This is a GOLDEN opportunity for the Avalanche...

This is a golden opportunity for the Colorado Avalanche. As free agency and the NHL offseason heads into the dog days, there are a surprising amount of good NHL players still left on the market that haven't signed with an NHL team. Much against the predictions of everyone else that immediately thought they would find contracts, they're still out there. And for an Avalanche team that's looking for cheap depth, there are plenty of bones to be picked here for the scraps. And I absolutely love what I see. Welcome into Avalanche Digest everybody. So glad to have you here as always. And let's kind of just dive right into these free agents and let me know what your favorite free agent is for the apps to get. Do you even think they should add a player at this point or should they just leave the spot open for their young kids? It's definitely a debate. I say when you're trying to win now, you can't pass up the opportunity to sign one of these guys for a cheap deal, especially with who's left on the list. So getting right into it right here, you can see that there are some interesting top remaining free agents here left on the market. You've got Anthony Manta, which absolutely do not sign that guy. That is a landmine. He is not real. He is fake. Don't sign that guy at all. But Vladimir Tarasenko, Michael Bunting, Patrick Liney, our poor boy, Nick Blankenberg. Don't sign them as we're good. Patrick, Patrick Kane, another Patrick and Ellie Tolvin and some interesting players here for the apps to sign that are surprisingly don't have contracts. Now, my two favorite are Ellie Tolvin and Michael Bunting. Those two are guys that I would love to sign on cheap deals for this as middle six, but we're mostly going to be talking about the forwards here because the apps are set at defense now with in regards to the Patrick's, Patrick Kane and Patrick Liney. Honestly, the discussion around Patrick Liney for me is I understand his shot is the biggest part of his game, but what does he do other than that? And the answer to that is nothing that is an interest of the avalanche. He plays on the left side. He is a monster on that left dot on the power play. That's Marty Netjes and Nathan McKinnon spot. Like, I'm sorry, there is too much room. I don't understand people talking about Patrick Liney to the avalanche. I don't see it, but a player that I do see as being a good potential option for the avalanche and that has gone around quite a lot in the last few days is Patrick Kane. Patrick Kane still even in his upper 30s is playing well. He's had a 59 point season, a 57 point season, and that's with some injuries, so he's still got it. He's the best American born player to ever play the game. Don't even at me with Austin Matthews. I don't even know who that is. Patrick Kane is the man. Three Stanley Cups and would be a significant piece in improving the ABS power play, especially playing on that right side where Nazem Kadri was for the most part when they tried about either dishing to other players being a good playmaking option on that right dot or being a significant shooting threat. So I like that with Patrick Kane being brought in for the power play. I do wonder about him being pure offense. His defensive game has never been great, and I worry about the aging curve, but Patrick Kane, especially for the power play, is an intriguing option. He's also been linked to the Colorado avalanche as well. David Pagnotta was chatting about him just a little bit earlier, said that I know the Buffalo Savers and Toronto Maple Leafs are in the conversations, but avalanche are not someone to count on either. In his own words said the apps have also been interested in Patrick Kane a lot throughout his career. That has been a noted thing. Everyone kind of knows that that's a thing, so it stands to reason that they could circle back on him as well if he's willing to take a league minimum deal. But onwards to my favorite players for the avalanche to get, and that's Michael Bunting and Ellie Tolvin, and two guys that I swore would not be available at the trade deadline or sorry at the free agency, but they still are somehow, and both of these guys are incredibly intriguing options. I like both of them for the avs middle six. Michael Bunting, not so much the best defensive player, has kind of been peaks and valleys with his career. Hopefully in the avalanche he will stabilize, but Michael Bunting specifically is everything that you would want Zach LaRue to become. If Zach LaRue becomes Michael Bunting, you're elated. And for a guy that's been touted as being the next Mason Marchment, that being Zach LaRue, I think that there's something to learn from a player like Michael Bunting. And imagine if they're on the same team together, oh boy does it get annoying for the upcoming opponents that the avalanche will face. With Bunting, he is a great playmaker. He is a force at driving play at 5v5 and has had some good goal scoring touch in his career. Lately a little bit it's gone a little bit downhill just because of the teams he's been playing on. That is also