The Colorado Avalanche followed a very promising 2013-14 season in which they gathered a 52-22-8 record en route to a first place finish in the Central Division and a second-place finish in the Western Conference, with a frustratingly ineffective 2014-15 that saw them wind up 7th in the Central and 12th in the West and miss the playoffs altogether.
Thanks to consistently poor defensive efforts throughout the year, Avs GM Joe Sakic and head coach Patrick Roy are back to the drawing board this offseason, trying to figure out a way to overcome the struggles which ultimately resulted in last season's failure.
Chief on the agenda is the status of forward Ryan O'Reilly. He's set to enter the second year of a two-year, $12 million bridge deal that will give way to a major contract extension once it runs its course. Previous negotiations were very much on the contentious side and the Avs and Sakic have made it clear that while they'd like to keep O'Reilly and sign him to a new deal, they don't want his contract to become a distraction for him or for the team in 2015-16.
Thus, O'Reilly's name has popped up in trade speculation time and again already this offseason. While it seems the Avs aren't pushing O'Reilly out, they're certainly open-minded to any deal that would prove mutually advantageous and take O'Reilly and his supposedly exorbitant contract demands off their hands.
Sakic and Roy appeared on a conference call with reporters on Thursday and, per Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, indicated that any O'Reilly trade would have to net them a top-four, left-shot defender they could pair with young stud Erik Johnson.
"Well, yesterday on the conference call - Like, I had heard they wanted a left-shot defenseman. If you look at them, Erik Johnson is a rightie shot and Tyson Barrie is a rightie shot. So I had heard they were looking for a left-hand shot D to play with those guys. And then somebody disputed that and said it's not 100 percent the key," Friedman said Friday, while appearing on Calgary's Sportsnet 960, via TodaysSlapShot.com.
"Well, yesterday on the conference call I asked and Patrick Roy took the question and said, 'Look, I'm a coach, I'll answer that. Yes, I do believe we need a left-hand shot defenseman, a top-4 guy. No offense to who we've got here, but we need a top-4, left-hand D to play with Johnson.'
"So I do think if you've got somebody who is a leftie shot, a defenseman who can play top 4, then you potentially have a match for what Colorado is looking for."
Of course, as Sakic has indicated on several occasions, despite the Avs dire needs along the blueline, O'Reilly is not a player they're actively attempting to part ways with.
"I like Ryan a lot, he's a very valuable player, he's part of our core," said Sakic, via ESPN's Pierre LeBrun. "My first priority would be to sign him. Obviously, we'll see where it all goes."
Unfortunately for Sakic, finding a top-four defenseman without giving up something of value is unlikely. That being said, there is a small handful of pending unrestricted free agents who could potentially fit the Avs needs.
Mike Green is a talented offensive defenseman, but he's a right shot - Cody Franson and Jeff Petry as well. Soon-to-be former Penguin Paul Martin is a lefty, but no one will mistake him for a top-four blueliner these days. Ducks defender Francois Beauchemain shoots left and has proven a reliable minutes-eater for Anaheim, but at 35 his best days are probably behind him.
In short, Sakic and Roy are likely looking at a trade as their best bet to add the player they seem to so desperately covet. Whether dealing from their ample forward depth is the right way to go about it is, of course, the question.
