by one of the league’s best defenses. Landeskog is better in Colorado chasing a legacy as an all-time great where he can help finish the job he started in returning this franchise to glory.

This game of chicken needs to stop. It’s time for both sides to blink.

This isn’t just business.

This one’s personal.