Carl Soderberg agrees to five-year contract with Avalanche

The Colorado Avalanche have signed Carl Soderberg to a five-year deal worth $4.75 million contract per ESPN’s Craig Custance. 

Remember, Soderberg was No. 2 on our list of free agent forwards and receives a pretty hefty raise from his $1.008,333 million per-year contract he had from the Boston Bruins. The Avs acquired the rights to Soderberg from the salary cap crunched Boston Bruins on Thursday for a sixth-round draft pick.

We can now play the game of – if the 29-year-old Soderberg is worth $4.75 million on a five-year deal, what do you give 27-year-old Matt Beleskey. Dude’s going to make bank!

The deal includes a full no-trade for the first two years and a limited no-trade the last three per Pierre LeBrun. 

This is one of those deals that needs to be looked at in greater context for Colorado. Center Ryan O’Reilly is entering the final year of a deal that pays him $6 million per. According to Nick Kypreos of Sportsnet, O’Reilly wants a $60 million contract in his next deal when he’s an unrestricted free agent next summer.

Soderberg isn’t O’Reilly, but he’s a center who is capable. Last season he had 13 goals and 21 assists for Boston. He had 48 points the prior year.

Plus the Avs need to work on contracts for RFAs Nathan MacKinnon, Tyson Barrie next summer as well as pending UFA Erik Johnson.

If O’Reilly is done in Colorado, this seems to follow the Avs method of replacing higher-end younger players with less solid older guys. For example Paul Stastny, who bolted to St. Louis as a UFA last summer, was essentially replaced by Danny Briere and/or Jarome Iginla.

Then again, the Avs already have a solid 1-2 punch at center with MacKinnon and Matt Duchene. O’Reilly is just a luxury to a degree and has seemed to just not be a fit with the team culture after a contentious contract negotiation during the 2012 offseason.

He seemed disgruntled after the April loss that eliminated Colorado -- a team that won the Central Division a year ago -- from postseason contention.

“We tried to do the same things we did last year, and I feel like all the best teams that consistently find ways to win, they continually adapt,” O’Reilly said to Puck Daddy. “They constantly make changes, finding new ways to win, and it took us a while to find that.”

Is he going to get dealt during this draft weekend? The pieces are in place.

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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper

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