Eurolanche

No buyouts this year

Some interesting news Avs wise came up yesterday. No I am not talking about Nathan MacKinnon. I will admit the MacKinnon thing is super interesting. It also does tie into this topic as well. The Avs have stated they will not take any compliance buyouts this season. Which means David Jones and Greg Zanon fan favorites to be bought out will be around.

Well they might stay around. They could still be traded and moved off the team. As well they could be waived and minored if they continue to underperform greatly during the season. Personally this is kind of a disappointing thing for me. I really wanted those guys gone to make roster space and room for better players.

After a bit more examination I do however see the smart parts of this move. There is the chance these guys have strong bounce back seasons. I see that being slightly more likely coming from Jones then Zanon. With new coaches and a new system in place maybe these guys won’t prove to be duds like all the fans think.

I also see why it is smart cap wise. New year the Avs have 8 RFA players. You got O’Reilly, Landeskog, Duchene, McGinn, Olver, Barrie, Elliott and Varlamov. That is a lot of piece you need to get resigned. With some of them due a big pay increase. As well the Avs have 6 UFA players in Stastny, Downie, Mitchell, Hunwick, Giguere and Zanon. Obviously barring any lineup changes via trade that leave you with 8 guys signed past next year.  As well as anyone who comes up from the minors. So I can see waiting another year to use the buyouts. If a lot of the guys want big raises you may need the cap room.

To me this is not the most interesting factor when not using the buy outs. This is where drafting MacKinnon will come in. Reported by ESPN that Roy said he will use MacKinnon as a third line center and shift O’Reilly to the wing. So this puts the Avs top 9 like this O’Reilly, Duchene, Ladeskog, McGinn, Downie, Stastny, Jones, Parenteau and MacKinnon. That was in no particular order just in case anyone thinks that is my line predictions. So barring any trades and injuries it looks the Avs top three line might be set meaning maybe no big free agent forwards.

I can live with that. The Avs do have offensive power they just need consistency. But it is the defense that proves the real problem. How do you make room for better defenders on the Avs blue line if no one is bought out? I mean yes, you can trade some guys away but good luck with that. After last year showing I doubt most GMs and drooling over any of the Avs tradable defenders. Every single guy from last year is back. So how do you improve the blue line if you have no new space for better guys? I guess you just hope they improve a lot. Or try to drop a guy or two in the minors or trade some for a bag of pucks.

Taking Seth Jones would not fix this I know a lot of people believe that. Jones will be good but he doesn’t fix logjams and dead weight. I was hoping buyouts would do that. I still remain optimistic and can’t wait to see what the Avs do in the offseason. It is going to be interesting!