Confirmed with Link: Avs sign MacKinnon to 7-year deal ($6.3M AAV)

[Cousin Eddie]

Why do people keep saying opinions were made on Mackinnon from one tournament? That's stupid. He lit up the Q that year. Let's not act like he missed the entire year due to injury. He missed like 15 games. He played the entire Q playoffs and was absolutely dominant.

Nathan Mackinnon is arguably the best player the QMJHL has seen since Radulov (maybe Giroux but I don't think so) and the best pre-draft QMJHL player since Crosby. He was straight up dominant every time he was on the ice.

The memorial cup may be the tournament that opened the eyes of a lot of internet posters who don't watch junior hockey, but it was what was expected from everybody who watched all year.

 

[dahrougem2]

Why do people keep saying opinions were made on Mackinnon from one tournament? That's stupid. He lit up the Q that year. Let's not act like he missed the entire year due to injury. He missed like 15 games. He played the entire Q playoffs and was absolutely dominant.

Nathan Mackinnon is arguably the best player the QMJHL has seen since Radulov (maybe Giroux but I don't think so) and the best pre-draft QMJHL player since Crosby. He was straight up dominant every time he was on the ice.

The memorial cup may be the tournament that opened the eyes of a lot of internet posters who don't watch junior hockey, but it was what was expected from everybody who watched all year.

They weren't made up from the tournament but IMO they incorrectly swayed opinions in his favour.

 

[Ceremony]

They weren't made up from the tournament but IMO they incorrectly swayed opinions in his favour.

 

[Ivan13]

Why do people keep saying opinions were made on Mackinnon from one tournament? That's stupid. He lit up the Q that year. Let's not act like he missed the entire year due to injury. He missed like 15 games. He played the entire Q playoffs and was absolutely dominant.

Nathan Mackinnon is arguably the best player the QMJHL has seen since Radulov (maybe Giroux but I don't think so) and the best pre-draft QMJHL player since Crosby. He was straight up dominant every time he was on the ice.

The memorial cup may be the tournament that opened the eyes of a lot of internet posters who don't watch junior hockey, but it was what was expected from everybody who watched all year.

Because that's the stretch of games that saw people shifting from Jones to him. It most definitely played a big role.

 

[S E P H]

^ Yeah Carruth was a disaster of a goaltender.

Why do people keep saying opinions were made on Mackinnon from one tournament? That's stupid. He lit up the Q that year. Let's not act like he missed the entire year due to injury. He missed like 15 games. He played the entire Q playoffs and was absolutely dominant.

MacKinnon was the second best player for the entire year except two times...

1) Preliminary Rankings
2) Final Rankings

Based upon all the interviews done by Avs including Sakic. It sounded like they didn't have their draft pick made up until after the Memorial Cup where they focused on MacKinnon. And then a late surge for Barkov which they loved his character because of Pracey.

It's kind of funny and hypocritical though from people in the past, I remember when we had the Jones and MacKinnon crowd here and man was it split even 50/50. The same people who said Jones had an awful Memorial Cup disregarded how poor MacKinnon was at the World Juniors.

 

[Ivan13]

Brutal goaltending. Jones did get burned, but he still got Nate to take a low percentage shot, he basically played that as good as anyone could, any decent goalie there it's a crest shot.

 

[LieutenantDangle]

It made too much sense to draft Jones. Son of popeye, future 1d, team lacked d, Jones loved Denver, etc etc. when the avs won the lottery a lot of people in the hockey world assumed Jones would be the guy. In fact it was a shock he ‘slid’ to his draft position. But the few days before the draft sakic and co explicitly said they were drafting a forward

 

[dahrougem2]

Not only that, but the entire time leading up to the draft the media thought Sakic/Roy were bluffing about the MacKinnon talk. The media was convinced we would take Jones, that we should take Jones. I still remember thinking "oh man they're just playing everyone, they're gonna take Jones" and it was a huge letdown when they drafted MacKinnon. Not because of MacKinnon, but because they ruined the suspense by telling everyone who they'd pick lol.

 

[Foppberg]

In hindsight, having Jones would've set us up much better for the future.

But I also somewhat doubt that Jones of Nashville/Columbus would be the same Jones if he was drafted by us.

 

[Balthazar]

In hindsight, having Jones would've set us up much better for the future.

