BOSTON — Chris MacFarland wanted to keep Mikko Rantanen and make his roster deeper.
In the end, the Colorado Avalanche general manager determined he couldn’t do both.
MacFarland spoke with reporters Saturday morning, hours after making one of the biggest trades in franchise history. Rantanen, who is in the final year of his contract and can be an unrestricted free agent in July, now plays for the Carolina Hurricanes.
“I think one of the areas where it’s clear is we’re not deep enough,” MacFarland said. “And I think that you’ve got to be deep to go four rounds. Hopefully this is going to help that. Obviously, Mikko … he’s a superstar. You can’t replace that. But he’s a superstar that earned the right to be a free agent.”
MacFarland called it a bittersweet day and a tough business decision. Rantanen currently costs $9.25 million against the salary cap, but he is due a significant raise. The 28-year-old wing has the the fourth-most points in the NHL since the start of the 2020-21 season.
The three guys ahead of him — Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Nathan MacKinnon — will all make between $12.5 million and $14 million next season. The NHL’s salary cap is at $88 million this season, but is expected to increase by an undetermined amount in the coming years.
“The cap is going to go up, but you still have to do your internal outlooks,” MacFarland said. “For next year, we still have a serious unknown (with captain Gabriel Landeskog). We don’t have that information today. We have to operate in many different lenses and look at it from many different perspectives. That’s certainly one of them.”
Landeskog has been skating more regularly with the team lately. He’s on this trip with the club.
The Avs have more flexibility with the cap after this trade, but not enough to activate Landeskog without further alterations to the roster.
MacFarland said there’s no new update on the captain, who hasn’t played since the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“No, nothing’s changed,” MacFarland said. “Gabe is continuing to grind, and we’ll continue to glean information. Hopefully, maybe it was month-by-month, and hopefully now it’s going to be week-by-week. But there’s nothing on the near horizon, that’s for sure.”
The Avs added Martin Necas, a 26-year-old forward who is currently 12th in the NHL with 55 points, and Jack Drury, a 24-year-old center who has nine points in 39 games this season. Both players are under contract through next season at a combined cost of $8.225 million.
Necas will be a UFA after next season, while Drury will be a restricted free agent.
“Marty Necas, I think he’s been around the top-10 in scoring this year, but I think it’s his age as a big part of that,” MacFarland said. “He fits in with his speed. He’s certainly a top-six talent. Whether he has another bump in his game with the way we play, we’ll see. I think Jack is hopefully that 3C we’ve been kind of looking for.
“Getting two cost-controlled assets was important. We felt we got the top-six guy and a good bottom-six guy and away we go.”
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