Before every season, there are a few contract dominoes that fall regarding players entering the final year of their deals. One big domino fell earlier this week, when the Edmonton Oilers re-upped superstar Leon Draisaitl to an enormous eight-year extension with a $14 million average annual value (AAV.) The deal kicks in for the 2025-26 season, but sets the table for some other big names that are also facing free agency.
The Colorado Avalanche have one of those big names in star winger Mikko Rantanen, and all eyes in Denver are looking at how that next contract could look. Rantanen has had an enormous impact over the past few seasons, and is one of the league’s most underrated scorers. The Avalanche obviously want to retain him and his ability, but fitting him under the constraints of the salary cap might be tricky. Here’s a look at what Rantanen has meant to the team in the past, what he means for the future, and how Draisaitl’s extension could impact other salaries – including Rantanen’s.
Rantanen Crucial to Avalanche Success
Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar cast long shadows for the Avalanche as their two most decorated players. That means Rantanen gets lost in the shuffle at times, but he’s every bit as important to Colorado’s success as either of those two. Over the past four seasons, only Edmonton’s Connor McDavid (513), Draisaitl (428), and MacKinnon (404) have recorded more points than Rantanen’s 367. During that same stretch, only Toronto Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews (210), Draisaitl (179), McDavid (173) and the Boston Bruins’ David Pastrnak (168) have scored more goals than Rantanen (163). That makes him one of the elite scorers in the NHL, and his next contract will command the salary of one.
He’s also faced a lot of uncertainty on the top line. While MacKinnon is there every single night, the team has been without Gabriel Landeskog for two full seasons thanks to knee surgery, and Valeri Nichushkin’s resurgence has been pocked with periods of missed time due to injury, as well as stints and suspensions within the NHL player assistance program. Through all of that, Rantanen has missed just nine games in the last three seasons – and seven of those were in 2021-22.
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Rantanen is coming off back-to-back seasons with 100 points, and piled up a whopping 55 goals in 2022-23 – just two shy of Michel Goulet’s team record of 57 in 1982-83. To put those numbers in perspective, Joe Sakic never had back-to-back 100-point seasons, and he never scored 55 goals in a season, either. Rantanen has failed to score 20 goals just once in his nine-year career – and that was the COVID-shortened 2019-20 campaign where he tallied 19 goals in 42 games. He might be soft spoken and stays out of the spotlight, but everything he’s already done in his career is enough to land his No. 96 jersey in the rafters of Ball Arena when he’s done playing. The good news for Rantanen is that he still has a lot of his story left to write.
Avs Path Forward Needs Rantanen
Colorado has been a Stanley Cup contender for the past few years, and it is no coincidence that trajectory has mirrored Rantanen’s rise. Even without the talented Landeskog on his line over the past two seasons, Rantanen has proven to be one of the league’s top scorers. He’s only 27, and looks to have many productive years ahead of him. It would be near impossible for the Avalanche to get a player of his ability that fits in with their system through free agency, making it imperative he gets the extension he deserves if Colorado wants to maintain their competitiveness.
Of course, if Rantanen isn’t re-signed, the Avs would have a lot more cap space to bring in a number of other players – or one big signing. However, they’re simply not going to find anybody that delivers that much production. If MacKinnon is Colorado’s unstoppable force and Makar is the engine that makes them go, Rantanen just might be the glue that holds the offense together. Even with the uncertainty on availability of linemates like Landeskog and Nichushkin, Rantanen continues to post ridiculous numbers. His last three seasons have shown he has no signs of slowing down, as he’s put up 301 points over that time.
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If Colorado wants to get back to a place where they’re hoisting the Cup, Rantanen absolutely has to be a part of that equation. Draisaitl’s signing likely indicates McDavid will re-sign with the Oilers when his contract expires following the 2025-26 season. Along the same lines, it’s hard to imagine that MacKinnon signed his extension in 2022 if he thought Rantanen wouldn’t be back. When you’re a contender, there’s always going to be lumps from bumping up against the salary cap. Keeping Rantanen with MacKinnon and Makar has to be a priority – especially with all of them sitting in their primes.
Rantanen Set for Big Payday, With Colorado or Not
It’s hard to say what Rantanen could command on the open market, but it would likely be a little more than what the Bruins gave Pastrnak in 2023. That was an eight-year deal worth $90 million, or $11.25 million AAV. They have very similar stats over the past few seasons, but these deals get more expensive as the salary cap goes up – even if not by much. That would put Rantanen in the neighborhood of $11.5 to $12 million per season, which seems totally reasonable. That is also something Avalanche could likely slip in under the cap, but it might cost them some other pieces down the line.
The real contract to look at will be Mitch Marner’s next deal. The Maple Leafs winger is in the final year of his deal that pays him $10.9 million per year. The Leafs are notorious for overpaying players (see Chris Tanev’s most recent deal), and that free spending could set a high bar for Rantanen’s next deal if the Leafs re-sign Marner first. Marner is definitely a good player, and he is also playing next to a top-flight center in Matthews, but he’s not the goal scorer Rantanen is by any stretch. Both Marner and Rantanen will get good contracts, and deservedly so, and many think Draisaitl’s deal indicates Marner’s impending deal might be the next domino to fall.
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It also depends what Rantanen is looking for. If he’s looking to cash in huge, and doesn’t have an extension in place before this season, nobody would blame him for entering free agency. The problem with that is the ceiling on Rantanen’s market could stretch significantly if he has another spectacular season in 2024-25 and doesn’t have a deal in place. It would be hard to envision the Avalanche letting him test those waters, and an extension could be announced in the very near future. Maybe both sides are waiting for a few more of those contract dominoes to fall, but the Avalanche clearly know Rantanen’s value. For the team’s sake, they’re probably hoping Rantanen wants to continue the run he’s been a part of in Colorado, too.
