Bargain hunters need to produce next Drouin

AVALANCHE JOURNAL

If wanted/needed

Avalanche left wing Jonathan Drouin, right, takes the puck around the net against Rangers defenseman Chad Ruhwedel, middle, during the first period at Ball Arena in Denver on March 28. New York Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin, left, keeps his eyes on the play. ANDY CROSS — THE DENVER POST

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By Corey Masisak

cmasisak@denverpost.com

Zach Parise called his time with the Colorado Avalanche amazing and special and said it “pushed me to a spot I didn’t feel I could still (get to)” shortly after a double-overtime Game 6 loss to the Dallas Stars last week.

A few minutes later, Jonathan Drouin deemed his experience awesome and said, “It’s a great place to play hockey.”

The Avs are going to have some recruiting to do this offseason, and those five-star reviews might come in handy. Colorado is short on salary cap space and long on uncertainty, with more than $13 million committed to forwards Gabe Landeskog and Valeri Nichushkin and no idea when or how much they will contribute during the 2024-25 season.

That means it is time for another summer of bargain hunting. The Avs signed Drouin to a one-year, $825,000 contract last offseason and it was the best value deal in the NHL among non-rookie contracts that cost less than $1 million. They won the recruiting battle for Parise when he came out of semi-retirement in late January.

Not every low-risk gamble worked. Tomas Tatar was a late addition on a one-year, $1.5 million contract, but was traded to Seattle in mid-December.

Still, the success stories should help. Denver has become a welcoming place for wayward skilled hockey players.

Drouin finished with 19 goals and a career-high 53 points this season and should be compensated handsomely for it. Evan Rodrigues signed for one year and $2 million two years ago, had 16 goals and 39 points and parlayed that into a four-year, $12 million deal with Florida.

Even Nichushkin, before his availability issues, was a great example of Colorado’s value-rebuilding factory. Dallas bought out Nichushkin after he had zero goals in 57 games in 2018-19.

He signed a one-year, $850,000 deal with the Avs for 2019-20. Since then, he’s become one of the top power forwards in the sport and signed two contracts worth a combined $54 million.

“Evan signed for $2 million, so that’s not quite in the realm for us at this point in time,” Avs general manager Chris MacFarland said. “I think our situation has proven to be a boon for that type of scenario, but there’s a lot that has to go into it. It’s got to be the right player and the right fit in the situation.”

Part of the recruiting pitch can be rooted in the club’s recent success and the city of Denver as a place to live, but the biggest selling points are who a free agent might get to play with to help rebuild his stock. The uncertainty with Landeskog and Nichushkin might actually help a little in this scenario, because the Avs can offer increased chances to play with some of their world-class players.

“It’s an attractive place to play for a variety of reasons,” MacFarland said. “Denver is a great city. We’ve got an incredible fan base. What Gabe, and Nate (MacKinnon) and Cale (Makar) and Mikko (Rantanen) and our group over the last number of years have been able to do, they’ve set an incredible standard. It’s a great place to play. I think players around the league recognize that.”

That certainly worked out for Drouin. Now the Avs need to find the next version of him.

Trying to pick out who that player might be is hard enough for the 32 NHL teams, let alone people on the outside. Drouin’s circumstances are hard to replicate, given how things went wrong in Montreal and his ties to MacKinnon.

Drouin and Nichushkin were both former top-10 picks, and the Avs banked on that high-end skill still being in there. Rodrigues was an undrafted player.

The Avs scooped up Drouin on July 1, but they added Nichushkin in August and both Rodrigues and Tatar in September. The bargain-bin market often doesn’t take shape until after the dust settles in early July.

Could a player like Jack Roslovic or Alex Wennberg, both former first-round picks who have had disappointing years, be left without a home when the free-agent faucet turns off after the first few days in July? Another interesting name might be Alex Barabanov, who had a couple of solid years for San Jose as a connector type playing with skilled players before this year went sideways with injuries.

It’s probably too early to tell, but the Avs will have their recruiting pitch ready. And they have receipts to show as well.