Last season, Carolina made the biggest move at the deadline acquiring Guentzel from the Penguins. This season, they didn’t wait until the deadline, and they somehow pulled off a trade that was bigger than the Guentzel move. On Friday night, one of the biggest hockey trades of the millennium took place between the Avs, Canes, and Blackhawks. Carolina acquired Mikko Rantanen, Taylor Hall, and a lottery ticket prospect. The Avalanche received Martin Necas, Jack Drury, and two draft picks. The Blackhawks helped facilitate the trade, retaining 50% of Rantanen’s salary, receiving a third round pick and dumping Hall in the process. Safe to say a couple things. One, it’s worth me pushing back my hold / stream list after a move like this. Two, there’s enough fantasy impact from this trade that it requires its own post. Let’s get to it!
FOR CAROLINA:
You can probably make an Eric Staal case, but I would argue that Rantanen becomes the best player to ever wear a Hurricane jersey. He’s been a top five scorer in the league over the last five seasons in the middle of his prime. Conservatively, he’s a top five winger in the league and the type of guy that Carolina has missed through the last five years; while they have been a perennial playoff team, they’ve lacked the superstar to get them over the top. They’re clearly banking on Rantanen continuing his level of play from Colorado away from MacKinnon and with his friend and countrymate Aho instead.
It’s too early to know if he’ll sign an extension in Carolina. Historically, I would say no chance with their ownership, but they do have a massive amount of cap space this summer and have some prospects that are NHL ready for cheap filler. Is he really going to pay the $13-14 million a year for Rantanen though that he clearly wants (more on that later). I have my doubts, so for that reason, I’m not going to talk about dynasties, only the rest of this season. I do think this move is a net negative for Rantanen’s fantasy value. No offense to Aho or anyone else on the Carolina roster, but they’re not MacKinnon or Makar. Rantanen has been virtually stapled to both of them over the years because he hasn’t been able to drive a line as successfully as you’d think for a player of his caliber. A big factor is that he’s simply not going to approach the minutes he received in Colorado. He’s averaged at least 22 minutes in each of the past three seasons. This is the first year Aho is averaging 20 (he’s at 20:03). Aho played almost 21 on Saturday in an overtime game, while Rantanen played almost 19 minutes. If you’re cutting out 8-10% of Rantanen’s minutes, it’s safe to assume we’re losing that much production.
If you want to look at the bright side, I see the possibility of Rantanen’s shot rate increasing away from MacKinnon and his gunning ways. He’s also going to get easier minutes since the Staal line eats all of the tough matchups. At the end of the day, while I see a Rantanen drop off, it’s not a drastic one. We’re talking about the #5 overall forward on the season after I had him ranked sixth in the preseason. Now, I would probably have him in the 10-15 range, falling behind guys like J. Hughes and Pastrnak.
As far as Hall goes, I have very little interest in him for fantasy. He played 11:36 in his debut and to be honest, there’s a reason that Chicago was willing to dump him off in this trade. Best case, maybe he establishes some deep league value and becomes a bottom end streamer, but I’m not counting on that at all. Overall, I think it’s the big swing the Hurricanes needed to make. It doesn’t come without risk because if Rantanen leaves, it’s a tough pill to swallow, but Necas only has one more year of club control so the downside isn’t as drastic as it’s being made out to be. If Carolina wins the Cup, I’m sure they won’t care if Rantanen leaves.
FOR COLORADO
Colorado’s motives to make a move were driven by one thing: money. They didn’t want to trade a homegrown superstar and spent time negotiating a contract with Rantanen. His agents and the team had different perspectives. For the Avs, they were willing to make Rantanen the highest paid winger in the league. Currently, that is Panarin at 11.64m per season. However, they weren’t willing to give him more than the 12.6m that MacKinnon is making (Friedman speculated that the offer was 11.75m but it’s definitely in that range). On the other side of things, Rantanen’s agent was using Draisaitl’s new contract at 14m per year as a benchmark. No surprise as Draisaitl and Rantanen share an agent and both were the second best forward on their respective teams. The Avs scoffed at that, and at the end of the day, they decided to make this move instead of playing out the season and hoping Rantanen would change his mind. All indications are that if he reaches free agency, he wants to be the highest paid player in the league with the cap rising. All it takes is one team to pull the trigger.
Necas is in the midst of the best season of his career by a long shot. While he was due for some regression, his numbers the rest of the way can easily overcome that for one reason: time on ice. After finding out the trade happened Friday night, he played Saturday afternoon in Boston. Necas slid right into Rantanen’s role and while the debut wasn’t ideal, they did generate a ton of chances. More importantly, Necas played over 25 minutes in this game. In Carolina, he was averaging 18 minutes per game. Now, we’re probably looking at the 21-22 range. Getting to play with MacKinnon as well, Necas has top 20 upside for the rest of the season. He’s a lock to be a top 50 player, making him a big winner here. As mentioned above, the Avs only have club control for one more season after this one. It remains to be seen whether the Avs and Necas will strike a deal or not. The best case for his fantasy value has to be staying.
Drury stepped right into the 3C role for the Avalanche on Saturday. The former first round pick is the one guy in this trade that should be with their new team for the foreseeable future. For now, I don’t see much fantasy value, but that could change over time. I think the Avs are hoping that he turns into what J.T. Compher was on their Cup team. The year after that, with Kadri gone, Compher had a bigger role than he deserved, but he put up 52 points. It was good enough for Compher to be a solid streamer, and that seems like Drury’s long term fantasy upside.
FOR CHICAGO
This was a move simply to buy a third round pick. The Blackhawks actually save some money overall retaining 50% of Rantanen’s salary but moving off Hall’s salary. People are killing the Blackhawks for this, but I don’t get it. Hall has looked awful, and even if they got a 4th round pick for Hall at the deadline, they might as well use their cap space to retain on Rantanen and get a better pick. I have been dying for the Sabres to retain salary on trades for picks for the last decade, but Pegula is too cheap. Recently, Hall was on their fourth line, so I don’t see any change in fantasy value for any of the Chicago players.
It will be interesting to see who the next domino to fall is. Since nobody seems to want what Vancouver wants for Miller, could it be Pettersson? Is this the one superstar trade, and we’re only looking at guys like Nelson moved? It does seem like more teams are willing to make big moves which is great from an entertainment standpoint.
Three Point Challenge: We’re going to do Tuesday’s games per usual. You can’t select MacKinnon, Draisaitl, Kucherov, Marner, McDavid, Rantanen, Eichel, Connor, Pastrnak, or J. Hughes. I’ll go with Scheifele against the Canadiens.
That’s all for now guys. I’ll be back on Wednesday recapping the action from the last two weeks. As always, feel free to ask any questions, leave any comments, or give any suggestions below. Thanks for reading, take care!
