The Summer of Retooling

2021 Off-season

June 30, 2021

I'm going to have some free agent decisions to make. The Awards Ceremony in Vegas was pretty good. Tyson Barrie won the Norris as the best defenseman - very well deserved. And Gabriel Landeskog won the Lady Byng. Two of our players winning awards is a positive for our organization. Of course, our captain is hitting the market in under 24 hours...

July 1, 2021

The 2021 off-season for the Colorado Avalanche was one of retooling. Our biggest free agent was obviously Landeskog. Pressed on cap space, the board of directors (or owners, or aka my bosses), said we could only afford $9.5 million a year for Landeskog. Unfortunately, he wanted over $10 million. 

Washington already sent an offer. Not sure how to compete with that...

July 2, 2021

Landeskog wants $11 million to be exact. We're going to need to clear some salary...

Targets are relatively easy: Erik Johnson's $6 million, Joe Colborne $4 million, and Philipp Grubauer's $3.7 million. Unfortunately, Johnson's salary is untradeable. He only has 2 years left on his contract, and it is possible to buy him out ($1.98 million for 4 seasons)....but if we can't trade him - we could use him. It's sunk cost.

Colborne and Grubauer are much easier to move. Time to make some calls...

July 4, 2021

Had a call with another GM asking about Travis Barron. No thanks. I think he's making the big club in September.

But, we did make a trade call...

Joe Colborne and his $4 million off to Winnipeg. In return, we get Swede/American winger Oliver Wahlstrom and the rights to Kyle Connor. If we can't get Landeskog signed to a new contract, we have Connor - use him on the wing or at center. Or we could trade Connor's rights for something...

Unfortunately, the board aren't budging from the $9+ million max contract for Landeskog. 

July 6, 2021

Signed a Romanian for his name and decent skill, because why not? Attila Egyed. He's been undrafted for 2 years, so eligible to be signed as a free agent.

July 7, 2021

Unfortunately, Gabriel Landeskog has signed a 7-year, $77 million contract with the Washington Capitals. We did not have the cap space to compete with that dollar figure.  

July 9, 2021

@Avalanche

The Colorado Avalanche have resigned Calvin Pickard to a 7-year contract extension!

Picks is back in Denver with a new 7 year, $28 million contract through the end of the 2027-28 season. So yes, a cap hit of only $4 million! We got our goalie of the present and future. 

July 21, 2021

With the resigning of Igor Shestyorkin to a one-year contract, Philipp Grubauer was actively shopped, and finally traded away. A trade with Columbus fell through, but Minnesota was an ideal trading partner given they had a solid prospect I wanted. 

Boudrias is a former 3rd Round Pick and has done well at the AHL level. Most importantly, this clears the goalie logjam.

September 3, 2021

I made one last trade before the start of camp...

Meloche wasn't going to improve much, but Mikhail Sidorov seemed to have good potential, so why not give him a shot...we quickly signed him to a 5 year, $18.5 million contract. 24 years old and a lot of potential. Basically, a better Will Butcher. 

We made some other minor signings to compete for a bottom six spot and for the AHL. 

Let's get to training camp and pre-season!