Avs and Hurricanes pull off a huge trade with Chicago facilitating cap space.
https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/video/hurricanes-add-rantanen-hall-in-blockbuster-trade-with-avalanche~3067602
It should be pretty interesting to see how this pans out at the end of the season. For Carolina they are shooting for the moon and that Stanley Cup. For the Avs it represents another season of cap cost certainty with Necas.
Hopefully Hellbie is doing okay as we wait for him to weigh in this trade.
[Bane] "Speak of the devil..."
Honestly? It's a positive. A tough positive, but a positive nonetheless.
Rantanen wants a long-term deal at $14M, and he's not been willing to budge on that. Look around that Avs roster though. MacKinnon. Makar. There's not a lot of cap space there for that deal to work, and it forces the Avs to kind of turn into the Oilers- a few very high-priced players and a roster outside of them that struggles. That's not a recipe for success- ask the Leafs. So the Avs had two choices, with that realization:
1) Make one last Cup run with Moose, watch him leave in the offseason no matter the outcome, and move on.
2) Trade him now, get something out of him from someone needing a rental, and accept the loss of firepower this year to improve in the future.
They went with the latter, and.... a 2nd rounder, a reasonable player in Necas, and some change for a guy you couldn't keep anyway? Not bad, really. Bummer to see him go, but again, that was happening sometime this year no matter what.
For the Canes... we've seen this movie before. This is the sequel to the movie that starred Jake Guentzel last time- remember that one? Trade for a high-power upcoming-UFA, swing for the fences and fail, watch him leave for a rival rather than sign a deal with you? They can't have the same ending this time- I don't know how they fit Rantanen into their cap next year (even with the cap going up) realistically, but this pattern can't continue for them. but for now, they have a good forward (hang on, I'll get to my concerns there in a minute), another in Hall who shows occasionaly flashes of brilliance (more there in a moment too), and didn't give up a ton compared to what other rental stars might cost. And Chicago... got back a pick and saved a few bucks (50% of Rantanen is less than Hall earned).
So. Hall first. Hall has been maddeningly inconsistent, and that's why he's bounced around the league so much. He was awesome in Edmonton... until he wasn't. He was up and down in Jersey, until he was just down. Fantastic in Boston, when he was healthy. And in Chicago he's been a total non-factor. If the Canes find the 'activate Hall' button again, this turns into a wildly successful trade overall, but I'm guessing he's going to be a third-line guy at best. I have no idea what the deal is with Hall, but it's hard to avoid the feeling that this is a player who we'll look back on in 20 years as one of the great wasted potential stories in the NHL over the last half-century.
And Rantanen... look, I love me some Moose, the guy is a beast, and during the Avs injury-fest last year he was the only guy left to carry them for a good while- and he DID. But... $14M is a LOT, and I'm not sure he's reading that market quite right. Part of that is, simply, that he's a great player on a team that has had a whole lot of them- he regularly takes ice time with guys like Landeskog (well, used to), MacKinnon, etc.- and it makes it hard sometimes to gauge what Rantanen's ceiling looks like. Is he a great player on a team of them, or is he benefitting from playing alongside generational talent? We'll find out now- he's bar-none the top guy on the Carolina roster (no insult to their existing roster), so he'll either pick them up and carry them on his shoulders the way he did for the Avs last year for a while, or he won't and we'll learn a lot about his actual value that way too. This makes or breaks that $14M demand, the next few months, and I wish him the best of luck in it.
So, final score:
Avs: Gain picks/prospects, lose power this year but retool on the fly better next year. Net gain.
Canes: Gain firepower for this year, gave up little, have big question mark at the end of the season. Net gain.
Hawks: Essentially got a free draft pick without giving up much of anything. Net gain.
Not bad all around. Now let's see if this opens up the floodgates for other teams to keep up with the Carolina gauntlet being thrown down.
EDIT: I forgot, we're also assuming right now that the Avs look at all that cap they just freed up and don't do anything with it before the deadline. I'd keep a VERY close eye on Nashville in the coming days- Stamkos didn't pan out there, but a trip to the mountains isn't out of the question if the Preds keep some salary or something fun like that. (Rumors about Crosby leaving Pittsburgh to play alongside MacKinnon are, it sounds like, untrue)