And I am more than comfortable with us taking a risk with RyJo and Drouin because we now have a 3rd line that has reliable players and still have a d-corps that is out of this world. Last year our top 6 through most of the season was:

Lehky-Mac-Rantanen
Rodrigues-Compher-Nichuskin

This year's top 6 is better than that one even if Drouin is only a 30 point player and RyJo is only a 40-50 point player. And I will bet good money that both those guys will surpass those numbers given our track record with reviving careers.

So you traded a 40 point winger and a 50 point center, for a 30 point winger who hasn't actually even scored 30 points since 2018, and a "50 point center" who had 28 points in 55 games last year, both of whom are wayyyyy worse defensively, and you somehow got better?

Even if you had gotten better (which you haven't), that's still nowhere near good enough. 30 and 50 points are seriously enough to satisfy you? What a risky bet you're taking on thinking they get to that amount of points. At least you'll win the bet if that happens, because it won't be enough to actually win much else.

Cool. Well, you have proven your point that the Avs suck and we won't contend. Hope that satisfies you.

We've still got a cup win in the past two years (I've said that in at least 4 responses now because it really does affect a fan's perspective) and a track record of reviving careers. It's how we won that cup in the first place.

No, you won the cup because you had a much stronger forward group, not amount of career revival is going to turn RJo, Drouin and Lehkonen into Kadri, Burakovsky and Landeskog. But, your defense is so strong that you COULD contend still if you made a few smart moves. The last time you traded a top 4D it was for a 2C as well.

I'm going to ask you a very simple question and I want you to answer honestly - do you think the roster I proposed above would help your chances of winning over that of your current roster?

Maybe the cup win has affected your view because the answer seems obvious to me.

Don't get me wrong, I like the roster you proposed here. Hertl as 2C would rock. Benning and Jack Johnson together doesn't thrill me at all, but that's the give and take of any trade. What I don't like is dedicating 7 years to Hertl. What the Avs are trying to do right now is keep their window open for as long as possible. That means not tying down term to expensive guys because the price to keep MacKinnon, Rantanen and Makar together for their entire careers is going to be STEEP. What I like most about the Avs' current roster is that it allows us to remain competitive and keep our window open for longer.

And for what it's worth, I don't want Lehkonen to turn into anything else. Dude is already awesome for us.

Fair enough, I guess my criticism is that IMO you need to add a 2C to be competitive now and in the future. The avs should be the kind of team who'd be going all in on that even if it costs additional assets to make it fit within your cap. Why not explore the cost of turning Rjo into someone like Scheifele, Lindholm or even Backlund? I just really don't think RJo is it, and if I didn't think the Avs would greatly increase their cup odds immediately after making the right move then I wouldn't bother.

And I get that RyJo's recent returns are TERRIBLE. He was hurt a lot of last year and when he was playing he didn't produce like at all. But me (and other Avs fans) have built up some trust with our front office and it they think he can be the 2C I'm going to trust them.

It's a weak comparison, but when we traded for Naz he had 44 points in 73 games and RyJo had 28 in 55. The same questions about 2C were being asked about Naz and he stepped up big time. So yes, we're being hopeful about this season but there's some good reason for that hope. What I also have faith in is that if the RyJo experiment is a complete bust I will bet money that we see Sammy G traded for a replacement before January. Bednar kept mixing things up last year until he found a grouping that worked and last year's team FAR outperformed expectations. So yeah, we could try and get a super upgrade at 2C, but I trust this FO to make the right calls.

Fair enough, I'm not a big fan of RJOs game but of course there could be something they see that I don't. Good luck this year, will be interesting to see how it plays out.

They have a 2C. Your hair brained plan trades a top 4 dman ensures you lose another top 4 dman in the off season AND trade a 1st round pick for a 30yr old guy with 1 70 pt season under contract for 7 more years. You whine about asset management and manage to gut the defense limit the ability to reload and create more cap issues. 👏

They won the division missing 460 man games playing JT freaking Compher at 2C, not playing a single game with their full d-Corp. the fact you think Compher is somehow better than RyJo kills all your credibility.