2024 offseason

Wood is an interesting case; I do wonder if anyone will take him for another five years. I guess if it's for FC or a mid-round pick, a team that needs bottom-six help might be interested. Didn't sound like the Avs were keen on bringing Ritchie in next year; probably give him another year in junior. Also doubt Behrens gets to the NHL without going through the AHL first so, good luck to him with that, LOL.

Colton is more likely to get traded than Wood imo, and there is zero chance COL is going to play Ritchie on 3rd line wing as a 19yr old.

Colton plays C which makes him more important to the Avs than a winger like Wood.

Avs aren't afraid of playing young players if they deem them to be ready. Ritchie should get a chance to make the team and get 9 games in camp, and if he's good enough he'll stay.

You could replace Ritchie with a cheap vet or even Duhaime maybe. Same with Behrens. Point here is the caphits.

I agree with C being more valuable but part of giving Colton $4M as 3C was the plan that RyJo would work out at 2c therefore having about $8M committed to 2c 3C, Mittlestadt is going to blow that model up and rightfully so.
By no means am I advocating trading Colton though some tough choices are coming.

With Ritchie, and this is strictly my opinion, I think COL has learned the lesson you can’t expect a 19yr old that you have top 6 C expectations to develop as a top 6 C playing bottom 6 winger minutes. Play him a full season in the AHL playing the role there you want him to play in the NHL. Don’t kill the kid having him play a role he hasn’t played probably at all in his hockey career let him continue to develop to his ceiling not his floor and it’s not like you don’t have options on the wing internally with Foudy, Olausson and Kovalenko. And yes COL has forced that on guys like Newhook in the past and it didn’t work out, learn from past mistakes.

As for Wood they gave him a 6 yr deal for a reason so I really wonder if they don’t want him to be that winger that can help anchor the bottom 6 and his contract gets more and more bearable as the cap goes up because there is a decent chance someone poaches LOC in the summer of 25.