The concept of rental players has unfairly gotten a bad rap.
In the three weeks remaining until the NHL trading deadline, teams will face the familiar decision of whether to be buyers or sellers.
And if they’re buyers, will they be willing to ship off prospects or draft choices for players who are eligible to become unrestricted free agents July 1?
The Avalanche faces those decisions, too. Should the Avs try to get in the bidding for Toronto’s Mats Sundin, Atlanta’s Marian Hossa or Buffalo’s Brian Campbell, or any of the other pending unrestricted free agents?
I’ve previously said I believe they should attempt to coax the Thrashers, who aren’t certain to trade Hossa, period, to deal the Slovak winger to Colorado. It will take some juggling and maneuvering, but it can be done. If the Avalanche doesn’t make the playoffs, the season-ticket base — the safety net — will deteriorate even more.
Remember when this organization was so cocky it believed that once it got potential free agents here (e.g., Rob Blake and Ray Bourque), those players would be won over? Yes, that was before the salary-cap era, but the cap will go up again next season and there will be a way to fit in another high-profile name.
And this is what many seem to be overlooking: Is anyone 100 percent certain that Joe Sakic won’t retire? He’s not talking, but chances are, even he isn’t certain of that.
He turns 39 in July. At his insistence, he is playing under a one-year contract. His subpar season and then his hernia problem could end up causing him to decide to quit now, especially if he isn’t back as scheduled in early March and/or struggles when he returns. Granted, it could make him more determined not to go out “this way,” but this is a man who was adamant about evaluating himself on an annual basis.
So if Sakic does retire, that opens up major cap room.
Taking a risk by acquiring Hossa, or someone similar, is eminently justifiable. Plus, with the threshold age for unrestricted free agency having gone down, Hossa is two years younger than Ryan Smyth, for example, and could be in the league another decade.
Waiting until the offseason and trying to sign a free agent without giving up any compensation, as the Avalanche did with Smyth and Scott Hannan last summer, is a reasonable alternative. But getting the potential free agent in now and hoping he can help this team stay alive in the playoff hunt, and then advance in the postseason after everyone is healthy, can pay off.
Whatever a team gives up for a high-profile potential free agent has to be viewed as payment for two things: 1. Renting him for the rest of the season; 2. Giving his new team the inside track on re-signing him.
It’s risky. The Islanders thought it was worth a shot when they picked up Smyth for two prospects and a 2007 first-round draft choice last March. They made the playoffs and they made a bona fide run at re-signing Smyth, but it came down to geography — Smyth’s heart is in the West — as much as money. But they tried. Isn’t the Avalanche still arrogant enough to believe that once a true star comes here, he won’t want to leave?
Previous Avalanche deadline acquisitions of potential free agents worked out in some instances and didn’t in others — most notably the infamous Theo Fleury fiasco, which in the Avs’ defense we all thought was a good idea at the time. (I know I did.)
The Avs did give up players, draft picks and prospects in the deals, but this sudden passion for “not mortgaging the future” ignores the reality that the draft isn’t a foolproof mechanism for rebuilding. Although it was astute in landing Paul Stastny with the 44th overall pick in 2005, Colorado has never had the top-10 picks usually needed for acquiring the truly elite.
A rental player is still worth a shot. For any team.
And given all those empty seats in Denver, it makes as much sense for the Avalanche now as it ever did.
Welcome, commissioner.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is scheduled to attend the Monday night Avalanche-Coyotes game at the Pepsi Center.
SPOTLIGHT ON . . .
Rick Nash, LW, Blue Jackets
Columbus’ young winger has 26 goals in 52 games, an especially impressive total given the defense-first, conservative style of game pushed by Blue Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock.
The first overall pick in the 2002 draft, Nash turns heads with his talent, no more so than when he got a highlight-reel goal against Phoenix last month. It raises the issue of what kind of numbers he would put up in a different system, but, at least publicly, he won’t speculate on that, or even second-guess his coach.
The Blue Jackets, after all, are in contention for their first-ever playoff spot.
“He’s been great,” Nash said of Hitchcock at the All-Star Game festivities in Atlanta last weekend. “Before he came, I was kind of used to scoring goals and playing 13, 14 minutes a game. Now it’s different, playing 20 minutes a game in different situations, penalty kill, last minutes of games. He’s just been a big difference.
“Everyone on the Blue Jackets is buying into Hitch’s system. It’s really not being unleashed, it’s playing a tight defensive game and getting your offensive chances from that. I think the more we buy into that, the more we win.”
Nash brought up Hitchcock’s stint at Dallas.
“You look at a guy like Mike Modano,” he said. “Before Hitch got there, I think he was a 50-goal scorer and Hitch got there and changed his style of game. He was still scoring goals, but not as many. But he was the biggest part of winning the Stanley Cup and things like that. It’s a bit different, and I think it’s for the better. It’s tough to adjust from the way we played before, but he’s got the resume to prove that it works.”
