E.L. wrote:
By vets I mean older guys who might be worth something on the trade market.
Wellllllll...that's the problem.
Who the hell wants a washed-up 39-year-old Jarome Iginla? Who in hell wants a broken-down and no-longer-skating-at-an-NHL-level Francois Beauchemin? Who wants an overpriced and over-termed Carl Soderberg? All three of these guys are slow and ineffective. The only deal that expires this season is Iginla's, and both he and Beauchemin have NMCs. Oh, and Beauchemin's deal runs one more year around $4.5 million after this season, and a buyout would carry the full cap hit next year because it's an old fart contract. Incidentally, Brad Stuart's full cap hit is on the books this season for the very same reason. The good news is someone told me Joe Sakic said in a recent interview that he will never, ever sign a 35+ vet to a multi-year deal ever again. Too bad it took him three swings and three misses in three consecutive years before he finally learned his lesson.
Best case scenarios, the Vegas Golden Whatevers take Soderberg off their hands in the expansion draft. I don't see anyone stupid enough to take Soderberg in a trade, not even Jim Benning. McPhee won't take Beauchemin in the draft even if he foregoes protection, so best case there is that he waives his NMC and gets traded at 50% retention to some other team where he can slog his way around the ice in a different uniform until 2018. But I've no earthly idea who that would be.
Then there's Cody McLeod, whose contract isn't backbreaking, but who has spent most of this season in the press box.
And then there are John Mitchell and Eric Gelinas, who are also on relatively inexpensive deals, but both were exposed to waivers and there were zero takers. I read that Sakic tried like hell to deal Mitchell this offseason and found little to no interest. Ironically, Mitchell and Iginla I believe lead the team in possession.
So that leaves us with some "tweeners" like Blake Comeau (meh) and Mikhail Grigorenko (a promising meh). I think Grigs could possibly blossom much like Sam Gagner appears to have in Columbus, it just won't be in Colorado. His deficiencies (slow speed, soft play) get magnified a thousand fold on this squad. Besides, the Avs signed Joe Colborne, they don't need another big, slow, soft forward who takes plays off. They should just deal him for whatever they can.
As for goalies, no idea. Varlamov's trade value is at an all-time low right now, so dealing him would probably not be wise, and despite multiple shots to pick it up and run with it, Calvin Pickard has yet to prove he's anything more than a decent backup.
I assume the "core" going forward is Duchene, MacKinnon, Landeskog, Johnson, Barrie, and Rantanen. I think you can build a winner around those guys. The Avs did okay building that core. They just absolutely shat the bed in trying to surround that core with talent. Things are STARTING to turn around, but not in time to save this season. That doesn't mean they should panic and go nuclear on the roster...they just need to admit their mistakes and do everything they can to get rid of said mistakes. If they can jettison some of these awful players they should do so now and call up whomever they need to call up. A.J. Greer showed more promise in a couple games than guys like Soderberg have all season long. Give the chances to players who actually WANT them.
I really hope Jared Bednar is the guy for the job. So far it's hard to say whether he's any good at the NHL level yet because he's been given such an uproariously BAD team, and one that's banged up to boot. He's doing a lot of things right, but I still can't help but wonder if it's because of him that Tyson Barrie's play has completely fallen off a cliff. Maybe we'll hear later on a la Pacioretty that he's been playing through an injury all this time and he'll magically score four goals the very next game!