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Bring Back The Bruise Bros

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7 hours ago, Buppy said:

That's dumb. If the Keller deal were to set the market, then any good players would cost just as much. Can't be a cheapskate, trading away anyone good before you have to pay them, and expect to build anything. If the market says our guys would cost more than we think, all it would mean is that maybe we'd have to get rid of a bad contract or two in order to sign a good UFA or two.

Beyond that, Keller just turned 21 and has 114 points in 167 games. Larkin is comparable, not the other guys. In fact he's well ahead of Larkin's production at that age. If anything, this deal should keep the cost of our guys down, since none of them are anywhere near as good.

Larkin signed for 5 years and could hit UFA before his 27th birthday. Keller gave up 3 extra years of his prime, and has performed better at this point. It's a risky deal, but not necessarily a bad one, and could easily be a huge bargain.

At their age, long-term deals for our kids probably wouldn't get you any appreciable discount. May even cost more. Looking for a new contract at 34 would be much tougher than at 30. They could very well ask for a premium if they're giving you pretty much the rest of their career.

40 mil is a lot of cheddar.  And hockey contracts are guaranteed.  

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3 minutes ago, Jonas Mahonas said:

40 mil is a lot of cheddar.  And hockey contracts are guaranteed.  

I don't mind players getting their due, but when they've been in the league for a few short seasons I'd be wary of giving them what they claim to be 'fair market value'.

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3 minutes ago, Jonas Mahonas said:

Arbitrator will just find 2 most recent comparables

If the player qualifies which in most cases players coming off their 3 yr ELC don't...IMHO it might be beneficial for both sides if the young players were allowed to have arbitration sooner than later...Food for thought in the next CBA.

AA/Mantha/lil'Bert can file next summer since they'll still be RFAs.

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34 minutes ago, Jonas Mahonas said:

40 mil is a lot of cheddar.  And hockey contracts are guaranteed.  

Security only buys you so much. Hard to imagine a 25yo being so concerned for their future that they'd give you a discount for longer term, while at the same time being unconcerned enough not to worry about their ability to get another contract after.

From their perspective, a 3 year contract is the best option. The longer you go over that, the closer you'll need to be to what they think they could make as UFAs. Mantha and AA at least could get $5M for a short-term deal, you're not getting 8 years at that rate unless they really want to be here.

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4 hours ago, Buppy said:

Security only buys you so much. Hard to imagine a 25yo being so concerned for their future that they'd give you a discount for longer term, while at the same time being unconcerned enough not to worry about their ability to get another contract after.

From their perspective, a 3 year contract is the best option. The longer you go over that, the closer you'll need to be to what they think they could make as UFAs. Mantha and AA at least could get $5M for a short-term deal, you're not getting 8 years at that rate unless they really want to be here.

Yeah at 25 I'd think most guys would prefer more $$$ over contract length...At 28/29 the light bulb suddenly flickers on, and for quite a few that length becomes more important.

Edited by F.Michael

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4 hours ago, LeftWinger said:

I didn't mean trade one today (unless that #1 D became available) I meant if they both get 70+ points and they both want $7M+. But, maybe we could afford it, especially if we could ditch a couple of other contracts. 

I knew this is what you meant. You get a player that puts up 70+ points and you suddenly want to trade them because they will command a big pay day? To me that's really dumb. You want good players. You need to be willing to pay good players. What exactly would you want to trade one of them for? If you're trading for a top pair defenseman, you're going to have to pay him that or more. If you're trading for anything less, it's a waste.

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20 minutes ago, krsmith17 said:

I knew this is what you meant. You get a player that puts up 70+ points and you suddenly want to trade them because they will command a big pay day? To me that's really dumb. You want good players. You need to be willing to pay good players. What exactly would you want to trade one of them for? If you're trading for a top pair defenseman, you're going to have to pay him that or more. If you're trading for anything less, it's a waste.

Yes, you want 4 long term forwards making 30 mil, 4 long term forwards making 16 mil, and 8 short term forwards making 8 mil.

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6 hours ago, Jonas Mahonas said:

Yes, you want 4 long term forwards making 30 mil, 4 long term forwards making 16 mil, and 8 short term forwards making 8 mil.

if you have $54M committed to 12 forwards you are basically f*cked. that would leave you $27M for 2 spare forwards, your whole defense and both goalies. I don´t think your offense can make up for your backend...

 

edit: sry I didn´t see the 8 forwards, I thought it was 4. But still its your whole def + goalies. $20M for seven defensemen is thin. Tampa for example has $22M for their D and that is with Shattenkirk for $1.75M and Sergachev still on ELC. $50M for your forward group is the maximum you can spend imo. My preference would be a real good top 4 on defense and I would think you need around $25M for a top 5 defense in the NHL

Edited by ely s

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On 9/7/2019 at 10:14 AM, Jonas Mahonas said:

Been saying this for awhile.  Holland raped Larkins agent.  Yzerman wont be able to do the same going forward with guys putting up 60 pts plus.  They will command north of 6 mil per.  Thats why ive been pushing for extensions THIS offseason.  8 years, 40 million to both of them would be wise.  Offer incentives if they balk.  If they dont sign, you know their play and can get them traded before they start to cause an issue.

