Mikko Rantanen’s exit from the Colorado Avalanche didn’t just reshape the Avalanche roster.
According to Nick Kypreos, reporting on Wednesday, the trade lit a fire under the former Avs winger as he made his intentions clear right after being moved to the Carolina Hurricanes, and later to the Dallas Stars.
“I’m going to Dallas,” Kypreos quoted Rantanen as saying. “Do you know why I’m going to Dallas? Because I want to jam it down Colorado’s throat.”
The Stars landed Rantanen after his brief stint in Carolina, where he was sent by the Avalanche in January.
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Kypreos said Rantanen had no plans to stay with the Hurricanes since he got there without much choice.
“He had no intentions of signing in Carolina,” Kypreos said. “They had to move him.”
According to Kypreos, both Dallas and Toronto had cap room for Rantanen and interest in acquiring him, but the winger was driven by a desire to get back at Colorado in potential postseason matchups.
“Not only do I want to play them in the playoffs,” Rantanen told his agents, per Kypreos, “I want to go in for the next eight years. I’m coming after them.”
Joe Sakic, Colorado’s president of hockey operations, handed out the main reason behind the trade from the franchise’s side on Wednesday.
“Just paying three high-end guys and not having a surrounding cast wasn’t gonna get it done,” Sakic said. “We won in ’22 because we had our stars, but we were also deep. And you can’t win the Stanley Cup without it.”
Kypreos, however, revealed that Rantanen would have stayed in Colorado if the Avalanche had matched Dallas’ $12 million per year offer.
“Rantanen said, ‘I am flexible, we can work this out,’” Kypreos said. “Twenty-four to forty-eight hours later, he was traded.”
Ultimately, Rantanen signed an extension with the Stars worth $96 million over eight years, the maximum length allowed.
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