Never_Retire_Steve

Well, pretty much what I expected to see today, no major moves as the contracts we have currently doesn't make sense to go crazy over UFAs. Would've loved to see Yzerman do something similar to Bergevin and offer sheet someone like Werensky but I doubt that happens.

Love the idea of offer sheeting Aho but needed to offer more money IMO. Carolina already announced they'd match.

Just got Wayne Simmonds now too and also have a ton of cap space.

I agree it would be very doubtful that Toronto wouldn't match but I disagree with your second statement. Our team gets significantly better with a guy like Marner on the team. Also, after next summer, there's a lot more flexibility with the roster and I agree to lock up the young guys you mentioned is important, none of them are close to the talent level that Marner has.

This draft and current FA is showing that Yzerman is focusing on a youth movement on the backend. I like that plan.

I should rephrase successful offer sheets.

How many offer sheets have been done in NHL history? Only one that I can think of is Dustin Penner. I used to think that extending an offer sheet is stupid (and maybe it is) but thinking about it quickly makes me think that maybe it's not as bad of a strategy as most think. Extending an offer sheet to Marner might be a decent plan for 10.5 or under per season and then we give away 2 firsts, a 2nd, and a 3rd. Sure we're giving up prospects but Marner is a proven stud and has a pretty high ceiling plus is only 22 so should be in his prime for a few years to come.

Really liking what the Devils are doing and with guys like Hall, Hischier, Subban, Hughes, etc. in the mix I think they can be a contender this upcoming season if those guys are all healthy.

Ok, let's take a look at what we've got here: Bertuzzi 1 year left (1.4) - Larkin 4 years left (6.1) - Mantha 1 year left (3.3) This is our top line and this is who we should be building around. Big fan of all of these contracts but obviously will need to look to extend both Bertuzzi and Mantha. These guys are not going to be getting paid as little as they are considering current production. I'd be ecstatic if we could get both of those guys at extensions for a combined $9 million but they are first line guys and all three are young and need to do as much in our power to extend those guys. ???? - Athanasiou 1 year left (3) - Helm 2 years left (3.85) Athanasiou is worth a raise and would love to lock him up long term. Outside the top line, these are the fowards that we need to build on but they're likely going to command more money. To me, if we can get 5-7 year long terms that would be ideal and get them for 4.5-5.5 million that seems like a reasonable contract for those guys. Need a cheap option on the left side with some of these forwards likely to get raises. Helm is someone I'd like to try and move if possible. Maybe try sending him to a team that is looking for a depth guy or someone on the PP. Would be a hard sell but that would be a priority is to get rid of him. ?????? - Nielsen 3 years left (5.25) - ???????? Need a brand new 3rd line. If it were up to me this is where I think you shop around for guys who are underpaid and maybe don't put up a ton of points but have good possession numbers and can be assets on both ends of the ice. This is probably the toughest job as a gm and I honestly have no clue what I'd be doing but trying to look at guys in FA who are undervalued and try and get some guys there after some teams blow their loads on some of the top end guys. Would love to she Nielsen as he's under contract for 3 more years at a steep price, still could be useful for some teams that may take a shot on him hoping for a Stanley Cup run. Abdelkader 4 years left (4.25) - Glendenning 2 years left (1.8) - De La Rose 1 year left (900K) Yuck, outside the top 3 guys + Athanasiou, this forward unit is a disaster. Not sure how you move guys like Abdelkader and Glendenning but try to do what you can because they are terrible and shouldn't be taking up a roster spot. Guys like Rasmussen and Svechnikov can hopefully make some leaps and fill some of those gaps but they're also on ELCs and that will obviously need to be dealt with at some point as well. Green 1 year left (5.375) - Daley 1 year left (3.1) Green's contract is fine, needs to stay healthy. If I could retain Green at a lower cost than what he's currently making and is healthy than I'm ok with him staying. Daley's contract sucks, for the life of me, I don't understand why Holland was ok with getting us to the point where we have an average age of over 31 on the back end with our current contracts. Someone, might be willing to take a chance on Daley, here's to hoping, otherwise 1 year left isn't the worst thing in the world. Ericsson 1 year left (4.25) - Bowey 1 year left (1) Ugh, this blueline sucks, Bowey is young so hopefully he's better but need to let these contracts run their course and than cut bait after this season. DeKeyser 3 years left (5) - ????????? Need at least a couple of guys that can play defence. Find someone young on the backend to fill the vacancy as our team is old as f***. Dekeyser I still have faith can be worth his $5million and is still young so he might be a guy that can be used as trade bait. If he has a good season, this could be a good sell high scenario as he's likely going to be on the decline soon. Howard 1 year left (4) Bernier 2 years left (3) No real problems here, Howard is getting old though so I wouldn't mind seeing a replacement.

Erik Karlsson contract is interesting to me. Seems well worth it but this surely impacts the rest of the market for D men now.

Interested to see what Columbus will be doing this offseason. A lot of pieces appear to be moving out of CBJ or have some very interesting contracts that need to get signed. Panarin: UFA Bobrovsky: UFA Duchene: UFA Dzingel: UFA Dubois: RFA next season Werenski: RFA Murray: RFA Doesn't bode well for the Blue Jackets when you also consider the fact that they have about 0 draft picks to make this year. Lots of cap space though so should figure something out but that roster could look very different.

