Seems like they coulda kept RyJo and their 1st this year eh

Nah this is way better

why? he rly wasn't that bad if he's not 2C and you get to keep the 1st rounder

Ryjo was bad. It was reported as well from a few insiders that he cared more about points than playing a team game. Avs spend a 1st, move an un needed Byram and get marginally better down the middle and on the back end

send RyJo to minors to finish the year then, save 1.2M on cap, the first, and it costs a 2nd to move him in the summer

They needed an actual 2C. And they got one.

yes, and that has nothing to do with RyJo trade

Walker isn't worth a 1st or 2nd

Peeke went for a '27 3rd and he's a better Dman than Walker and under a good contract

Peeke has not been better than Walker at all. Peeke is legit garbage.

With Landeskog i would do :

Landeskog - MacKinnon - Lehkonen
Nichushkin - Mittelstadt - Rantanen
Drouin - Colton - Wood
O'Connor - Trenin - Duhaime

Avs didn't get their 2nd goalie so thats a L. Raanta was right there for free and he would of have done the job.

Age has caught up to Raanta, though. He's been bad. They probably have more faith in Annunen, who's been great

They both are 3rd pair dmen for different reasons, neither are good but Peeke is the better PKer at the same cap rate which is more useful for this team.

Waste of a 1st rounder

Walker is significantly better (at least for this season specifically), you are legit the only person who thinks Peeke is better.

Avs don't have a 2nd for the next two years, meaning we would probably have to ship out a prospect or the first to get rid of RyJo anyway. Picking up Mittelstadt and trying to move RyJo's contract in the summer would have been very stupid.

While I agree Annunen is the better goalie, I think it would have been smart to take Raanta. We have the deadline cap space and we could just assign him to the AHL until we might (hopefully don't) need him. Small chance that he would play for us, but literally zero risk.

Peeke is more useful for this team, Walker was really bad for the LA last year/playoffs btw, and it cost a far future 3rd for Peeke is the point

RyJo doesn't cost a '24 2nd to move this summer and you don't have to anyway.... it's not worth a 1st to save 2.8M of cap space. Trading him at next years deadline is even cheaper, despite the '26 2nd.

If RyJo's cap hit was still on the books, we would not be able to resign Mittelstadt this summer.

not true, and why do you think Mitts is a good 2C ?

I'm honestly not sure if you are trolling at this point or not.

He was the leading scorer on an awful Buffalo team this year. He will obviously slot behind McKinnon as 2C, and likely put up more points playing with any combination of Nichuskin, Lehkonen or Rantanen. MacFarland is not going to trade Byram for someone who is not going to be a long term part of this team.

It doesn't matter what I think, I'm literally just paraphrasing what MacFarland and Sakic have said at press conferences. They view Mitts as the long term solution at 2C.

As far as the cap space is concerned: Yes, we literally need that extra 4 million if we wanted to keep Mittelstadt and ice a full lineup.

Wow, so confident yet so full of ...typical

You do know teams can spend 10% over the cap in the off season including LTIR? That's plenty of room to sign Mits even IF he performs well and deal RyJo for a future 2nd if needed

Mits played most of his 5v5 with Skinner and Tuch and played top PP mins with Tage, lots of 40 goal scorers there... when was the last time Nichuskin and Lehkonen scored 40? 30?

And Rantanen plays 90% of all TOI with MacKinnon so try again

Sakic is a good GM, but he bungled up this TDL bad, guess we'll have to see

Once they ship Byram off, they needed a D to fill in that spot, else they are rolling AHL D every day (Jones, Malinsky, Hunt, etc.) even with JMFJ in the top 6. So they needed Walker. But Walker is not worth a 1st or 2nd round pick on his own, Philly likely wanted more than a 4th...Avs have no 3rds. So they figure a way to make Walker worth the first Philly was coveting ...by sending a massively overpaid floater and getting a 5th back.

And comparing Walker to Peeke is absurd...Walker is a full time NHL player, Peeke is not this season...healthy scratch for 40+ games. Walker averages 19.5 minutes a game, Peeke just 15.6. Walker averaged 2.2 minutes a game on the PK and gave up 7 goals in 64 games. Walker averaged 1.5 minutes per game on the PK and gave up 7 goals...in 23 games.

Avs also likely had other deals in discussion, which may have required the cap space, but that is just speculation. But hell, if they had kept RyJo, waived him and sent him down...they would be over the cap....his buried cap hit is still $2.85M, Avs only have $2.1M in cap space as of right now.

And the final point I would like to make, concerning Mittlestadt. He was leading the Sabres in scoring. Meaning he was outscoring those "40 goal scorers." This year. I don't care that Skinner scored 40 once in his career, over half a decade ago. Which now that I look, Tuch never has. Tage also has one 40+ goal season, and at least it was last year...but this year he is the lowest scoring of the three. Lehkonen is scoring at a better pace than any of them. Nichushkin is over PPG this season. Val has more goals and points than Skinner (the best of the BUF 3 this year), despite playing 15 fewer games. Casey also now gets to share the ice with the (arguably) best D pair in hockey, play on the PP with the league leading scorer (plus Mikko, Makar, etc.), and if Landeskog comes back for the playoffs, will likely have him on the wing.

And a nitpick....Mikko has played 86.5% of his ice time with MacKinnon this year, all situations. 5v5, it drops all the way to 84.8%.

Are you just making stuff up?

Peeke was the worst penalty killer on CBJ (11.87 PP GA/60 which is the highest goal against rate on the team among regular penalty killers) who have the 25th ranked PK in the league

Walker was the best penalty killer on PHI (3.07 PP GA/60 which is the lowest goal against rate on the team among regular penalty killers) who have the #1 ranked PK in the league

Like its not even close...

It's almost like CBJ are the worst team in the conference and Philly are a playoff team

And that sample size is literally half his teammates mins

Peeke is a good shot blocker, big and physical, exactly what you need on a playoff 3rd pair playing 13 mins a night with a competent partner and forward group and exactly useless on a team like CBJ where no one is moving the puck outside of Werenski

Walker moves the puck better but not well, has played with better teammates this year, did not crack LA's playoff roster last year, and isn't a piece that COL really needed to over pay for in a deal with RyJo and a '25 1st rounder

The Peeke trade for a 2027 3rd, it's only 1 example of a better trade, let's do the Tanev deal for a 2nd + DD prospect at less than half the cap hit of Walker... Get Tanev for COL '26 1st + Malinski? is so much better

Get Tanev at 1.125M and [you dont have to] dump RyJo to another team now or in the summer or next year, so many cheaper options

Calgary sold Hanifin at a 1.237M cap hit for a '26 1st and '24 2nd ffs lol

Terrible value. Bad trade.

Even last year Peeke was one of the worst PKers on the team so it's not a sample size issue, he's just a terrible penalty killer. Last year Walker was one of the best PKers on LA. You can't really use the "bad team" argument when Peeke is literally the one dragging their PK down the most

You can disagree on the trade value or targets, Im just talking about Walker and Peeke's PK abilities

lol PP GA/60 is hardly a measure of "best PKer" which using your 1 min/g threshold I see last year for LA was Edler?.... and again, he played 40s of PK in 2 of LA's playoff games last year

Peeke is a niche role filler which is useless on CBJ, let's see him on CAR, and hopefully Walker lives up to hype of this year because COL doesn't feel like a better team now