Flat Cap and No CBO Avs Edition

How do you plan to keep MacKinnon, makar and landeskog after overpaying burakovsky, saad and others?

I like the signing but that's a bit to much for saad

Cole, Calvert, Bellemare, and Grubauer are all on expiring deals. Replacing them with the likes of Byram, Werner, Bowers, Kaut, etc. would be able to pay for Makar's raise. MacKinnon is locked up for another 3 seasons. The likely cap raise after the 2020-21 season would cover Landeskog's raise.

Hard pass on giving up that much for 1 yr of Saad. Way over paid every RFA, especially Jost by over $1M, except Burakovsky. The Avs are going to part ways with either Graves or Zadorov to make a spot for Byram, and why sign Rutta at all when you can just bring back Barberio for the a similar amount? I’d be shocked if Kamenev isn’t either traded/not qualified because Kaut and Bowers are ready for NHL shots. I agree with what you are trying to do adding a 2nd line scoring wing though.

Honestly I think the Avs give Jost and Nichushkin 1 yr prove it deals, and as I said earlier use either Graves or Zadorov, more likely Zadorov since Graves plays with Makar, as part of a trade package which could include Jost or Compher.

Note that I'm a Canes fan and not an Avs fan, so I don't know too much about the player dynamics of your roster. To me, Byram needs some more seasoning and likely 1 more ELC slide year before he's NHL-ready. He didn't really have a great year this season in juniors relative to expectations. Still a great prospect, but I think patience is good with him. Also, Saad deal is a de-facto sign-and-trade like the recent Pageau/Faulk/Stone/Pacioretty/Jensen trades.