Report: Avs could deal Mikko Rantanen before NHL trade deadline
Jan 14, 2025, 3:09 PM
Mikko Rantanen’s contract is up after the season and while he and the Colorado Avalanche do seem to be working on an extension if one isn’t signed by the NHL’s trade deadline, TVA Sports reporter Renaud Lavoie believes the star winger will be dealt.
The 28-year-old’s six-year $55.5 million deal expires this summer and reports state that he could be seeking as much as $14 million per season on his new deal. Some believe he is worth $13 million, which would earn him more than Nathan MacKinnon and place him alongside Auston Matthews for the league’s highest-paid player. At any rate, the Avs were seemingly close to getting the deal done this summer but there’s still no ink and this season’s trade deadline is now less than two months away (March 7.)
Rantanen is coming off back-to-back 100-point seasons and is on pace to do that again this year with 60 in 44 games. He is one of the most productive players in the league, scoring over 1.5 goals per 60 minutes since the start of the 2019-20 season. There’s little doubt Moose has earned his paycheck and a big sweet deal. Colorado is up against a bit of a salary cap crunch but hopes to get some relief with the expectation across the league that the limit will jump quite a bit.
Still, the Avs are in a fight for a playoff spot and in the prime of MacKinnon and Cale Makar’s prime. It makes little sense at this time to be shipping out one of their top players to get something back for the future when the present is so important. Plus the deadline to get the deal done isn’t two months from now, it’s July 1. With the sides being close in the past, maybe they’ll work something out and even if they don’t we’ve seen teams trade soon-to-be free agents for late-round selection picks on NHL Draft night—of course that’s not the value of this star but it’s at least something.
If the Avs traded Rantanen now, there’s no promise they’ll ever get a player as good as him back. And No. 96 is a pretty iconic part of franchise history, helping Colorado to their third Stanley Cup in 202, where he tallied 25 points across the 20 games. Rantanen is sixth in franchise history with 287 regular-season goals and third in club history with 67 playoff assists.
More likely than Lavoie’s report of a Rantanen trade seems to be a deal to keep him for the future, but it’s interesting that there’s buzz around the situation.
