Bowers has played horrible from the limited time he has had in the league, even in the pre-season in a limited role. He isn't an NHL-caliber player. Newhook hasn't shown that he is worth $4M, he has 4 points. We'd also need to trade one of our LD, depth is great, but we can't play Girard or Byram as 3rd pairing players when they both need ice time.

i thought the cap was only going up another mil next year, odds are you're probily over it

Not OP, but:

- Bowers literally played like <2 minutes of regular season time this year before getting injured. He looked good in those shifts, but obviously can’t count on that guy to be an NHLer regularly. That can really be any guy making near league min.

- I bet Newhook gets bridged lower, maybe $3M. Season is still young so who knows what happens with the rest of the year.

- For the D, I think this season will be a good barometer of what to expect moving forward. We can absolutely run with the same D next year. Manson and EJ would be the low ice time guys. Question is whether that’s the smartest to do when it results in us sacrificing talent in the bottom 6.

I guess to add my own comments:

I would guess Byram and Newhook together cost like ~$8M. So you can probably save a bit here. Contract projections are hard though.

This is about the only situation I can see Drouin coming to Colorado. Cheap, low pressure prove it deal. But even then, the Avs are probably beyond their reclamation project window.

Relying on Meyers/Kaut/Bowers/Ranta all to stick as NHLers is probably a tall ask. The Avs probably would want to bring in a utility player to replace Compher and a PK guy to replace Cogliano/Helm. There’s always a handful of those guys on the market for cheap, so shouldn’t be too bad.

Obviously the D is awesome. I get the argument to ship someone out for F help, but there are bigger problems to have than having such defensive depth. I’m fine with it. I do wonder how that Manson contract will age though. Didn’t love it from the start.

MacDermid should be playing in Loveland.

Yeah agree with all this. I do think and I can’t believe I’m going to say this but if they got Drouin on a prove it deal I’d roll the dice and stick him MacKinnon rather than the 3rd line, push Lehkonen to the 3rd try to save a $1M on Newhook Byram deals and try to bring ERod back as 3C between Lehkonen and LOC. Fill out the 4th line with whomever you please on league min deals.

Talk is it could go up by 4 IF the escrow stuff is all sorted. My guess is it probably goes up somewhere in between the 1 & 4.

I don’t think Drouin can handle the type of minutes that MacKinnon gets, but I’m sure Drouin would get paired with higher end players when MacKinnon gets double shifted

The issue to me is the skilled new age power forward role that player has to play. It will require him being first one into the corner and come out with the puck on a routine basis. Landy, Nuch and Lehk all do that at a high end level. Putting Drouin in that spot against top match ups will likely end up in injury given his history. Mack has a new playmaker in Mikko. Drouin with Newhook is a different conversation.