I dunno if Rakell is a secondary piece though. I at least consider him very, very high end.
He had b2b 33 and 34 goal seasons before a down year last year(Still paced for 20+ goals and 50 points) and now this year he's being hindered by a heavily trap/defensive based system Anaheim is using.
I actually think Rakell in Colorado would be a real threat to hit 40 goals. He has a ridiculous shot and hasn't really had much opportunity to play with high offensive players like he would in Colorado.
But I have for a long time now been beating the "Hall to Colorado" drum and still do. He would turn this team from a Darkhorse cup team into a top tier contender. And I think we have the assets to put together a deal that actually gets him out of New Jersey that few other teams in the league could put together. They're obviously going to want Defense and probably Defense that can help now. If the Avs offered something like Zadorov/Timmins + 1st + Kaut/Newhook as a package I dont see anyone else topping that.
The beauty of it for Colorado is we have the cap space to get him signed as well.
...Now, all of that said, the obvious move is Hall but I'm not sure Joe goes down the obvious route. He's kind of made some surprise moves in the past and we've seen in some of his more recent moves that cap flexibility is still important for us. I do think we go big game hunting, but I wonder if we dont go big game hunting on a surprise name that people dont even expect to be available. A guy with term left on his deal and at a friendly cap hit like what we did this past summer with Kadri.