But I also somewhat doubt that Jones of Nashville/Columbus would be the same Jones if he was drafted by us.

That's a very good point. Jones played with elite dmen in Nashville and was babied until he became a first pairing guy in Columbus. Here he'd have been thrown to the wolves and exposed for the first few years of his development. Who knows what would have happened.

 

[cgf]

If Popeye had never been a Nugget no one would've been shocked that we didn't pick Seth 1st. People just got carried away with the storylines.

 

[StayAtHomeAv]

It was (still is) our overwhelming need for an elite Dman. I don't think too many people cared about the good story line. It was fun to talk about but a feel good story is no reason to make a decision.

 

[Grackle Party]

If Popeye had never been a Nugget no one would've been shocked that we didn't pick Seth 1st. People just got carried away with the storylines.

Except they were fairly stacked at center with Stastney , ROR, and Duchene and had the long standing need for top pairing D that still exists today....

 

[Ivan13]

If Popeye had never been a Nugget no one would've been shocked that we didn't pick Seth 1st. People just got carried away with the storylines.

Rubbish. The storyline was that we were loaded at center, and had absolute crap in our D and Jones was ranked #1 throughout the season until Nate outplayed him in a single tournament.

 

[cgf]

I wanted Seth to be the pick on draft day because I absolutely adored him. He didn't just have the physical tools, skating & skills, but he showed the instincts that I didn't see from other highly hyped prospects like Ekblad or Chychrun. That said, Seth wasn't Dahlin or McDavid, he was not the undisputed #1 all year and only ran out into the top spot while MacKinnon was out injured; but as soon as MacK came back to dominate, it became a top two again with MacK in the lead.

Go back & read those lottery threads, Panthers fans were pissed that we stole MacK from them, not Seth, in fact we were the only team anyone even suggested would pick Seth ahead of MacK or Barkov exclusively because of our need on D.

 

[AvsCOL]

Letang? And last year they had a great goalie to go with good defensive depth and amazing forward depth. And all those other teams had pretty damn good D units, hell Toews is the 4th best player on his own team and can't hold a candle to Kane and Keith, DD and Quick are the ones who carried LA, not Kopitar, Bergeron is great and all but he was no Chara, or more importantly Thomas, do I even need to mention Lidas and Niedermayer, Pronger and Frankie (it's also kind of absurd you mention Getzlaf since AMac was their #1 centre during their run, hell their forwards were so much in the shadows that their most glorified line was their checking line)? And Canes won because of Ward and their insane depth at both F and D, not because of Eric Staal.

Letang didn't play a single game in last years playoffs. They won with a D core consisting of Maata, Schultz, Cole, Hainsey, Dumoulin and Daley. Not exactly a star studded cast.

And Cam Ward had a great playoffs, but Staal led the playoffs with 28 points, but lets just ignore that.


I'm still waiting for you to prove to me that a #1D is more valuable than a #1C. You're trying, but I don't see any facts. The last 10 Stanley Cup winners all had good to great #1Cs, that's not by coincidence that they won.

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

Rubbish. The storyline was that we were loaded at center, and had absolute crap in our D and Jones was ranked #1 throughout the season until Nate outplayed him in a single tournament.

Yeah, that's how I remember it too. I also wanted nothing to do with Jones.

 

[Ivan13]

Letang didn't play a single game in last years playoffs. They won with a D core consisting of Maata, Schultz, Cole, Hainsey, Dumoulin and Daley. Not exactly a star studded cast.

And Cam Ward had a great playoffs, but Staal led the playoffs with 28 points, but lets just ignore that.


I'm still waiting for you to prove to me that a #1D is more valuable than a #1C. You're trying, but I don't see any facts.

Penguins of the last year are an outlier, an exception that proves the rule. As for Staal, Ward was the MVP, far and away, and that Canes team is widely regarded as the worst team ever to win the Cup, and one that ridiculously benefited from bad breaks that happened to their opponents.

 

[Ceremony]

I for one am sad I didn't pay much attention to the Avalanche from 2014 through 2016 because the opportunity to bring up the fact that I was right about us regretting picking MacKinnon over Jones would have had me banned long ago, regardless of how satisfying it would have been. Fortunately for all of you I no longer care enough to do anything other than laugh at MacKinnon's complete lack of intelligence and suitability for the position and role he's supposed to hold, how he shouldn't be an alternate captain because he's not mature or good enough, all the while looking at Jones and Columbus annihilating everything that doesn't wear black and gold and smiling to myself.

