Avs Lock Up MacKinnon

Signing a franchise-type restricted free agent was somewhat of the flavour of the day, as the Colorado Avalanche joined in the fun, inking centre Nathan MacKinnon to a 7-year contract, reportedly worth $44.1 million, a $6.3 million cap hit for the duration of the contract.

MacKinnon was the 1st overall pick in the 2013 entry draft and has featured in each season since that draft, quickly becoming one of the key pieces of the puzzle for the Avalanche, but hasn't quite lifted the team to being a major threat, except in the 2014 season, when they had a good playoff run.

His 2016 season was decent, but nothing to really brag about as a former 1st overall pick.  In 72 games, the 20-year old finished with 21 goals and 52 points, finishing 98th overall in pool scoring, 70th among all forwards.

He did turn out to be a bargain pick in the pool last season, as Allan took him in the 4th round, 105th overall, but it wasn't a huge bargain.  With the Avalanche unable to pack any new punch into their lineup, it would take a great individual effort on the part of MacKinnon to become a top end player in the 2017 season and it will be up to him to help the Avalanche back into the playoff picture.

If the coloured part of the roster was to be the opening night team, the Avalanche would have about $6 million left to work with, but they still have Mikhail Grigorenko & Tyson Barrie to deal with in restricted free agency, which could really eat up that cap space.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Nathan MacKinnon	6.300	Erik Johnson	6.000	Semyon Varlamov	5.900
Matt Duchene	6.000	Francois Beauchemin	4.500
Gabriel Landeskog	5.500
Jarome Iginla	5.333
Carl Soderberg	4.750
Joe Colborne	2.500
Blake Comeau	2.400
John Mitchell	1.800	Fedor Tyutin	2.000	Calvin Pickard	1.000
Cody McLeod	1.333	Eric Gelinas	1.575
Rocco Grimaldi	0.925	Nikita Zadorov	0.894
J.T. Compher	0.925	Patrick Wiercioch	0.800
Mikko Rantanen	0.894	Chris Bigras	0.874
Andreas Martinsen	0.640
Mike Sislo	0.600
A.J. Greer	0.742	Ryan Stanton	0.600	Spencer Martin	0.925
Julien Nantel	0.680	Sergei Boikov	0.682	Jeremy Smith	0.600
Troy Bourke	0.632	Mason Geertsen	0.650
Reid Petryk	0.623	Cody Corbett	0.617
Trent Vogelhuber	0.613	Mat Clark	0.600
Jim O'Brien	0.600	Joe Whitney	0.600
Samuel Henley	0.587
Turner Elson	0.575

Pool worthy, non-pool roster players, assumed roster fill-ins,  injured/retired cap hits, in the system