Mikko Rantanen Part IV - Baby Got Back

[cgf]

Yes it will. That's how you end up in Toronto's position. I am glad the Avs are sticklers when it comes to cap and if we have to eventually trade Rantanen (obviously worst case scenario) I'm confident they will get a good return.

Well that's just factually incorrect; Zaitsev & Marleau were never Toronto's stars.

 

[cgf]

I do remember you and Hench (and a few others) mentioning that the Avs needed to go get a 2C but I don't remember anything about being a contender if they do so. The reason I find hard to believe you said that is you were still not sold on quite a few of our NHL kids even in a lower role than 2C, you were certainly writing about EJ regressing, Cole being not good enough, Z being inconsistent, and Girard not yet proven. You were not in love with Nemeth at the beginning of the season as well. That does not sound like a team that can contend to me not in the least.

I didn't think it would've made us cup-favorites or anything (unless we got Drae for peanuts & then used the OTT as trade-bait), but that 2nd line was the only real complaint I had with the roster...despite the jokes I make about plenty of guys throughout the roster; including our currently holding out Bambi. And if we had addressed that hole with just a solid 2nd line; that ensured that Soda & co. were in our bottom 6 without the big line having to do everything; we'd have had a contending forward core that let us take a viable swing.

RE; the blueline:
Compared to the rest of the board, I was higher on Girard last summer than I am now...compared to my own opinion, I'm still higher on him now -- unlike EJ, whom I'm genuinely lower on now than I was last summer -- but I glossed over Sam's growing pains a lot more last summer than I did once the season got underway...and so thought he could anchor our 2nd pairing with EJ perfectly well. In particular when (again) I didn't expect as ugly of a year from EJ as we got.

I've also always loved Zads, despite admitting to his faults...unlike that heartless jerk, Henchy. Especially since - even with the inconsistencies - he was still the best regular partner that we ever gave Tyson, by a mile. So I was perfectly happy with an eventual Zads-Barrie pairing; once Nikita shook off his contract dispute & got into the swing of the season.

So felt like that was a perfectly fine top 4...and though I've tended to try & temper immediate personal-total expectations of him, I've never done anything but gush about the impact that his arrival would have on the potential that our blueline as a collective could unlock "once it had one of tboobs, Samwise or Cale on the ice at all times to retrieve pucks & exhaust forecheckers"...that having been before Henchy opened my eyes to how well Samwise & Tyson did together, and long before Turn-n-Burn became a thing; so I was still thinking of a firm puckmover/stay-at-home-guy distribution for that troika to turn our blueline into an advantage as well.

 

[AllAboutAvs]

I didn't think it would've made us cup-favorites or anything (unless we got Drae for peanuts & then used the OTT as trade-bait), but that 2nd line was the only real complaint I had with the roster...despite the jokes I make about plenty of guys throughout the roster; including our currently holding out Bambi. And if we had addressed that hole with just a solid 2nd line; that ensured that Soda & co. were in our bottom 6 without the big line having to do everything; we'd have had a contending forward core that let us take a viable swing.

RE; the blueline:
Compared to the rest of the board, I was higher on Girard last summer than I am now...compared to my own opinion, I'm still higher on him now -- unlike EJ, whom I'm genuinely lower on now than I was last summer -- but I glossed over Sam's growing pains a lot more last summer than I did once the season got underway...and so thought he could anchor our 2nd pairing with EJ perfectly well. In particular when (again) I didn't expect as ugly of a year from EJ as we got.

I've also always loved Zads, despite admitting to his faults...unlike that heartless jerk, Henchy. Especially since - even with the inconsistencies - he was still the best regular partner that we ever gave Tyson, by a mile. So I was perfectly happy with an eventual Zads-Barrie pairing; once Nikita shook off his contract dispute & got into the swing of the season.

So felt like that was a perfectly fine top 4...and though I've tended to try & temper immediate personal-total expectations of him, I've never done anything but gush about the impact that his arrival would have on the potential that our blueline as a collective could unlock "once it had one of tboobs, Samwise or Cale on the ice at all times to retrieve pucks & exhaust forecheckers"...that having been before Henchy opened my eyes to how well Samwise & Tyson did together, and long before Turn-n-Burn became a thing; so I was still thinking of a firm puckmover/stay-at-home-guy distribution for that troika to turn our blueline into an advantage as well.

Ok fair enough but it is very easy to argue that trading for a 2C and another top-6 player last summer in order to make us contender was probably not very prudent considering we were just a year removed from a 48-pt season and we had just barely made the playoffs on the last day of the season. After all regression after a "strong season" in 13-14 did happened. It could have happened again. The prudent thing to do for a GM that wanted to build a strong contender for many years to come was to sit back a little and assess what he had in his young players before trading for at least 2 top-6 players for a ton of his future assets. With still 5 years in Mack's contracts IMO it was worth waiting one year or at least until the TDL to assess the kids and see if they would take the next step. None did enough to fill that hole so Sakic made the move this offseason.

 

[cgf]

Ok fair enough but it is very easy to argue that trading for a 2C and another top-6 player last summer in order to make us contender was probably not very prudent considering we were just a year removed from a 48-pt season and we had just barely made the playoffs on the last day of the season. After all regression after a "strong season" in 13-14 did happened. It could have happened again. The prudent thing to do for a GM that wanted to build a strong contender for many years to come was to sit back a little and assess what he had in his young players before trading for at least 2 top-6 players for a ton of his future assets. With still 5 years in Mack's contracts IMO it was worth waiting one year or at least until the TDL to assess the kids and see if they would take the next step. None did enough to fill that hole so Sakic made the move this offseason.

I really don't wanna rehash it all over again. So let's just agree to disagree.

 

[AllAboutAvs]

I really don't wanna rehash it all over again. So let's just agree to disagree.

Let me just say this to close this off that if you keep bringing up that the Avs should have got a 2C last summer and they would have contend then most likely some of us will bring what I said as an argument against it. You can't have it both ways.

Anyway I agree to agree to disagree...