Johansen is washed; going to need superstars (& luckily Avs have 3 legit superstars) to carry you… but if anyone suffers a serious injury, trouble

Meh. Go look at his scoring rates per 60 and defensive stats; not sure how anyone can say a player that scores at a 1.9 pts/60 rate is "washed". He's definitely tailed off a little and been very erratic in his performance the past few years but "washed" is quite the overstatement. Change of scenery, role, teammates, coach, style, etc. and it's not like he's ancient; he'll be fine. All they need him to do is be a reasonably good 2C, not a high-end one. I mean, it could fail but it's not like they had a lot of other options. He's likely to be a better (if slower) version of JTC at a lower cap hit and shorter term so it's low-ish risk, high reward territory. I agree about the injuries; they don't have the apparent depth to weather what they experienced last year.

Dude had 18 points at 5v5 (55 games) last year; 39 in 79 games year before. The Preds literally gave him away (& were willing to retain 50%) for nothing. He is washed imo, but time will tell.

Going to guess that they split MacK and Rantanen this year. JT Compher had a career high in points playing next to Rantanen for large portions of the year and getting time on PP1. RyJo is a better offensive player than JTC, so if he gets the same opportunity, he should outperform what Compher did last season (17-35-52). If he is healthy all year, 52 points for 4 mil is just fine. Any improvement over JTC's total is value added.

This is what I'm thinking.
Drouin Mack Lehky
Nichuskin RyJo Rantanen

Mikko is strong enough now to put a line on his back and Nichuskin can take care of the physical stuff. All RyJo needs to do is be in the right spots.

That is my thought as well. Only concern is Drouin, but I am fairly confident that will work and Drouin will be among the league leaders in points per dollar.

If it doesn't work, we've got options.

Nichuskin Mack Lehky
Colton RyJo Rantanen
Wood Meyers Foudy/LOC

Not great, but still pretty decent.

I'd switch Val & Lehky personally, but then we know it's going to change regularly anyway with Blendnar.

That's fair and I agree his 5v5 points are a bit troublesome but I think in the role he'll play on the Avs and the matchups he gets and the guys he'll play with will be more favorable that what he was getting in Nashville. He definitely isn't a world-beater (never has been) but on the Avs, he doesn't have to be. Again, for the money and term, this was likely the best option they had to get someone that can be a 2C. I'm far less concerned about him than I am Drouin; if that fails, that's going to really throw the lineup into disarray. We will definitely see how it works out.