Quoting: TJTwolf
I can see the logic in it to open up cap space, and in Joe trying to do right by Cole but the whole original point (or so I thought) of signing Cole was his cup and playoff experience and to mentor the kids. We're also now down to 0 true defensive Dmen to my mind (a number of 2 way guys but to me Cole was the only true defensive D we had). I'm happy to wait and see what Joe does with it though. The other point is I think Cole was worth more than Pateryn.
Cole's playoff experience is a loss for sure, but I would argue that it's not as valuable as it was 2 and a half years ago when he was signed. Back then the Avs were coming off a 1st round playoff loss to Nashville, and the roster was extremely inexperienced. Fast forward to today, and the team has been to game 7 of the 2nd round twice, and has since also added a lot of guys who also have playoff experience - including Saad, Toews, Donskoi, and Burakovsky, all of whom have either won cups (Saad x2, Burakovsky x1) or been to the cup final (Donskoi), or conference final (Toews).
I would also argue that whatever Cole had to teach the younger guys like Makar, Girard, etc, he'll already have taught them in the last 1-2 years, so there's diminishing returns the longer he stays at the club.
As for being a "true defensive Dman", I would argue that being a purely defensive Dman doesn't necessarily mean that the player is better at defending than a guy who's a 2 way guy. For example, I'd much rather have Toews out on the ice in a defensive situation, rather than Cole, because Toews is just better overall.
As far as his value is concerned, I think you have to really take into account the fact that he had a much larger caphit than befitted his role on the team as a 6/7/8 Dman. Had he had a $2m caphit I'm sure we would have gotten better value for him (or just kept him), but the fact is that capspace was a crucial element here, evidenced by the fact that Sakic retained $800k.
The jury is still out on how that capspace will be used though. If it goes completely unused then we might think differently about this trade, but I think it's pretty likely that Sakic will make a move to use that newfound cap space.