the cap could be as high as 92m once escrow is paid off by 2025.

I do agree, toews moving doesnt solve or help. The value is in moving girard, cap space wise and asset return wise.

If you can fill the bottom 6 for $6.55m, yeah easy sailing.

I've posted a few Girard trades and a few Toews trades. I haven't decided one way or the other. Either way it's likely of them have to get moved.

Girard as the younger and cost controlled asset is the safe bet to keep. But if Toews is willing to re-sign at $7.5m I think you try to make that work.

Toews could probably get slightly more in UFA than $7.5m X 8 ($60m) For instance $9mx7 is ($63m). At that point it's a case of whether Toews wants to take a slight paycut to stay in Colorado. It also assumes the cap will rise enough to cover his raise which isn't a guarantee yet.

Richard is the only person who thinks trading him is a good idea

I think he will take a discount to stay but even if he wants 9M its doable. 2M in cap space brings him up to 9.5M AAV, then swapping Francouz for Annunen or another cheaper backup saves another 2M which can be used on the bottom 6 if you think they cant fill it with ~6.5M (fwiw I think they could easily fill it for that cheap - just do wat Tampa did and find guys like Bellemare, Maroon, and Perry. The Avs are good enough they should be able to attract vets who will take discounts to win)

I think 87.5M is an underestimate of the cap anyway, so this is all worst case scenario and it still works out fine. If anything Id move both Girard and Manson before Toews

J Toews sucks why bother, same thing with Glendening. Smith would be a savvy bottom 6 add, and EJ if he wants to play can play on $1M contract. You aren’t trading Toews, winning cups is more important than recapping resources and COL is the only team in the league with 2 top 10 dmen, it’s one of their biggest advantages, don’t trade it away.

If Byram has a good year and stays healthy, he might want a longer-term, richer deal over a bridge. Then it becomes a case of do they keep Byram over Toews unless, of course, Toews is willing to come in lower. I'm not sure the Avs want to commit to another older player long-term, though; Toews will be 29 when he comes up for a new deal. If the cap goes up a lot in 2024 or 2025, they may be able to afford everyone but if they're forced to make a choice, they should definitely do what it takes to keep Byram over Toews.

Agree on the D Toews thing, but I disagree on J Toews and Glendening

J Toews isnt what he used to be but he played pretty well last year considering the team he was on and how many different combinations of linemates he went through (Played on 20 different line combinations at 5v5 with not a single one exceeding 86 mins of ice time together). I know he had poor defensive results for a while but he was actually decent defensively last season and was still scoring over 0.5P/GP. This is a couple years in the future so who knows if he keeps that up but if he doesnt drop off a cliff then getting him for only 1M is worth it imo

Glendening has no offense but hes a defensive role player who can play the PK. Basically a Helm replacement