Joe Sakic and the Colorado Avalanche had a busy offseason. After crashing to the basement of the Central Division there was work to be done. Sakic and Company needed to prepare to make a top ten pick, rework a defense that was glaring bad at times and figure out how to solve the Ryan O’Reilly situation.
Now, here we sit the day of Colorado’s first preseason game – O’Reilly has been traded, defensive reinforcements have been signed and Colorado may have stolen a talented Finnish winger in the draft.
Here are the Power Rankings for the Colorado Avalanche’s top five offseason moves.
No. 5 — Drafting Mikko Rantanen
The 10th pick in the NHL draft can feel like a no win situation. Fans feel like at 10 their team should snag an immediate impact player and team’s know this. The problem, there are only about 10 NHL ready prospects in the draft each year. The Avalanche may not have grabbed one of those guys (it would be a surprise if Rantanen was on the Avalanche roster to start the season) but they did get arguably the best European prospect in the draft. At 6-foot-4 the Fin still needs to learn how to take advantage of his size but that’s teachable. The things you can’t teach – great hands, excellent vision on the ice, good hockey sense – are already in place.
No. 4 — Trading for Carl Soderberg
Soderberg can step in right away and help fill the shoes of O’Reilly. No question Soderberg for O’Reilly isn’t a 1-for-1 swap but it may be addition by subtraction for Colorado. He’ll help on both ends of the ice and he isn’t nearly as expensive.
No. 3 — Signing Francois Beauchemin
Beauchemin will add another veteran voice to help mentor a really young group of defensemen. He also adds depth to a group that desperately needed it last year. Beauchemin has proven to be an asset when developing young defensive talent. If he can help progress players like Duncan Siemens, Tyson Barrie and Nikita Zadorov his signing will be a huge success.
No. 2 — Signing Blake Comeau
The one part of the O’Reilly trade no one is mentioning is the loss of Jamie McGinn. McGinn was a big part of the success two years ago netting 19 goals and three game winners. He missed essentially all of last year after back surgery and his presence was sorely missed. In comes Comeau, who brings the same grittiness and and scoring potential as McGinn. Comeau isn’t a top-six forward which means the Avalanche might finally get some offense from the 3rd and 4th lines.
No. 1 — Trading Ryan O’Reilly
Trading ROR was a tough pill to swallow. That’s because known commodities are always the hardest to part with. Especially when the commodity is two-way forward that gives you 60 points a year. Like I said earlier, the O’Reilly trade is addition by subtraction. Sakic didn’t want to give O’Reilly $60 million when Erik Johnson and Tyron Barrie are in need of new contracts. Losing both of those guys so you can keep O’Reilly would have been silly. This season Soderberg will do enough to buy the Avs time to develop defensemen Zadorov, who has the ability to become the best player involved in the ROR trade. Buffalo had given up on the 20-year-old and Sakic is crossing his fingers that fresh start will push Zadorov’s game to the next level.
If Johnson and Barrie are re-signed and Zadorov develops into a top pairing defensemen the O’Reilly trade is steal; if that doesn’t happen Sakic just parted ways with another top-six forward for nothing.