 

[AvsCOL]

Penguins of the last year are an outlier, an exception that proves the rule. As for Staal, Ward was the MVP, far and away, and that Canes team is widely regarded as the worst team ever to win the Cup, and one that ridiculously benefited from bad breaks that happened to their opponents.

What does that even mean? Isn't that playoff hockey?

Can a team really win 16 games against 4 separate teams and we say they won it because they got lucky? I'm confused.

 

[cgf]

I for one am sad I didn't pay much attention to the Avalanche from 2014 through 2016 because the opportunity to bring up the fact that I was right about us regretting picking MacKinnon over Jones would have had me banned long ago, regardless of how satisfying it would have been. Fortunately for all of you I no longer care enough to do anything other than laugh at MacKinnon's complete lack of intelligence and suitability for the position and role he's supposed to hold, how he shouldn't be an alternate captain because he's not mature or good enough, all the while looking at Jones and Columbus annihilating everything that doesn't wear black and gold and smiling to myself.

It's stupidity like this that makes me wish MacK got to play for a real franchise so avs fans could b*tch about having lost MacK instead of b*tching about him.

 

[dahrougem2]

What does that even mean? Isn't that playoff hockey?

Can a team really win 16 games against 4 separate teams and we say they won it because they got lucky? I'm confused.

That 2006 Canes team did get some absurd breaks, though.

In their series vs Montreal they went down 2-0, then IIRC there was a major high stick that took a Canadiens player out of the series and the Canes turned it around (I want to say it was Markov).

In the Conference Finals vs Buffalo, 4 of the Sabres' regular 6 defensemen missed time with significant injuries and all missed game 7.

Then in the Finals the obvious Dwayne Roloson injury that forced the Oilers' backups into goal, even though the Oilers still managed to take it 7. But the Canes won, and I can't take that away from them.

That's off topic though lol.

 

[Pokecheque]

There's plenty of reason to believe that Seth Jones would've floundered in Colorado as well, seeing how bad the team seemingly is at coaching and developing talent.

Yes, part of it may be that MacKinnon is not as good as all of us had dared to hope. But I don't think that's the complete answer. There's also the fact that the organization did an outright lousy job surrounding this core with talent, especially the last 2-3 seasons. In addition this team has yet to have a great bench boss since Joel Quenneville bolted for Chicago.

It's okay to say the Avs may have erred in not taking Jones, but it's foolhardy to just assume a swap of players would have resulted in the Avs being far better off than they have been. They still would've been a pretty lousy team regardless IMO, and we'd likely be lambasting Jones instead of MacKinnon.

 

[CobraAcesS]

There's plenty of reason to believe that Seth Jones would've floundered in Colorado as well, seeing how bad the team seemingly is at coaching and developing talent.

Yes, part of it may be that MacKinnon is not as good as all of us had dared to hope. But I don't think that's the complete answer. There's also the fact that the organization did an outright lousy job surrounding this core with talent, especially the last 2-3 seasons. In addition this team has yet to have a great bench boss since Joel Quenneville bolted for Chicago.

It's okay to say the Avs may have erred in not taking Jones, but it's foolhardy to just assume a swap of players would have resulted in the Avs being far better off than they have been. They still would've been a pretty lousy team regardless IMO, and we'd likely be lambasting Jones instead of MacKinnon.

Without Mack's scoring/rookie season we likely would have ended up drafting higher in 2014. Now looking at the top 10 or 15, that would of been a crap shoot, but it wouldn't have been difficult to do better than Conner Bleackley.

It also wouldn't have added to the center problem we already had with Staz, ROR, and Duch.. Even Duch & Staz together would have been better than MacK & Duch. Both Stastny and ROR had a very high level of chemistry with Landeskog, and were good two way players.

Jones would have been fine here as well. He wouldn't have had to be rushed with EJ still here either.

There is a lot more to consider when discussing Mack vs Jones in hindsight than just the two players themselves.

 

[StayAtHomeAv]

Good call on Bleackley and where we would have picked instead. Even if we ended up with the same pick we probably don't go with the safe pick (God he fooled so many people) since without MacK we could use another scorer at forward.