Avalanche Journal: A simple, yet tricky question: What if Colorado just kept Mikko Rantanen?

The message from the Colorado Avalanche was the same three days after Mikko Rantanen ended its season as it was the day after the club sent him away Colorado needed to get deeper The Avs were not good enough or deep enough to win the Stanley Cup this year at the time of the pact Negotiations with Rantanen and his agent didn t yield a new contract that the Avs felt would allow them to be deep enough in the future We felt we had a decision to make Avs president Joe Sakic explained Tuesday We weren t good enough We weren t deep enough We felt we had to get deeper and not only for this season s band but moving forward Just paying three high-end guys and not having the surrounding cast wasn t going to get it done So off he went to the Carolina Hurricanes in a three-team blockbuster that netted Martin Necas Jack Drury a second-round pick and a fourth-round pick But what if there is an alternate universe out there where the Avs kept Rantanen for the rest of this season Could the Avalanche have gotten deeper between Jan and the pact deadline but still had one of the great playoff performers in NHL history on its side The answer with a few caveats is yes The first obvious caveat is that there will be chosen sentences during this exercise where it feels like hindsight is doing particular work We re going to try and limit that as much as attainable The second obvious caveat about this exercise is that no decision is made in a vacuum Every transaction win loss injury etc changes the future so there s no way to just say don t do the Rantanen arrangement but do the rest in real life Had Colorado not traded Rantanen on Jan would the Avs have waited until March to make their first of four trades before the deadline to shore up their depth Maybe not That announced if we do just remove the Rantanen arrangement from the ledger the Avs did have enough long-term injury reserve cap relief to make all of the other deals work Related Articles Avalanche stars Nathan MacKinnon Martin Necas to play in world championships Keeler Mikko Rantanen hopefully taught Avalanche Joe Sakic lesson Don t exchange Stars for scrubs Avalanche analysis Joe Sakic Chris MacFarland back Jared Bednar express no regrets over Mikko Rantanen deal Avalanche offseason primer Biggest questions after another early playoff exit David Carle signs multi-year contract extension with DU Pioneers When the Avs traded Rantanen to Carolina it gave them certain cap flexibility But only a little for this season The bigger savings come next year and then potentially in future years after that depending on what Necas signs for he has one year left at million or what Colorado would get back in a business for him Use one of the salary cap website roster-building tools and reconstruct the Avs with Rantanen and without Necas Drury It works with Keaton Middleton sent to the minors to make room for Erik Johnson It would have left Colorado with about in space And Parker Kelly would be the No center not Drury The Kelly-Drury-Logan O Connor line never happens but the Avs first two lines for Championship could have read Lehkonen-MacKinnon-Rantanen and Landeskog-Nelson-Nichushkin Given the sequence of events the Avs would have had about million to play with after the contract for Charlie Coyle and before the Johnson contract So there would have been a little time to pursue another center instead of Johnson Or they could have even gotten more ruthless and put Jimmy Vesey on waivers the day before freeing up another to possibly add Johnson and another No center on deadline day Here s where a little hindsight shows up The Avs only had Vesey for a sparse days at that point Both he and Johnson were added because the club expected a long run and they might have been needed later on Especially Vesey because Gabe Landeskog still felt miles away from playing the first week of March The third big caveat in this exercise What about the extra assets they got from Carolina This is where things get a little fuzzy Colorado still has the fourth-round pick but that second-rounder from the Hurricanes went to Boston in the Coyle deal Now there s a pretty fair argument that the Avs gave up too much for Coyle If this organization went on a deep run or even won the Cup that wouldn t have mattered to anyone Flags fly forever But a second-round pick and a solid prospect William Zellers not to mention a more productive sportsman Casey Mittelstadt was a lot What could the Avs have added to the business instead of a second to entice the Bruins Would a second Colorado had already moved its second have still gotten a deal done Maybe that and a slightly better prospect than Zellers though the Avs are pretty short in that department as well Avalanche GM Chris MacFarland has also announced on multiple occasions that the Rantanen exchange gave his club more ammo This is even further into the weeds but would the Avs front office have felt confident enough to make all of those moves without having that valuable second-round pick in the war chest Let s say the Avs do figure out the Coyle deal Are they better with Rantanen and Kelly at C plus all the other upgrades Rantanen doesn t light them up in the first round at least Let s say they can t make the Coyle deal without that second Would the Avs have been better in the playoffs with Rantanen Mittelstadt and a different C instead of Necas Coyle and Drury Mittelstadt was lost in the woods before the agreement but he also played well for the Avs in the playoffs Going beyond this season is an exercise for another day Would the Avs and Rantanen s camp have eventually exposed common ground even if it didn t happen until late in the process Maybe Would the Avs have been better in this postseason with No in burgundy and blue Hard to argue against it given that Rantanen woke up Thursday morning as the leading candidate for the Conn Smythe Trophy It would have been tricky to keep him and still make the other upgrades Maybe it s the Lindgren-Vesey arrangement that doesn t work and a different No defenseman ends up on the roster But it might have worked Maybe somewhere out there in the multiverse it definitely did and that Avalanche group is still playing Want more Avalanche news Sign up for the Avalanche Insider to get all our NHL analysis