Dater: How It All Went Bad Between Mikko Rantanen And The Avs

It was always business - nothing personal - between Mikko Rantanen and Avalanche management. That, in a way, was always the problem. That, in the end, was the major factor in the divorce between the two parties that culminated on Friday night with a trade to the Carolina Hurricanes that shocked the hockey world.

But, to those who had paid close attention to the working relationship between Rantanen and the Avs, it was not as much of a surprise. The truth is, things have always been a bit frosty between Rantanen and the Avs, despite lots of success for both sides.

It started his rookie season, 2015-16, when the Avs played him nine games before sending him back to the hockey hotbed of San Antonio to play for their AHL outpost, the Rampage - rather than keeping him for a 10th game and thereby starting the seven-season professional clock on his contract toward free agency.

It was nothing personal, just business, for Avs management at the time. Sure, Rantanen was a first-round pick and considered a cornerstone for the team’s future, but he failed to record a point in his nine games for the team and the decision was made to let his contract “slide” for another year, for UFA purposes.

So, technically, for the first three seasons of Rantanen’s actual on-the-clock contract time, the Finn posted seasons of 38, 84 and 87 points, respectively. The Avs got those first three seasons of top-end production (well, the last two anyway) at the league entry-level contract salary of $925,000.

Which leads us to training camp, 2019, and it was time for payback by the Rantanen camp.

The market for young forwards with consecutive seasons with 80 or more points was quite escalated by 2019, and Rantanen was going to get full market value, which at the time was about $9 million per.

The Avs didn’t want to pay much more than $8.5 million, but Rantanen and his reps were dead set on $9.25 million as their final “offer” to the team. After missing the first day or two of camp that year, the Avs gave in. Rantanen got a new multi-year deal at a cap hit of $9.25 million and everybody proclaimed how happy they were with the deal.

But the truth was, Avs management wasn’t happy at “losing” the negotiations.

But by the summer of 2022, the Avs couldn’t have been anything other than happy with that deal. Rantanen scored a career-high 92 points in 2021-22, and had 25 more points in 20 playoff games that culminated with the team’s first Stanley Cup in 21 years.

Rantanen went on to post seasons of 105 and 104 points, respectively. By the summer of 2024, when the Avs had the opportunity to sign him to an extension that could max out at eight years, it seemed like a no-brainer.

Of course, the Avs would give Mikko a massive new, long-term payday and both sides would live happily ever after.

And then, Leon Draisaitl signed a long-term extension with the Edmonton Oilers with a cap hit of $14 million per. To Rantanen and his reps, a new market floor for a “comparable” player had been established, and that was the asking price to Avs management on a new extension: $14 million per.

Instead of an expected “Hey, you’ve earned it, we’ll pay it” response from Avs management, the Rantanen camp was told that was too high, and given reasons why, such as: “We don’t know what the league cap max will be yet (it’s since been announced it should go up quite a lot), we have uncertainty about our captain (Gabe Landeskog) and his deal, plus we’re paying $12.6 million to the NHL Hart Trophy winner (Nathan MacKinnon) right now. That’s our internal cap max.”

The Rantanen camp was unmoved. The market for players with his kind of production had changed. If Draisaitl, who had never won a Cup and played on a team with Connor McDavid, was worth $14 million per, then sure as shit so was Mikko Rantanen

Instead of some normal give-and-take and continued, open dialogue between the two parties, things quickly ground to a halt shortly before the start of the regular season. As I reported exclusively at the time, the Rantanen camp informed Avs management that there would be no more talk of a potential contract extension until after the season was over.

The dye had been cast. The Avs’ negotiating window had gone from potentially all season long with Rantanen to maybe only a few weeks before the start of free agency, on July 1. It was an open dare by the Rantanen camp to either pay their demands or risk losing him for nothing at the end of the season.

To his credit, Rantanen did nothing to diminish his market value with his play this season. The 28-year-old right winger entered Friday as the sixth-leading scorer in the NHL, with 64 points - 11 short of league leader MacKinnon and 10 short of the No. 2 player: Draisaitl.

With the ongoing uncertainty of Landeskog’s status (a $7 million cap hit that isn’t on the books now, but will be if he can come back) and the prospect of backing up the money truck for Cale Makar (signed for two years beyond this one, at $9 million per) in 2027, Avs GM Chris MacFarland did the math and didn’t think signing Rantanen at $14 million per, long-term, was going to work.

So, the decision was made (and for a while now, according to a source) to explore a trade for Rantanen before he could be lost for nothing.

It might prove a sound business decision in the end for the Avs, as they acquired the league’s 12th leading scorer in Martin Necas, along with Jack Drury and two draft picks, for Rantanen as part of a three-way deal that involved Chicago.

Then again, it might not. Rantanen is one of the 10 best players in the league, and he’s still only 28. When he lifted the Stanley Cup over his head not even three years ago, it would have seemed unthinkable that he’d be gone by 2025.

But, as it is said now as it will be until the end of time:

Professional sports, in the end, is a business.