A stumbling block in the Mikko Rantanen-Avalanche contract negotiations stems from the 2015-16 season

I remain an optimist that Mikko Rantanen and the Colorado Avalanche will work out their differences on a new contract in time for the regular season. As I’ve said before, both sides want to do a deal and both sides like each other. It’s just about getting the numbers right.

There is something of a stumbling block, though, in the negotiations, and it has to do with the 2015-16 season. I briefly alluded to this in another story last month, but with Avs players slated to be in Denver for physicals a week after this coming Thursday, with training camp starting a day later, time is…starting to get short on this thing… and therefore I’ll go deeper into what this stumbling block is about: