Colorado Looks To Keep Mikko Rantanen In The Mile High City For Years To Come

By Jordan Long

The Colorado Avalanche haven’t agreed to a contract yet with restricted free agent Mikko Rantanen.  The Avalanche are hopeful a deal will be reached before Colorado starts training camp on September 11th.   General Manager Joe Sakic expects negotiations will start and end before then.

                Rantanen is one of Colorado’s most important forwards.  He plays on the top line with Nathan MacKinnon and Gabriel Landeskog.  It is one of the best lines in all of the NHL.  They all find each other on the ice for goals.  Their speed helps them skate around defensemen for odd man rushes and scoring chances.    

                Last year, Rantanen had career highs with 31 goals and 56 assists for a total of 87 points.  He is used on the power play as well.  Rantanen was a skater opponents needed to keep an eye on when Colorado had the man advantage.  He used his speed to find rebounds to put them in the back of the net.  Rantanen’s vision on the ice helped him feed an open teammate for a goal.  He scored 16 goals and added 17 assists on the power play. 

                With his play, Colorado went to the playoffs and knocked off the Calgary Flames before falling to the San Jose Sharks in the 2nd-round in 7 games.  Rantanen kept up his play in the postseason scoring 6 goals and 8 assists for 14 points.   Colorado knew at the end of the year they wanted to keep Rantanen for years to come.

                Colorado would like a long-term contract to keep him in the Mile High City. According to yahoosports.com, General Manager Joe Sakic said,  “We prefer long term. If it has to be short term, it has to be short term. We want to make sure we have him signed. There’s a lot of players (in the NHL) in that same situation, a lot of great hockey players that are coming up. We’ll just see how all the players and agents handle that. There are comparable numbers that are starting to come in. We’re open to different possibilities.”

                Colorado has plenty of cap space for this season with around $15.72 million left.  Rantanen  could be the highest paid Colorado Avalanche player once this is over.  Hopefully, the contract he agrees to keeps him in Colorado for at least the next 8 years.