Avs re-sign Liles and Foote

From TSN:

Sources tell TSN that Liles and the Colorado Avalanche have agreed to terms on a four-year contract worth an average of slightly more than $4 million per year.

Liles was scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent on Tuesday. The deal is likely to be formally announced Monday.It's also expected the Avalanche will announce then that they have also re-signed Foote.

Sources tell TSN Foote's deal is believed to be for two years and a total of $6 million, or $3 million per year.

Read more about the signings here.

Foote's deal is reasonable in both term and salary. The Avs really had no choice but to re-sign him after giving away a first round pick to secure his services at the deadline. That being said, he is still a solid stay-at-home defenseman, who is a strong voice in the dressing room.

As for Liles, his contract seems reasonable as well. Liles is just entering some of his prime years, so his four year deal is a perfect amount of time. Additionally, $4 million per season is about what defensemen of his skill-level are making.

Good work by Francois Giguere and Co.

Flyers will look to mid-level free agent defensemen

From Ed Moran of the Philadelphia Daily News:

There will be some salary adjustments but not enough to go over the top as the Flyers did last summer. So they will look at the list of free agents in the midsalary range, including Colorado's John-Michael Liles, Buffalo's Dmitri Kalinin and Montreal's Mark Streit.

"We'll be right up against the upper limit of the cap," Holmgren said. "But there are ways to be creative and we will look at those ways. We need to concentrate on ways to make our team better for next season.

Read the entire article here.

Liles and Streit may even be out of the Flyers' price range as they will most likely command pretty hefty dollars on the market. I would expect the Flyers to sign a defenseman at around the $3-3.5 million range.

The Avalanche may let John-Michael Liles walk

From Adrian Dater of the Denver Post:

Personally, I think it would be a drastic mistake to let Liles just go for nothing. Look back on some of your playoff game tapes from this year, and tell me that Liles wasn’t their best defenseman much of the time. At least, when it came to getting the puck out of the zone and up the ice, he was.

Are they really going to just hand over Liles’ role to Kyle Cumiskey? I think that’s a mistake at this point. Cumiskey still has a LOT to learn in his own end. Yeah, he’s got great wheels and can get the puck out probably even faster than Liles. But he was turnover-prone at times with the Avs, and the fact is he’s still never scored an NHL goal.

A lot of NHL scouts and GMs think very highly of Liles, so if he’s left unrestricted July 1, I think you can expect a mini-feeding frenzy for his services. Maybe the Avs don’t think they can afford him - and keep everybody else they want to keep. But I think Liles should be a higher priority to sign over guys like Sauer and Finger.

Read the entire entry from All Things Avs here.

I agree with Dater. This should be one of the Avalanche's top priorities heading into the off-season. Liles is a smooth-skating, puck-moving defenseman, who can quarterback the power play. Those players don't grow on trees. To let him go for nothing would be a poor move on their part.