Watch: MacFarland Speaks On Avalanche Salary Cap Issues, Mittelstadt Negotiation
It was a busy night for Chris Avalanche GM Chris MacFarland, who seemed to be on and off the phone a lot after the first 15 or so picks were completed. In the end, he did make a trade, it just might not be the splashy one people like to see at this time of year.
MacFarland moved Colorado’s first round pick, which was 24th overall, and picked up three draft picks from the Utah Hockey Club, which is still incredibly weird to say. Those picks are the 38th selection on Saturday, the 71st, and a 2025 second round pick that originally belonged to the New York Rangers.
In addition to talking about trading down, the Avalanche GM discussed the tough cap situation his team is in, the Casey Mittelstadt negotiation, and a lot more.
MacFarland on trading back:
“I think a little bit of both. It’s no secret that we’ve spent quite a bit of draft capital the last few years, so we felt it was pretty good value dropping down 13 or 14 spots to pick up a second and third this year, and second next year, especially considering we didn’t have a first, second, or third next year.”
On the Mittelstadt contract negotiation:
“It’s always good to get those out of the way. We knew pretty much when we acquired him what the (arbitration) years looked like, and to get that extra UFA year at basically the arb number was pretty important to us. We felt that was really good value and made sense for the player too. To have him locked up for three years with Calum Ritchie developing really well as another, hopefully, top six center we feel really good. Hopefully he has a big summer and a full training camp and gets off to a good start next year.”
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On the salary cap conundrum the Avalanche have and if they’d go over the cap and figure it out when everyone returns:
“You really can’t go over $88 (million). There’s sort of two tracks that you can go on. Last year, we knew (Landeskog) was out for the year. This year, thankfully, we don’t know that. We know Val’s going to be reinstated at some point, assuming everything goes good, which obviously that’s what we’re hoping for for him and for us. At some point in November, it’s not like we can go and spend $6 million and then go, ‘Okay, we got to get rid of $6 million’ three weeks into the season. That’s
not how it works. And with Landy’s situation, it’s equally as risky. He’s a player that, will he be back for training camp? October 1? November 1? We don’t know, but if he is and we spend money, then we’ve got to get rid of that money because the second the Captain is ready to go back, he’s going back. We have a lot of guys with no-trade protection, so it’s not simple to create those escape hatches. Most teams, when they know you need to do something, it’s not the best situation to be in, so we’ve got to be mindful and careful of those situations.”
