The Avalanche have a MAJOR Decision to make...

Arturi Lekanen has been the biggest topic of debate among Avs fans over the summer. Ever since Kiel Makar signed his contract, should Lekanen get an extension as well? He has been performing absolutely outstanding this season and he is proving every reason why we should hand him a brand new contract before the end of the year. Welcome to Avalanche Digest, I'm Copeland Jones, and as always before we get started don't forget to subscribe, it's completely free, and you get updates on the Colorado Avalanche. Alrighty, so what we're talking about today is Arturi Lekanen and a contract extension and how that would work for the Avs and why it needs to get done sooner rather than later. Arturi Lekanen currently has 12 goals on the season. Outstanding pace considering we're 14 games into the season. There's still 70 to go. And Arturi Lekanen, honestly, I would love to see him. He's been with that top unit forever. And we're just going to break down a little bit of that and talk about why this extension Thank Sooner rather than later. So Arturi Lekanen raises extension stakes, especially over the beginning of this season. you He is playing absolutely fantastic. So this is what his strengths are looking like right now. very He is 2.75 goals per 60 minutes. He's only averaging two shots a game. So he's scoring at this rate, only shooting two shots a game. much. Pretty incredible pace for him there. If he could get three or four shots off per game, imagine what his scoring rate could be then. Points per 60 right now is almost at four points. Pretty impressive start by him right now. So from The Athletic, they said that Lekanen would like to stay in Colorado, all things being equal. But unfortunately, his deal does expire soon, and we don't necessarily have too much cap space to make that work, especially with the $20.4 million contract that the Avs are going to be eating up for Cale McCarr's first year of that massive eight-year $163 million deal that we gave him. But Arturi Lekkonen has huge value on this team. Joe Sackick says he's such a big, important player for our team. This was all the way in August when they discussed what his contract extension talks were going and what they were looking like. And I don't necessarily love that we have gone into the middle or we're going to be going into the middle part of the season towards the trade deadline without any update on any extension whatsoever. And Arturi Lekkonen, he could be an absolutely massive trade piece. Don't get me wrong. But I feel like he does better on our team than picking up a brand new player from somewhere else would as well. So. Arturi Lekanen's fit in Colorado might be too good to pass up, but the contract is not getting any cheaper. This with the price of how expensive forwards are in the NHL as of right now, on top of the fact that he is the second highest goal scorer in the NHL, only behind Kirill Kaprizov, who is currently making $17 million. Arturi Lekanen doesn't have the assist numbers too crazy right now, but he's like a 40 to 50 point player a season kind of guy. But this season may be a little bit different, especially with those gold totals climbing, and especially if you can maintain some of this shooting pace. So Arturi Lekanen is testing the scoring expectations for the Avs. Honestly, I saw him as a 25 to 30 goal scorer per season. He's right now on pace for a lot more than that. He's on pace for like 60 goals this season. If he gets to 40, I think that's going to be a problem for contract value. Although he is a little bit older, he's 32, 33 years old, I believe. I don't necessarily remember. Arturi Lekkonen scoring 40 goals would definitely bump up that contract value at least by half a million dollars, maybe even a whole million dollars. As of right now, so he has 12 goals on 28 shots, shooting 42.9%. Of course, that's not going to be sustainable. He has a career shooting percentage of 11.6%. I honestly expect him to finish this season and probably drop down to at least 15%. I think it probably will go lower. There probably is going to be a slump in there as well. I mean, there always is with players. They don't necessarily stay hot the entire season unless you're McDavid or Gretzky, those guys. Do not slump, it's not possible. Nathan McKinnon finds a slump every now and then, but then he'll explode for five or six points in a single game. But yet again, Arturi Lekanen, that shooting percentage is probably going to drop. I think he definitely should get moved up to that top power play unit with this gold production that they have right now. Not having your top goal scorer on your power play unit, I feel like is a... It's a bit of a disadvantage for your own team. It's like you're nerfing yourself for no reason. I think he should be on that top unit. But the top unit did good in the last power play for the last game when we played Calgary. They did score on the first power play, so I'll give them props for that. But other than that, Arturi Lekkonen, he needs to be on that top power play unit and improving the volume of shots he's taking on net. But, look, this is his last 14 games the whole season so far. He has four multi-goal games. He has only not scored a goal in six games this season and has put up 12. So he has scored in eight of the 14 games, putting up 12 goals. In the games that he's scoring, he's scoring a goal and a half per game. It's pretty impressive the rate at which he is firing the puck into the back of the net. He just always, I mean, if you ever listen to McGehee on the radio, He says, good stick Leckie. I mean, he's just always in the right place at the right time. He scores some funky goals on some bouncing pucks and whatnot, but he does a great job of finding empty space and putting himself where he needs to be. So, we have to set a sustainable price on him. So, value several scoring seasons of credit. Sure, he's going to be a pretty expensive player in his dangerous area finishing. Expect the shooting to cool down, and do not assume that putting a contract on him now is going to be cheaper. But also, at the same time, you can't assume that not putting a contract on him now is going to make him any less expensive. I mean, prices are only going to go up. You're going to see extensions for forwards of similar value, and they're going to be a lot higher than we're going to be willing to pay or even able to pay at this point. But this is why we should do it early. So Colorado, by certainty, if we get him early, Lekanen gives up the open market option and open market could absolutely take like Lekanen could probably be one of the. Highest sought-after free agents in the market, and he'd be an expensive buy on the free agency market. An early deal needs value for both sides. So the Avs probably need to go with something a little bit, like short-term would help the Avs a little bit