Just let Kadri go. Get MacKinnon and Byram taken care of.

EJ's not going anywhere till next summer. He wants to finish out his contract and win one more Cup and he's earned that: #1 pick in the whole league who stuck it out through the lean years and has been a great model for all the superstars who've joined since he got there: Landeskog, Mackinnon, Rantanen, Makar and most importantly, his partner in crime on the ice, Byram, who's the only one yet to scratch the surface of his potential. One more year with EJ for Byram, barring another concussion for Byram, will be huge for the Avs' future.

Newhook isn't ready for 2C, and Compher is a massive downgrade. Kadri fills such a crucial slot in the lineup.

So you'd prefer short term gratification over multiple Cups. Got it. 🤔

Don't fall into the same trap Toronto did. Shiny toy syndrome.

This isn't Tavares, and Toronto never won a cup, we did. Signing Kadri to a 7-7.5M deal, when the salary cap is like a season away from going up by 10M, and most of our top 6 and defensive core is locked up is completely fine. He fills a crucial role in the lineup, and having him locked up for a few years is gonna almost guarantee us staying competitive.

The cap goes up by $1M not $10M. Big difference. Don't get me wrong. Love Kadri and would love a return. But you can't play a guy in his 30s that much money with such a strong core and so many people a decade younger who need to get paid soon.

My guy, the cap is rumored to be going up by around 10 million in either 2024-25 or 2025-26. of course, this isn't guaranteed, but even still, it's not like it'd be an extremely challenging task to accrue the cap space to resign Byram and MacKinnon. Even if MacKinnon doesn't take a team-friendly deal, he'd accept ~9.5-10M, and the cap space freed up by Compher would be more than enough to accommodate this. We'd probably have to trade Girard, but that happens to contenders. The Lightning traded McDonagh just a few weeks ago.

The type of deal Kadri got has a lot of precedent, and would work with the cap. Granted it'd require the loss of some pieces, but no one irreplaceable. We're not gonna find someone like Kadri on the market that is cheaper without giving up a ton of assets for them, and even then it wouldn't come with a lot of cost-control. This type of contract is scary, but it's honestly the best idea for the Avs. The importance of a very good 2C in this league cannot be overstated, and running with Compher is a terrible idea.