CHN+•Deen's Notebook
I hinted at this yesterday, but let’s give a bit more detail here on what I think the situation is regarding Mikko Rantanen, based on conversations with various sources:
The top restricted free agents all continue to play a hybrid game of chicken and musical chairs with themselves and their respective teams.
Mikko Rantanen would like to see what Mitch Marner gets before zeroing in on a number with the Avs. I am not close to the Marner camp, but it could be a vice-versa situation too. Rantanen would like to see what Patrik Laine gets, and vice versa. He’d like to see what Brayden Point gets, and vice-versa.
You catch my drift here? Nobody wants to make the first move yet. Everybody’s still looking toward the other to perhaps reset the market and go from there.
The scenario I’ve had painted to me, in talking with various sources with knowledge of the situation, goes something like this. These are my words in quotes, but pretend I’m channeling one or both of the parties in involved:
“It may seem like there’s a huge rush now to get something done, but there really isn’t still. The regular-season opener is the more important deadline for this. Would it be optimal if Mikko is there at the start of training camp, happily signed and the club happy too? Yeah, sure. But the fact that so many other comparable RFAs are still unsigned is creating an unusual situation for us here. Once there is a Mikko or a Marner or a Laine or a Matthew Tkachuk or a Point who signs, we should see the dam break. But when exactly does that happen? Well, neither side is going to think it’s the end of their world if they miss a little bit of training camp. Everybody hates preseason hockey, so missing some of it, again, isn’t the end of the world. The real “pressure point” time is opening night.”
As I’ve also written about prior, the nine-game, entry-level slide regarding Mikko’s contract in 2015-16 is a factor in this thing. The Mikko camp thinks it’s not unreasonable for the Avs to pony up a few more bucks based on the fact that, if they hadn’t played the slide game with his deal that first year, he would have made probably $7 million-$8 million last season.
The Avs would like to lock Rantanen up long term, but doing that means “buying out” some of his UFA-eligible years. $10 million a season might be fair market value by the time Rantanen can go UFA. Fair market value for Mikko right now probably is not $10 million per. But in a couple years, it probably might be.
Personally, I think this is going to be a shorter-term deal, that they’ll essentially kick the can down the road a bit. There are risks involved for both sides in doing that, but that’s my hunch. I’m not sitting here overly confident in that hunch, but it just seems like for now, a long-term deal just has too many variables to it, too many unknowns about the market in two or three years. The safer play, for player and team, may be to do shorter-term now and wait for the market to better establish itself when the next CBA is done. Keep an eye on Sept. 15, too. That’s the date the NHL Players Association has to decide whether to essentially extend the current CBA for three more seasons, or pull the chute on it after this season. That decision could affect the decisions of some RFAs. That’s one day after camps officially open, too.
Which is why I don’t think you’ll see a Mikko signing before camp begins. I remain convinced some kind of deal will happen by opening night, though.
A little more patience, it appears, is required.
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