Ryan O’Reilly and Paul Stastny were gone, to begin with. There was no doubt whatsoever about that. The lucrative contracts with their new teams were signed by themselves, the team general managers and legal associates. Joe Sakic and Patrick Roy had bid them goodbye, and Sakic and Roy’s words were good in the NHL for anything they chose to attach their names to. O’Reilly and Stastny were no longer Colorado Avalanche.
The Colorado Avalanche knew they were gone? Of course they did. How could it be otherwise? They had already played against Paul Stastny. And the Ryan O’Reilly contract negotiations had been brutal.