NHL Rumors: The Colorado Avalanche don’t have the salary cap room to make a deal just yet

Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on The Jeff Marek Show on the Colorado Avalanche.

** NHLRumors.com transcription

Marek: “Have you thoughts on the Ava and what they may have up their sleeve as well? I mean, you’ve written, we’ve talked about the Colorado Avalanche and still with one, at least one more big move to make your thoughts on the Avs in general.”

Friedman: “Well, I did try to find out who was talking about but the, the omerta kicked in Jeff. People, people weren’t giving it up. I think everybody has their theories but you know, the, the omerta definitely kicked in.

Put it this way, I do think they’re looking to add. You know, at some point in time, hopefully, (Samuel) Girard comes back. So they have to make room for that. But they’re tight to the cap.

All one manager told me was Colorado has let people know that, like the teams know who their targets are and the guy in Calgary is definitely one of them. But they’re really not in a position where they can do a lot now. They’re probably going to need to wait until there’s more cap room available or less cap on someone’s hit, less cap hit on someone they’re trying to trade for.

But what Colorado was definitely let teams know is, whoever their targets are, they’re like if you’re at a point where you’re ready to make a move, please let us know. Or you have to let us know if we have to get our best offer in. Like we need to know.

Like that’s what happened with (Nikita) Zadorov.”

Marek: “Right.”

Friedman: “When Vancouver made that (Anthony) Beauvillier deal, they came to Calgary they said we can do this now. Calgary let teams know that we’re in on Zadorov, ‘we have an offer. If you’re, if you want in, you have to do it now.’ And nobody could beat what Vancouver could do.

So I would suspect that Colorado’s kind of in the same boat. They’re going to add it’s just a question of when. They know they’re a bit too top heavy.”