It’s Time for the Colorado Avalanche to Trade Ryan O’Reilly

The Colorado Avalanche need to trade Ryan O’Reilly and be rid of his selfish attitude once and for all, he has repeatedly proven that he only cares about himself.

The Avalanche are an up and coming team with a lot of young talent and the last thing the need is a selfish veteran messing up the chemistry. Every professional athlete wants to make as much as they can and, for the most part, I’ve always supported that. Careers are short and can end at anytime, so players should get as much as they feel they are worth. There’s the rub with O’Reilly.

Someone needs to tell him that he’s not the second coming of Mario Lemiuex, and his act is growing tired. O’Reilly is not even on the same level with his teammate, Matt Duchene and now he wants to be paid more than him. If anyone should be insulted, it should be Duchene.

Duchene agreed to a long-term deal that was fair to both sides and his team first attitude has allowed the Avalanche to make other moves to improve the roster. O’Reilly believes that he should be paid as if he was the best player on the roster and he doesn’t seem to care what that would do to the team’s win-loss record.

What’s funny or sad about this whole thing is that O’Reilly is not even in the top five Avalanche players. Duchene, Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon, Semyon Varlamov and Jarome Iginla are all better than O’Reilly. For the amount of money that O’Reilly is demanding, he should be a top five player in the league.

There’s little doubt that O’Reilly has talent but he is wildly inconsistent. One night he does look like the best player on the team and the next night, he looks like he should be playing pond hockey in a beer league somewhere.

If I’m Joe Sakic, I’m not paying top dollar for that. It’s more than just the irrational money demands though; O’Reilly has also proven to be a cry baby in other areas as well.

When the Avalanche named Landeskog as captain a couple of years ago, O’Reilly threw a fit. A fit that the mother of a two-year old would have been embarrassed by. If the Avalanche needed any confirmation that they made the right choice, O’Reilly provided it with his reaction.

O’Reilly, on one hand, wants to be the captain and a leader but then continually pulls this nonsense with his contract. I’m sorry but those two things do not go hand in hand, a leader puts the team first and himself second. O’Reilly has never put anything or anyone in front of his own desires in his professional career.

In all honesty, the Avalanche are at fault here as well. Paul Stastny was willing to give the Avalanche a home town discount but still left via free agency. Sakic knew the track record of O’Reilly and had to know this was coming. They should have made an offer to keep Stastny in Colorado and let O’Reilly go.

It’s just a guess but I believe Stastny would have stayed in Colorado for less than what O’Reilly is demanding, and he’s a better player. Sakic and Patrick Roy deserve are the credit they’ve received for re-building the Avalanche so quickly, but they botched this.

The Avalanche have enough talent to win without O’Reilly and his distractions certainly would not be missed. As selfish as he is, O’Reilly would still be attractive to many teams around the league. Maybe, just maybe, the Avalanche can get an above average defenseman for O’Reilly.

O’Reilly is a good player, sometimes very good but his act isn’t worth the trouble. The Avalanche are about winning a Stanley Cup and O’Reilly is about winning at the bank. It’s time for the Avalanche to cut their losses and trade Ryan O’Reilly.

He’s just not worth it!