Never_Retire_Steve

I'm really sad about this because signing guys like this should be a pretty easy task yet here we are discussing all these things that need to fall into place to get AA signed and it's solely due to incompetence from the FO.

Fair enough, he was good up until about 2010 and then the wheels started to fall off a bit. Don't forget, players like Lidstrom and Datsyuk can really mask a poor GM.

Really hope Holland goes. Was a great GM in the non-cap era. Last few years have been a complete disaster.

Personally, I love the strategy of signing mid to long range deals for guys who are in their primes. Typically the best years of hockey player's careers are exactly where the core of Nashville is right now so I think it's a really smart move to avoid a bridge deal like a lot of other teams do. Subban should be one of the highest paid dmen in the league IMO. There's some insanely good deals out there on dmen right now.... Duncan Keith and OEL immediately come to mind but this is why I think Nashville is smart is because it is much more likely that even if they overpaid these guys (I don't think they have), in the future it is very likely going to look like a good deal because the majority of them are likely to improve. Detroit on the other hand has a bunch of contracts and term that are on guys that are 30+ and that to me can look real messy in a few years, not to mention that they all seem to have NTC/NMCs. Nashville on the other hand has 1.

They have all these guys locked up in their primes for 5 years and spending ~$30 million which gives them a ton of flexibility to fill out the rest of their roster. You're completely right that what they do with the rest of that money is important but having 5 guys like that over the next five years is cheap when you look at it relatively. A lot of those guys should be making more IMO.

I really hope that management is looking what Nashville is doing and figures out how to build a solid core for many years. Amazing to me that the Predators have Johnasen, Arvidsson, Forsberg, Subban, and Ekholm for the terms they do for as cheap as they do. Amazing job by Poile IMO.

Trying to think who the winners of this offseason so far has been... Would probably be inclined to go with the Rangers. Shattenkirk contract seems ok and they're a possible contender over those 4 years so I like that deal. Also, getting of Giradi is a good move.

I mean, you should always consider trading everyone on your roster if the return is right but what would your plan be if you were Holland? My plan would be to keep a youthful core and try and build around it and try and keep contracts low for now and if you start to see some potential from some of these guys then that gives you the opportunity to go out and target a high end guy to make a difference.

You've listed the guys that I'm sure other GMs would want, however, the majority of the guys that you listed are the few guys that I'd never want to trade and are exactly the guys that I'd rather build around moving forward.

Can you give me an example? Put yourself in the shoes of another GM in the league and let me know what you think a team would want to do because I'm honestly struggling to find something that works. I agree with the assessment of Poile. He's made some great moves over the past few years.

How do we even make moves now given our cap situation and some of these ridiculous contracts? I went to the arm chair GM tool in cap friendly and it was almost impossible for me to figure out a trade that another team would even look at. I'd be really curious to hear some thoughts to see what we can do to get out of this gross cap situation that we have ourselves in.

Holland has really got himself into a clusterf***, holy s***. Why are we spending like this and still thinking we're a contender? Absolutely horrible offseason this has been and we're currently projecting to be $3M over the cap. Sure Franzen will go to LTIR but then what? Now it looks like we'll either have to make a trade and retain some salary or buy someone out.

I don't think it's smart to have your top 5 d men all with NTCs who are all making $3M+. Makes it incredibly hard to make roster moves based on that. If we're going for it then maybe but I don't think we're in the "win now" mode.

I'm so conflicted. I want this team to win so bad but I think that Holland has really f***ed up, especially over the last 2 seasons and I don't want us to be the new Edmonton Oilers or Buffalo Sabres where we suck every year for an extended period of time. However, if we do really suck, maybe we make some management changes and we decide to make smarter moves. Sorry to be Debbie Downer but I really think we're going to be bad this upcoming season and likely to be a lottery team.

I love CRLs optimism. I wish I was on the same side. Let's hope I'm wrong.

I mean, of course it's a reality but there's a lot of "traditional" things that GMs do today including NTCs but that doesn't mean it's smart. In this case, I think it's magnified because the majority of our D currently has some sort of NTC which makes trading a *****.

So dumb though with the direction this team should be heading and what their current situation is. Don't they already have their entire top 4 with some sort of NTC/NMC? I'm pretty sure that they do which makes extremely difficult to make good long term moves due to financial restrictions as well as roster size and what you can and can't move. I get why players want NTC/NMC but there should be a max of like 3 players that get one on any team, otherwise you end up ******* yourself over when you have zero assets to leverage in trade negotiations.

Why the f*** would they give him an NTC?

Only way to have Jagr is if he's cheap.

From what I can tell Toronto is over the cap as well. Man, I went to cap friendly and tried to put together a team that I think we could reasonably ice this season and after July 1 it's really hard to try and move guys since so many teams have made signings/trade. Probably should've played around with it beforehand to see what it may have potentially looked like.

Not a huge fan of the Marleau contract for reasons you pointed out but I actually believe that he is probably best fit in a team like Toronto as he's still a very good player and Toronto has a very bright future. I think that's a decent deal for Dallas. Looks like their plan hasn't changed much in the past 3-5 and will simply look to win every game 6-5.

Right, it was an extension. Thanks for pointing that out... Not a huge fan based on that information. What do people think of the Marleau deal?

At first I loved the deal because Price is clearly the best goalie in the league to me but now after thinking about it a little bit further, I'm starting to notice that in the salary cap era, I can't really think of a long term superstar deal that has worked out extremely well for teams but I can think of many situations down the road where contracts have handcuffed teams really bad. On the one side you get a player like Price locked up in his prime but by the end of his contract he'll be 37 years old so when does his level of play start to suffer? Every player is different obviously but I don't think it's crazy to say that it might be half way through the contract and then what? Plus, there's always a chance for injury.

Big Draisaitl fan... Not going to dispute he doesn't have an impact. I'll go further and suggest that guys like Nurse having pretty big improvement definitely helps. I'm just saying that McDavid's contract is fine and they can build around him with cheap talent if they find the right guys and can be a contender. The pens have done it with massive contracts and so have the Blackhawks. Blackhawks in fact are the better example because they've had to say good bye to a lot of very good players in the last 7 years but have managed to fill the void with recognizing good talent for cheap prices. People saying that McDavid's contract is going to f*** the Oilers are wrong IMO and there are good examples of teams that have been able to have 2+ superstars with massive contracts and be ok. I think Edmonton will be fine with McDavid and Draisaitl. Usually a contract like the Price one is a disaster for teams. However, I do feel like Price is the exception.

Really shocked to see no action from Vegas today.