Team: 2018-19 Colorado Avalanche

Initial Creation Date: May 24, 2018

Published: May 24, 2018

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

There are two main holes that Sakic needs to address on the avalanche.
1. Secondary Scoring
2. Defence

This is my attempt to address those issues.

Now let’s get down to it.
The First Line...
Resigning Rantanen should be the priority here and he’s likely to get Draisaitl money but he’s worth it. Obviously he needs to continue playing with MacKinnon because those two together are nearly unstoppable. I moved Andrighetto onto the top line because he has flashy ballsy offensive instincts and he’s shown some chemistry with Mack and Rants in some brief spots with them. Landy’s good there too but he mostly just knocks in rebounds and I think he might be better utilized on the second line.

The second line.
Stastny is a smart legit second line center. He seems to have a decent relationship with Joe Sakic and he’s shown chemistry with MacKinnon and Landeskog in the past. Stone is an awesome player with a very smart stick. He can easily create turnovers and shoots the puck very well. Landry is Landry. This line should all be able to put up 50-60pts and Stone can even put up 70. Which is what the avs are missing, a consistent secondary threat.

Third line.
Soderberg, Nieto and Comeau were probably the avs second best line last year, but since the avs are probably letting him walk, let’s try Jost in that spot and see what they can do.

Fourth line.
The young guys. I would give these guys plenty of ice time because it would be beneficial for their development and it’s not like they can’t skate!

I think you could roll all four lines pretty evenly and I think you could get pretty good production from everyone.

The defence is pretty self explanatory, I would limit Girards ES ice time until he shows a bit more muscle and defensive prowess. I would let Makar and Timmins develop for another year. Timmins is almost ready but he’s coming off a concussion and if anyone watched the memorial cup he has some holes in his defensive game. Why not let him tear up the AHL before calling him up?

On acquiring Stone.
This is a risky move, it costs three draft picks and eats up valuable cap space and ice time for the young guys but damn you get a great player with an awesome stick and you also take away Ottawa’s best forward.... so that draft pick next year is almost certainly top 10. Since Ottawa is rebuilding and a budget team they may take the picks rather than matching.

What do you think?