considering his age, but Lekanen would need a boost in annual value for that short-term to be feasible for him. Sure, every player in Aaron in their 30s is looking for. Longer term contacts. Arturi Lekkonen strengthens the top line fit. We've known this since he's been with us. Arturi Lekkonen and McKinnon fit together like glue. With McKinnon and Natchez on the ice this season, they outscore opponents 16-5. And with Kadri McKinnon, it is 2-1. So, Lekanen makes every line that he is a part of just a little bit better. It feels like he can play anywhere on this team. He plays absolutely fantastic with a lot of our superstars. He compliments McKinnon very well. He plays well with Natchez. It is just a fantastic top line, and that's why they are one of the most lethal in the NHL. So. He is incredibly versatile. He can play anywhere up and down the lineup. This is from Chris McFarlane before he left back in 2022. This is actually when they did the contract extension whenever we won the cup in 2022. But Arturi Lekkonen is doing pretty solid on the power play. He only gets about a minute and 10 seconds on the power play per game. That second unit doesn't always see a lot of ice time. He has two power play points. They're both goals. I think they're both only from that first game where he had two power play goals against the LA Kings. This is why, I mean, he's getting very limited power play time with the abs right now on that second unit. Put him on that top unit. He already put two goals in the net on an already struggling power play. I know we're at 20.5%, so we're back to the middle of the league, but that 20.5% needs to be at least. 23, 24, 25% by the end of the season if I'm going to be anywhere near excited for this team's power play unit. Penalty kill also needs a bit of help. That's a big thing about Lekanen too, is not only is he a top line winger, he is also one of the members of our penalty kill. And our penalty kill last season was number one in the NHL. It was absolutely fantastic. And he was a part of that and he did a great job. And I think Arturi Lekanen is definitely worth the value of a decent contract. So, finding a replacement is going to be hard, but getting Lekanen as retain a trusted partner on the top line on forward who kills penalties and continuity through the cup window. Although a lot of people say it's closing, I think keeping Arturi Lekanen might keep it open just a smidge longer. I know we have a bunch of young players that are looking a little exciting. I like Gavin Brindley a lot. TJ Hughes is playing pretty solid. And I like a couple of the defensemen we have coming up as well. Speaking of, we did have an update that they called up Keaton Middleton for this upcoming back-to-back, probably for defensive depth with Manson being injured and the possibility of losing a defenseman on the back-to-back road trip. But not a huge deal there. All righty. Colorado must balance Leckanen's term and cost. So, Cal McCarr's contract is absolutely going to eat up the budget next season, $20.4 million. Here is the full graphic of the Avs roster right here. Nathan McKinnon making $12.6 million as of right now. I mean, just Cal McCarr's $20.4 million contract is going to be absolutely crazy. We only have a believed expectation, or believed cap space of about $9.5 million right now. A tagging space, that is. But officially 12 million in cap space for the next season. We don't have a lot we actually have to replace next season, at least immediately. TJ Hughes is going to be a restricted free agent. I expect them to give him a contract, probably just a straight up NHL contract, probably a million dollars, 1.5. It's early in his career contract. He's currently making, I think, 890,000 or something around that nature of league minimum around that. Area ish, but TJ Hughes, I can see him resigning for about a million. I can see Nick walk testing free agency or becoming part of a trade piece at the trade deadline. Then, so that would open up a wing spot. Maybe Gavin Brinley fills in there. We have LaRue and Svechkov for quite a bit, and they're pretty cheap contracts as well. Lekanen was the only other empty spot we had over there, and maybe a seventh defenseman. So if we re-sign Lekanen, that leaves us with a couple million to play with. And if we offload maybe one of our bigger contracts, a.k.a. Kadri, maybe Josh Manson. We could probably find some cheaper deals to get a couple forwards to fill out the bottom line or just keep going with players from our AHL system that are on league minimum or just very small contract. So the abs have to protect future flexibility. So we have to budget the 2027, 2028 roster, limit protection in later years where possible and keep room to repair other needs. So how could Colorado approach Luckin and do we move early with a firm term limit or do we pay more annually for a shorter deal? That's the one I think we should probably go for somewhere in the realm of seven and a half, eight million dollars. That is hopefully where it will settle. He has a 40 goal season. He may ask for somewhere around eight and a half or nine, which may be a little bit of a stretch for the as it put us in a lot of capital trouble there. And I don't know if it's necessarily worth the deal there, but he is a first liner. On the avalanche, he could be a first liner anywhere else. So or C, do we wait for a larger season sample? Yes, of course, we're probably going to have to wait. I don't think Lekanen is going to want to top contract right now, especially since he's playing so well. He's like, let my season perform how my season is going to perform. And we'll talk contract later. And if he puts up 70, 80 points this season, he may be asking for a pretty solid contract. All right, one more thing before we wrap up. They did release the Hometown Remix jerseys. Here is Gabe Landeskog in the Colorado jersey. We've got the white with the seat logo, and we've got a lot of blue. Kind of look like a frost kind of color all around. Not my favorite jersey. I'm going to be completely candid about that. It's not my favorite, but it could have been a lot worse. I wish there was a bit of burgundy in that jersey, but unfortunately, they went with the white variant of that. We are actually going to be playing against the Blackhawks tonight, where they will be wearing theirs, and theirs looks pretty similar to Dallas's jerseys, actually. But they will be wearing a green jersey. These are the full graphic of the jerseys. You can take a bigger look at that. You can find the image on Twitter. I'm sorry I can't make it bigger for you there. I personally really like the Kraken jersey, the Winnipeg jersey, and the Penguins jersey. I think those are my favorite ones. But yet again, thank you very much for watching. I think we should extend Lekkonen, but it may not be possible. Hoping it is, though. Thank you again. See you next time.