Colorado Avalanche Trade Rumors: Paul Stastny Available?

Ever since Ryan O’Reilly was brought back into the fold in Colorado, the belief has been that the team will trade one of their top young three talents that include O’Reilly, Paul Stastny and Matt Duchene.  The belief being that the club would like to have O’Reilly in the top two lines and in order to do that, they’d need to demote Stastny to the third line center position.  Could a trade be in the works?

Adrian Dater of the Denver Post points out that the holdout over the O’Reilly contract dispute has left a sour taste in the Avalanche management’s mouth.  But because they had to match an offer sheet, the team cannot trade the disgruntled forward for at least a year. In order to try and get his trade value up, he’d need more ice-time to produce more points.  That’s where the demotion of Stastny would come in.

Dater then goes on to say that trading Stastny now would make more sense for the club, capitalizing on the market that would provide a decent return for the 27-year old.  The downside to holding on to him is that the Avs demote him to the third line and he continues his offensive decline for the third year from when he put up 79 during the 2009-10 campaign.   Thus jeopardizing his trade value following this season or into early next year.

So far on the year Stastny has 6 goals and 7 assists in 22 games while producing a minus-4.  He does have a large cap hit with a salary of $6.6 million for next season, after which he’d be an unrestricted free agent.  Here in lies the trouble that the Avs could face.  Not many teams will be willing to take on that kind of salary for a player that may be in an offensive decline.  The upside is that his asking price will likely be lower than Corey Perry‘s or say Phil Kessel‘s, should the Leafs look at moving him.

Still within the prime year’s of his career, Stastny could benefit from a change of scenery and given the right line mates  who’s to say he couldn’t become a point a game player again.  Making this trade one that might be worth looking at for some clubs that need an upgrade at the centre position.

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