Avalanche And Mikko Rantanen Not Making Progress In Extension Discussions

Avalanche winger Mikko Rantanen has been one of the top-scoring players in the NHL over the past several seasons.  His contract is set to expire this summer, making him arguably the top pending UFA in the league.  Colorado has been trying to re-sign him but to this point, obviously no deal has been reached yet.

It doesn’t seem like the two sides are particularly close either.  Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reported in a recent segment on Amazon Prime (Twitter link) that the two sides are believed to effectively be at a stalemate in their discussions.

Seravalli reports that the Avs are hoping to keep Rantanen’s price tag below the $12.6MM that Nathan MacKinnon makes.  However, Rantanen’s camp is more interested in taking aim at Leon Draisaitl’s record-breaking contract, one that begins next season and carries a $14MM cap charge.  Suffice it to say, that’s a pretty significant cap to try to bridge.

The 28-year-old had a very strong first half of the season, picking up 25 goals and 37 assists in his first 46 games though a league-high 13 empty-net points help inflate those totals a bit.  Nonetheless, Rantanen finds himself on pace to surpass the 100-point mark for the third straight year while surpassing his career high of 105, putting himself in a great position heading into his first time potentially testing the market.

Since the 2020-21 season, only three players have recorded more points than the 429 that Rantanen has put up in a 335-game span.  Two of them have already been mentioned here as the benchmarks that both sides are working with while the other is Edmonton’s Connor McDavid.  All things considered, that’s quite the company to be in.  Being in that tier of scorers means that Rantanen should get offers around the price point he’s believed to be seeking if he hits the open market, especially if the Upper Limit of the salary cap goes up by more than the current maximum of 5% as some expect.

Even with a higher-than-expected cap, affording a deal of that magnitude for Rantanen could be difficult for Colorado.  Per PuckPedia, they have just over $79MM on the books for next season with 16 players on their current roster under contract.  Even if they are able to get him in just below MacKinnon at, say, $12.5MM per year, they’d be over $91MM with several players still needing to be signed to get to the minimum-sized roster.  If Gabriel Landeskog remains unable to play, they’d have more wiggle room with him on LTIR but Landeskog is still trying to get back to game action this season so at this point, management can’t count on that potential flexibility being available to them.

This could be a scenario where deferred money could help solve the issue on both sides.  As we’ve seen multiple times this season, players who take deferred money carry a lower cap charge.  Accordingly, it’s possible for Rantanen’s camp to get around $14MM per season on average but include enough deferred money to keep the cap hit below MacKinnon’s.  Of course, Rantanen would have to agree to such an arrangement and considering he’s set to be the top player on the open market, he’ll undoubtedly receive offers that won’t have deferrals in there.

It doesn’t appear as if talks will be picking up right away either.  Instead, Seravalli, who noted that the team has no interest in moving him should an agreement not be reached, relays that discussions are likely to resume during the break in mid-February.  We’ll see if the next few weeks enable the two sides to bridge the gap or if the stalemate will last beyond that.

Photo courtesy of Imagn Images.