something that is a little bit confusing as to why he's been playing on so many teams, but in this respect I like Michael Bunting. I think his goal scoring, if you just look at his career stats, have been fine. He's had multiple 20 goal seasons in his career, anything from 15 to 19 even on some down years. And I think this is a guy who is primed even looking at his down years, which are 36, 38 points, 33 this season. That's someone that even at that current production you would like. For me, I look at Michael Bunting as a guy that is primed to have the sort of Evan Rodriguez deal where he takes a one year. He's very much a guy that should be commanding 4 million, 5 million dollars or more, much like Mason Marchment got, but is a guy that surprisingly is still left on the market. Now why is that? Well, it's possible that some teams don't want to touch this. They said you played for too many teams. I don't know about the stability. Your career has kind of been a little bit all over the place with the production, so I don't know if I want to give you a long-term big deal. But much like Evan Rodriguez, he could sign a one year deal with the Avalanche, prove it, and then go get the bag somewhere else. And I think this is really where Michael Bunting is primed to break out. I think this is the option for the Avalanche to sign him for cheap just for a one year and have them in their lineup. I mean, imagine this right here, Michael Bunting on that third line with Nazem Khadri and Zach LaRue. That is annoying. Oh my goodness gracious, that is a nightmare to play against. I love everything about this. All of these guys play so well together. Nazem Khadri is a good play driver. Michael Bunting is awesome at driving play 5v5. And with Zach LaRue, he's a guy that would benefit greatly off of these play drivers because he fits his skills so well and just loves to play in front of the net. He wants all the smoke, and I love how this line projects. So definitely an option for your young kids to fight for a roster spot and push guys up into that top six. With Nick Waugh, I believe, playing for C mostly because Svechkov, I don't believe, is a center. I think he's more of a wing, and I think LaRue is going to prove to be the better player for the Avalanche by the end of the season. This is just one version of how the Avalanche lineup could look, but even how it is now, I think Michael Bunting is an awesome bet to put into this Avs lineup. Now the other guy is Eli Tolvanen. Eli Tolvanen is someone that I cannot believe is still on free agency. It's much like this tweet here from The Mug NHL said he's really solid defensively, and you can see his numbers are great, would go a long way for helping replace a lot of what Val Nachushkin left. Even though the Avs have low-key replaced him in the aggregate money ball style, I think Eli Tolvanen being solid defensively doesn't hurt. And you also see as well, goals and offensively, he's just a smart player. Plays well, his competition is very tippy top as well, so understand that he won't be getting the hardest matchups playing in the middle six like he used to with the Seattle Kraken, so there's a lot of room for him to break out even further than he did before with the Seattle Kraken. He's still a young player as well, he's only 27 years old, so there is room for this player, I think, to show that he's got more in the bag. We look at his overall season stats, he's had anywhere from 35 to 40 points in an entire season, just a very solid two-way middle six guy. Now, Eli Tolvanen for me is probably the white whale, I don't know if he would take a cheaper deal or if he's waiting for something because by all accounts he definitely deserves to get paid four million dollars for four years, give him the Ross Colton deal and forget it. So I don't know what his future will be with the Colorado Avalanche, but I still like the idea of both of Bunting and Tolvanen still being here for the Avalanche and still surprisingly being free agents. So the Avs are always great at finding these cheap deals, they did it with Victor Oleson, they did it with Ivan Rodriguez, they've done it multiple times where they'll take a guy that's surprisingly still there and say, want to play for a year? And with this depth chart, I think that's a great bet for the Avs to make. You know that LaRue and Svetchkoff are under contract for another year, so you're not worried about wasting a year that they had and then going into free agency with them. No, you're fine. So you have some insurance with your young kids that you're pretty excited about. And I think that this bet for the Avalanche to go into free agency and to actually just find a guy like this, I think will continue to make them the best team in the Central, even if they are already. I think this makes them incredibly deep. I like the idea of adding both of these players, especially as free agency drags on, the percentage of this happening gets higher. So that is going to do it for this video. Thank you all so much for watching. Let me know what you think about this free agency so far, and I'll see you in the next one.