Despite trading one of the NHL's scoring leaders and a franchise stalwart, MacFarland says the Avalanche are still "all-in."

A stunned Nathan MacKinnon tried to make sense of the Colorado Avalanche trading Mikko Rantanen to the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night.

Mikko Rantanen says he was willing to take a discount to stay with the Avalanche before the Hurricanes trade happened.

The Colorado Avalanche has traded Mikko Rantanen to the Carolina Hurricanes, according to multiple reports. Rantanen is in the final year of his contract and can be an unrestricted free agent in July. He leads the Avs with 25 goals and has 64 points, which was sixth in the NHL entering Friday night’s games.

Here are three blockbuster Avalanche trade targets in the wake of the stunning Mikko Rantanen trade with the Hurricanes.

The Colorado Avalanche have traded 28-year-old star forward Mikko Rantanen. The team confirmed the move late Friday night.

Mikko Rantanen dropped a very strong message to the Colorado Avalanche shortly after being traded in an NHL blockbuster move to the Carolina Hurricanes.

Facing the prospect of Colorado’s star winger Mikko Rantanen becoming an unrestricted free agent after this season, general manager Chris MacFarland felt the timing was right to deal him away and bolster the Avalanche’s roster for the future.

The Colorado Avalanche were at an impasse with Mikko Rantanen in terms of getting a contract done. There were talks at the beginning of the season as the unrestricted free agent was eligible to sign a new contract on July 1st,

If the Avalanche had opened up a good old-fashioned bidding war on Mikko Rantanen, here are teams that would have been the best fit.

Although plenty of new information has emerged regarding the trade that sent Mikko Rantanen from the Colorado Avalanche to the Carolina Hurricanes, we hadn’t heard from the player himself. In an article by Corey Masisak of The Denver Post,