{"id":472594,"date":"2025-07-17T16:25:40","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T20:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=472594"},"modified":"2025-07-17T16:25:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T20:25:40","slug":"nhl-rumours-26-years-old-future-aav","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/07\/17\/nhl-rumours-26-years-old-future-aav\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Rumours: 26 Year&#8217;s Old Future AAV"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to NHL Rumours! The Colorado Avalanche made a blockbluster trade last season, trading <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/rantami01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-17_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mikko Rantanen<\/a> to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/03\/07\/carolina-hurricanes-trade-mikko-rantanen\/\" target=\"_self\">Carolina Hurricanes<\/a> in a three-trade team. Coming to Colorado was 26-year old forward, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/n\/necasma01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-17_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Martin Necas<\/a>. Necas played in 30 games for the Avs, scoring 11 goals. Necas has one more season left on his contract before he becomes an unrestricted free agent. Today&#8217;s rumour looks at the possible average annual salary Necas will receive.<\/p>\n<h2>NHL Rumours<\/h2>\n<h3>Necas&#8217;s AAV<\/h3>\n<p><em>Rumour: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kypreni01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-17_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nick Kypreos<\/a> from Sportsnet believes Necas could get $10 million or more on his next contract.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Nick Kypreos: The feeling is Martin Necas could get $10 million or more &#8211; Sportsnet<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NHL Rumour Report (@NHLRumourReport) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NHLRumourReport\/status\/1945877153179979995?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 17, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Analysis<\/strong>: At 26, Necas is entering the prime of his career. The 26-year old has scored 124 goals in his eight-year career. His career-best season was in 2024-25, when he set a career best in goals (27), assists (56), and points (83). Furthermore, Necas has consistently scored 20+ goals each of the last three seasons, indicating his consistency in the NHL.<\/p>\n<p>Necas will make $6.5 million next season. The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2017\/04\/10\/martin-necas-scouting-report-2017-nhl-draft-12\/\" target=\"_self\">2017 draft pick<\/a> is certainly up for a raise, but how much of a raise?<\/p>\n<h3>Paying For Upside?<\/h3>\n<p>The question that needs to ask is, is 20+ goals and 50+ assists worth $10 million? That is certainly a high price to pay. However, the team that pays that price for Necas may be thinking long-term. If a team thinks a player will do great things in the league, they will lock them to a high but reasonable contract. The contract may seem high at first, but as the player grows, the deal becomes a steal.<\/p>\n<p>An example of this can be found with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/07\/16\/st-louis-blues-2025-26-schedule-analysis\/\" target=\"_self\">St. Louis Blues<\/a>. The Blues gave <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/t\/thomaro01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-17_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Robert Thomas<\/a> an extension prior to the 2022-23 season. As the seasons have gone by, Thomas has become an elite forward in the NHL, well worth the contract he got.<\/p>\n<p>For Necas, a team who gives him $10 million may be seeing strong upside following his career-best season.<\/p>\n<h3>Overpaying for the Cup<\/h3>\n<p>A team that gives Necas $10 million may know that is a little much for him, but may feel it is worth it to contend for the Stanley Cup. Let&#8217;s say it is the Avalanche who give Necas $10 million. The Avs gave up Rantanen (who is now on a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/03\/07\/carolina-hurricanes-trade-mikko-rantanen\/\" target=\"_self\">division rival<\/a>) for Necas. Furthermore, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/05\/04\/dallas-stars-vs-colorado-avalanche-stanley-cup-playoff-series-has-wild-finish\/\" target=\"_self\">Rantanen ended Colorado&#8217;s season with a hat trick in Game 7<\/a> last season. The Avs may realize that the competition in the Western Conference is only growing stronger. As a result, overpaying for Necas may be worth to remain a contender.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2022\/06\/28\/the-colorado-avalanche-are-the-2022-stanley-cup-champions\/\" target=\"_self\">The Avs won the Stanley Cup in 2022<\/a>, but have only exited the first round once since then. The team believes their Stanley Cup window is still open. Re-signing Necas may be part of their solution to remain in contention.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, other teams may be interested in Necas. The Hurricanes, after trading Rantanen and their <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/05\/20\/carolina-hurricanes-vs-florida-panthers-eastern-conference-finals-preview-2025\/\" target=\"_self\">rough elimination in the Eastern Conference Final<\/a>, may be interested in bringing back Necas next summer. Like the Avalanche, the Canes may see Necas as a key piece to keep their Cup window open.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo: Isaiah J. Downing<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to NHL Rumours! The Colorado Avalanche made a blockbluster trade last season, trading Mikko Rantanen to the Carolina Hurricanes in a three-trade team. Coming to Colorado was 26-year old forward, Martin Necas. Necas played in 30 games for the Avs, scoring 11 goals. Necas has one more season left on his contract before he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3464,"featured_media":472595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4321,28,4547,34,4548],"tags":[944],"class_list":["post-472594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rumours","category-avalanche","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-martin-necas"],"modified_by":"Andrew Willis","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3464"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472594"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":472596,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472594\/revisions\/472596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}