I'm surprised so many people were fooled by Comeau's season last year. It was clearly a contract year performance. I wouldn't be surprised to see him play like he did in 2015-16 or worse for the rest of his career and then hang em up.
Great team guy, and naturally better offensively than Calvert, but there are lots of signs that Comeau's on his last legs. Calvert gives them a low maintenance bottom six checker that can play at the speed Bednar wants, and still fill some of the intangibles and penalty killing that Comeau did.
That's just as silly as the people who think Comeau of last year is the Comeau to expect going forward.
He had a career year last year with his overall play. He wont repeat it. But he also had a career worse year in 16/17, a year infinitely worse then what he was before that.
The reality is he'll likely fall between the two seasons going forward. He's a solid bottom 6 forward who probably should be a 4th liner at this point but can play on the 3rd line and do so fairly well. Can chip in offensively, can kill penalties, responsible defensively(Though I think this is where he's getting overrated by people the most right now), and a decent skater.
Calvert is younger and should be effective for longer. I also think Calvert is a much better PKer, has more offensive upside, and is a better skater. At even strength Comeau might be a tad better defensively and physically, but Calvert is quite the pest on the forecheck for his size.
I think it's a small upgrade for the Avs. And I also think $2.8M was very solid value. Especially when you look at what the other bottom 6 forwards in free agency just got. Beagle(3M), Komarkov(3M), Roussel(3M), Ryan(3M), Reaves(2.775M).
I'd say we did a solid job with Calvert at 2.8M. Better value then the majority of thsoe guys, the only one I'd probably prefer to Calvert is Ryan at 3M.