You choose
 

Option 1:

A team which is just above the cap floor (like we are) who are loaded with young players, decides to spend big money to attract one or two 8 mil a year players taking the risk of losing a handful of those young players for a chance to win now.

Option 2:

A team which is just above the cap floor (like we are) builds around the young players on this team and has enough cap space in future years to re-sign and keep all the young stars together with the chance to build a very strong team for a long time.

If Option 1 entails Parise and Suter then I'd go with that. The team could only hope desperately that any player on the roster becomes as good as the duo, and I think "handful" is overstating things unless the team was shelled with a ton of good luck. Avoid contracts like Jones' and it's not impossible.

I added a poll to the thread , I thought it would be nice to know what everyone thinks about this subject . I made the poll so we dont know who voted where .

The way i look at it, not matter how long the Avs hold on to the cap floor and don't spend money now, eventually they have to spend it if they want to win anything.

In fact the time to spend should be now because they haven't paid Duchene and other young players top money yet.

In the future if Duchene breaks out and has a monster season he will demand more money, so will the other top young players on the team, and when they all get top money, signing FA's to 8 mill a year contracts will be much harder.

So i'd say option 1..spend now while you can.

Adding one 7 mil contract(Suter) would not have handcuffed us longterm. What gets you in trouble is giving average to above average players 5 mil+ contracts(Wideman/Carle). Either way you have to support your core eventually if you want to build a winner.

It is important to note that option 1 is dependent on those big fish actually wanting to sign with this cap floor team, while option 2 has no dependencies other than re-signing your own players.

Needless to say, I voted for option 2.

in a cap era, the common link to all Stanley Cup winners has been having quality talent on cheap contracts (mostly ELCs) so that expensive talent can be added to form a strong team. If Colorado is going to be a Cup contender in the near future, they have to spend as much dough as possible while their core players are getting paid close to peanuts

I would be much happier and self satisfied if we won the cup with our core group of players in a few years with say for example Duchene, Landeskog and Johnson leading the team as opposed to us going out and signing Parise, Suter, Semin, Doan etc who win it for us with our current guys taking a back seat.

I don't know about going full on crazy like two of those contracts. But a combination of both obviously.

Like say we trade for Enstrom at the deadline. The sign him for 5.5-6M a year for 6 years. So a big contract but nothing close to crippling. Then maybe one mega deal for a star winger to complete the team.

Not that I think it will happen, but making a mega offer to Corey Perry could be a good example.

With that it would be a combination of moves which allow us to keep our most talented players and the core intact.

I have no problem with management keeping a cool head and spending when the time is right. I do however NOT want to see them blow their load like Buffalo did last off-season.

Look at the difference in what we are going to start the year with this year vs last year.

2011-12

Centers :

Stastny
Duchene
O'Reilly
McClemment

Wingers :

Landeskog (As a rookie)
Jones
Hejduk
Galiardi
Winnik
Kobasew
McLeod
Porter
Lindstrom

(I believe they hopped for Hishon & Mueller to be there as well after watching them try to run three scoring lines before we had the depth to do it.)

Defense :

EJ
Quincey
Hejda
ROB
SOB
Wilson
Hunwick

2012-13

Centers

Stastny
Duchene
O'Reilly
Mitchell

Wingers

Landeskog 50+ points
PAP 60+ points
Jones : Capable of 40+ points /20 goals
McGinn : 20 goals
Downie : 40+ points (Capable of 20 goals)
Hejduk : (We will just have to see what he can still do.)
McLeod
Kobasew
Olver/Heard/Hishon/Sgarbossa as potential competitors for that yet to be filled LW spot.

Defense :

The same except swap Quincey for Zannon? Hmmm, but EJ with another year of development and Elliott/Barrie a little more ready.

I guess we will see how that works out, but I am glad they didn't blow their load on a second paring defender at 5.5+ million a year. Neither Carle or Garrison were really #2 quality. Hopefully Wilson shows us some more consistent beast mode, otherwise our defense won't be bad but it will be even more offensively challenge than it was last year. Unless Elliott or Barrie force their way onto the roster of course..