I hope so, I love watching McDavid so I hope he's successful from a fan of the game perspective.

Preference would be on moving those guys or a combo with a buyout. I don't want him to buy out all of them.

Thankful for the 20+ years that Kenny gave this organization but really happy to see him go. It's really too bad that he's going to the Oilers though because that's also one of my favorite teams to watch due to McDavid and now I'm terrified that he's going to ruin the prime of this generation's greatest player.

My point is that you just named 7 guys, SEVEN guys that shouldn't have received NTC/NMC. Just seems so ridiculous to me to limit your options like that on the trade market. My key questions for Yzerman become how do we move guys like Nielsen and Abdelkader who IMO don't really fit the long term goal of this organization but are signed long-term and make quite a bit of money and are both well past their primes. Abdelkader's NTC is pretty easy to trade but who takes that contract? If Yzerman can move or buyout all of Dekeyser, Nielsen,and Abdelkader than I'll feel a lot more confident. If I were Steve, that would be my priority. I'm excited to see what this roster looks like in 3 years. I think that's an appropriate time frame to give a new GM with this roster and hope that we are competing for a playoff spot by then.

?? The Hoffman thing? Otherwise I'm missing something here.

I think that's a massive oversimplification. I'll grant you that the FO wanted to keep the streak alive, hell, I wanted to keep it going as well but not in the expense of mortgaging the future. Regardless of the long-term goals of the franchise, contracts are obviously very different and the team could look VERY different based on a lot of different factors. I think we have a lot of terrible contracts. I don't see Tampa Bay with many...

I think we're on the same page really. The difference being that I think that there are certain players that are always worth pursuing. These players are rare but I would throw in guys like Crosby, Ovechkin, Subban, Karlsson and a few others. The reason I think guys like these are worth pursuing is because they're elite talents and instantly make the team better and on top of it, from a business standpoint, they put people in the seats and help with the fanbase. I get that it's not the best move long-term from a strategic perspective as you mentioned in the other thread compared to a guy like Trouba for instance. I did read and understand your comment about NTC/NMC and I think you're wrong but I have no interest in getting into an argument. I do however think it's a bad move though and I'll give you my reasons why. Right now, I'm 34 years old, if I were in the NHL right now and had a family, maybe a couple of kids and have spent 10+ years with one team and put down some family roots then I would say no to waiving a full NTC. I do understand the differences between modified NTCs and NMCs where teams can submit a list and that is certainly doesn't impact a team as much but whenever you relinquish control, you do limit your options on what you can get for a return.

I agree with all of this with the exception of B. I think a guy like Karlsson could certainly return a huge haul and would make us a better team and 28 is still young in today's NHL. I get the injury concerns, that's one thing that concerns me as well but I think he's a good option but as you stated, I think there are a lot better options out there.

I honestly see this as a complete dumpster fire as to where we're at today but am confident that we can right the ship. I really hope that we don't hand out so many NTCs/NMCs in the future. I firmly believe that this is part of the reason as to why we haven't been a competitive team in many years (along with bad decisions at trade deadlines when we were a fringe playoff team). What I'd like to see moving forward is a focus on signing young guys that have high ceilings for low space or veteran guys that you can sign cheaply (think like the Oakland A's and their moneyball approach). I'm willing to be wrong here but why the f*** did we go out and sign guys like Daley, Green, Vanek, and Nielsen? My intuition says that Holland thought these guys made our team better and put us in a position to make the playoffs but I think all of those signings were terrible and a few years ago should've of taken a different approach. I look at Tampa Bay and see what they've done there. All of their core is super young. Yes, they're going to have issues trying to retain a lot of those guys but Stamkos, Hedman, Kucherov, Palat, Johnson, Miller, Gourde, Point, Vasilevsky, etc. are all very young and those are the types of guys we should be trying to fill our roster with.

As of today we're $7 million over the cap but I'm going to assume that you mean heading into next season. Regardless of that comment, why would you be opposed to going after a Karlsson player? (I never saw the reasons stated). He's 29 and an elite D man, IMO a top 5 D man in the league, I just don't see why you wouldn't want a guy like that?

So we're getting Trevor Zegras?

I love the idea of an elite defenceman like Karlsson on the Red Wings but how can we afford him? We are over the cap and our focus should honestly be on blowing this thing up and doing a full reset. Normally, I would say that's a stupid move but we really f***ed ourselves over the past few years with bad contracts and need to focus long term as we're at least 3 years away from being a contender and it would just make zero sense to me to bring in Karlsson unless some idiot GM thinks it's a good idea to trade him for something stupid.

So pumped that Yzerman is back in Detroit but I hope that people give him some time to work some magic because he's inherited quite the mess. In 2018 we spent more money on salaries than 30 other NHL teams which blows my mind considering that we finished 28th in the league this season. What compounds problems is that we currently have 9 various types of NTCs or NMCs. A bunch of the contracts on this roster are already untradeable but now you have the NTC factor and it's going to be really hard for Yzerman to do anything for about 3 years IMO. I really hope that Yzerman can work his magic as he did in Tampa Bay but I'd caution people about being too optimistic for the immediate future and we really need to look at a long term strategy. I really, really, really hope that Yzerman has learned from the failure of Holland with a lot of these signings in the last ~7-8 years and get this team back on track. Welcome back to the D Steve!

Winning is helping me cope, but I have the worry it won't last long.