By Sean Gentille, Shayna Goldman and Eric Duhatschek
The trade
Get Avalanche: Ryan Johansen (50 percent of Nashville’s retained average annual value of $8 million).
Predators get: Alex Galchenyuk
gentleman: At some point, the Avalanche had to replace Nazem Kadri. Ideally, it would have happened last season. That didn’t happen, and the problem was compounded by this summer’s underperforming Unrestricted Free Agent class. Ironically, JT Compher, her former Kadri replacement, could be the best option out there for teams looking for center options. He wasn’t bad for the Avs – he’d still look great as the 3C of the team behind Nathan MacKinnon and Johansen – but even with a career year, he wasn’t good enough to be 2C on a top contender. General manager Chris MacFarland’s predicament was clear.
This also applies to the solid work he has done with this step. Despite Johansen turning 31 this summer and a failed attempt to continue his upswing in the 2021-22 season, he’s still better than any UFA 2C option on paper. Salary withholding, which brings his cost to the Avs down to $4 million each over the next two seasons, makes it even more of a given.
Is Johansen a perfect fit now? Not quite. That 26 goals in 2021-22 could well be a blip given his five years of decline, and the idea of signing for him with an $8 million AAV would be — or should have been — a no-go been. Still, he has the size, some playing ability and enough goals to make the appeal clear. When decent players like Johansen are overpaid as drastically as he was in Nashville, their value is destroyed. He’s not overpaid in Denver. The Avalanche have money to spend and a dire need for goals, especially with Gabriel Landeskog’s upcoming absence for the full season. It’s easy.
For the Preds, this step was the only alternative to buying Johansen, but it was also a victory for them. Based on the rate of return — the negotiating rights to Galchenyuk — that’s a reasonable assumption. Now they’re getting out of his contract in two years (and paying $8 million) instead of four years and about $10 million. Trades that leave a team eating money and getting next to nothing in return are rarely palatable to a fan base, but Preds devotees should be satisfied that GM Barrydiot seems poised to take the franchise to the next stage. Given the number of players who would like to play in Nashville, every spot on the cap is valuable.
avalanche degree: A
predator class: B+
Duhatschek: There are a few basic truths about the Johansen-Galchenyuk deal that kicked off Saturday morning’s NHL draft week trade game, starting with the fact that at $8 million a season, Johansen was completely non-tradeable. The fact that the Predators had to absorb half of the contract with two remaining seasons is a testament to just how much Johansen’s worth in the NHL has plummeted. On the other hand, at $4 million per season, Johansen is an acceptable risk for the Avalanche over the next two years.
But it’s still that: a risk.
Until training camp starts, the season starts, and Johansen has a chance to settle in, the Avalanche won’t know which version of him they’re getting. Because there were many variations, starting with his time early in his career in Columbus after he was the fourth pick of the 2010 draft. He went on to become, if not a true No. 1 center, then at least a legitimate high-end No. 2 center. The Predators thought enough of him midway through the 2015-16 season that they traded a young and up-and-coming blueliner Seth Jones should get him.
Johansen’s results in Nashville were decidedly mixed. His 50-assist season in 2019 was the pinnacle. The next two years saw another disappointing two-year decline, followed by a brief rebound of 63 points in 2021-22. He then dropped out again in the 2022–23 season, with 28 points in 55 games, another season in which he failed to stay healthy.
At the age of 30, he is more of an addition than a player who can push the game forward on his own. Colorado clearly believes he can be more than that again. One of the Avalanche’s biggest failings last season was production on the middle ice behind MacKinnon, leaving no one to fill the void left by Kadri’s departure to Calgary.
Can Johansen do it?
He’s a better playmaker than a finisher, and if the Avalanche continue to play MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen separately, Johansen could theoretically get a chance to team up with one of the NHL’s most prolific scorers — a 55-goal scorer last season.
But he needs to be a better, healthier, more committed version of the player Nashville saw fit for 50 cents on the dollar.
And while this was presented as a bargain for Galchenyuk, it’s just an excuse. Galchenyuk, 29, has an expiring contract with a league minimum of $750,000. He is UFA on July 1st. It’s hard to imagine the level of interest after the year he’s had: zero points in 11 NHL games and 42 points in 42 AHL games. Perhaps Anaheim, where his minor league coach Greg Cronin is now the head coach, would jump at the chance.
If this also means the end of Compher with the Avalanche, it could be convincingly argued that Johansen is a downgrade, not an upgrade.
Compher scored 52 points in 82 games for the Avs last season and averaged 20-32 in the Ice Age. To put Compher’s use in context, he ranked 14th among forwards on the ice, ahead of Auston Matthews, Matthew Tkachuk and Kyle Connor, along with Avalanche teammates Artturi Lehkonen and Val Nichushkin, among others. In short, he made a silent but important contribution to the Avs and will be difficult to replace when he is forced out of the market.
Compher is a pending UFA in a sparse cluster of UFA centers. In Nashville, meanwhile, Johansen averaged 15:46 – not the kind of ice age you’d associate with a top-six forward.
Still, sometimes the importance of a contract affects a player’s confidence. Johansen would never be able to justify an annual paycheck of $8 million at this stage in his career. It’s more affordable at $4 million.
Maybe that will allow him to play more freely and if so, get his game going again. For a long time he appeared to be a player in need of a fresh start. He’s only 30. There’s still time.
avalanche degree: C
predator class: C
Goldman: Colorado has needed help down the middle since Kadri left as a free agent last summer. It seemed like last year’s plan was to figure out how the top six wingers could compensate for a cheaper option down the middle of that line. A year-long injury to Landeskog, which will also sideline him next season, put a damper on that experiment.
So that’s something the Avalanche have had to grapple with this offseason, especially with Compher’s contract expiring in a couple of days. Colorado still has Alex Newhook (who is also due for a raise this summer, albeit as a limited free agent), but they still needed another center six pivot. This is where Johansen comes in.
There’s no question that Johansen has been trending in the wrong direction for some time, and his upswing in 2021-22 seemed more of an outlier than an encouraging sign going forward. His lackluster 2022-23 season cannot be solely attributed to squad issues around him or as a manager; it’s up to him too. A team with as much star power as Colorado and a really smart coach like Jared Bednar might be able to maximize what’s left of their game a little bit better. Betting on it doesn’t pose much of a risk, either, at $4 million — an expense that might be manageable on the third line if he can’t make it as a 2C. Given that this year’s free agent class and other trading options are likely to cost more than the rights to Galchenyuk, which is literally nothing, this is a good move.
On the other hand, the Predators have bought themselves some space and flexibility. While that eliminates a berth for another two years, leaving Nashville with just one spot left, that should be fine for Defiance considering who else remains in the roster and is likely to be substituted. Did Nashville have to make this deal? If the plan calls for a long-term rebuild, then that really wouldn’t be necessary as the Predators could have done with Johansen in the roster. But if they want a chance to be competitive while their three regulars – Roman Josi, Juuse Saros and Filip Forsberg – are in their better years, it has to be a faster process. Therefore, the place on the cap is crucial, and finding out who is a part of the future sooner or later will obviously help in squad creation.
avalanche degree: B+
predator class: B
(Photo by Ryan Johansen and JT Compher: Christopher Hanewinckel / USA Today)