Disagree.  If you want to compare Larkin's contract to Keller's, it's probably not far off.  Larkin signed $6.1 per for 5 years, not giving up UFA years (maybe 1?).  Keller signed a $7 per for 8 years, gave up 3 years of UFA.  You can't discount the value of UFA years, whether you agree or not, it's huge in contract negotiations.  This alone brings the numbers close if not equivalent.  Also, Keller's contract was signed a year later.  As already mentioned, Keller produced significantly more to date as compared to Larkin at the same age.

So, considering all that, one could say Keller's deal is better from a team perspective.  When I look at it in isolation I think it's a huge overpayment and I tend to think the same to all the deals, including Larkin's when they are first signed.  So many of them are signed for potential vs. what they have proven.  This makes some sense of course....I don't want to pay for what you've done, that doesn't help the team, I want to pay for what you are going to do.  History shows that some of these signings blow up in the face of the teams that have signed them and some turn out to be good deals.

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7 minutes ago, amato said:

:o

Maybe he would've signed a big offer sheet 

Yeah, I'm not big into offer sheets, but would have been worth a try to pry Werenski out of Columbus. He most definitely would have signed one to play for his hometown team, Detroit and BFF, Larkin. Of course it would have had to be something Columbus wouldn't have been able to match... What would that look like? $8M x 7?

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On 9/5/2019 at 1:51 PM, ChristopherReevesLegs said:

Lets change the phrasing to "players you can build a team around" instead of elite. I think you can build a team around Larkin... I don't think you can build a team around Mantha or Bertuzzi.

Likewise I think you can build a team Tarasenko, ROR, and Pietrangelo. That's what I think we need. 2 more solid building blocks that can help the D-Boss. I don't really care too much exactly where they slot in, but I'd like at least one to be a Dman. Hopefully that's Seider or Hronek.

St. Louis really lucked into a HOT rookie goalie this year. I'm far from convinced Binnington is the real deal yet, but we'll see.

On 9/5/2019 at 2:09 PM, kipwinger said:

Totally agree about the goaltending.  It's a bit of a truism to say that you need a hot goaltender to win the Cup, but it's hard to build around that. In fact, it's one of those rare situations where having the "best" goaltender hardly ensures you'll have "good" playoff goaltending.  Consider that NONE of Luongo, Lundqvist, or Price have a Cup.

Also totally agree that a group you can "build around" is a better situation than a few "elite" guys.  But that's where I think positional strength matters.  For instance, say you've got a couple workhorse centers but they're guys who don't score a ton relative to their peers. No problem if you collective group of wingers do score more than their peers.  I don't think we need Super high scoring (80-100 point centers). Another 70 pts. guy will do as long as he's an assist machine.  Because I think ALL of our top 6 wingers (and maybe one of our 3rd liners too) are going to score 20-30 goals.  In this thought experiment lets use a Claude Giroux type.  A top 9 of Larkin, Giroux, Veleno, Mantha, Bert, AA, Zadina, Ras/Berggren/Mastrosime/Svech, probably brutalizes opposition defenses without a single "elite" talent. 

Same with the defense.  I think they need to collectively be able to put up points, without the need for any one player to be an offensive stud.  A couple 30 point guys paired with a couple 40 point guys are a really good top four as long as they can defend competently. 

What if next summer if we draft a gamebreaking winger -- let's say Lucas Raymond -- and then pry Brayden Schenn away from STL in free agency? Center core becomes Larkin, Schenn, Veleno. Top-9 winger group becomes Athanasiou, Bertuzzi, Mantha, Raymond, Zadina, [insert forward of choice]. Maybe at that point you trade a winger for a defenseman, or maybe you stand pat with the defense. Either way, that forward group could be pretty filthy.

In goal, sign Jacob Markstrom. Markstrom-Larsson tandem.

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10 minutes ago, Dabura said:

What if next summer if we draft a gamebreaking winger -- let's say Lucas Raymond -- and then pry Brayden Schenn away from STL in free agency? Center core becomes Larkin, Schenn, Veleno. Top-9 winger group becomes Athanasiou, Bertuzzi, Mantha, Raymond, Zadina, [insert forward of choice]. Maybe at that point you trade a winger for a defenseman, or maybe you stand pat with the defense. Either way, that forward group could be pretty filthy.

In goal, sign Jacob Markstrom. Markstrom-Larsson tandem.

That would depend entirely on how well Joe Veleno turns out.  But yeah, in theory that could be really good.  Though, if Veleno turns into a solid 2C then you could still draft a winger, like you're talking about, and put Rasmussen at 3C.  I'd still really like that top 9 in theory. 

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2 minutes ago, kipwinger said:

That would depend entirely on how well Joe Veleno turns out.  But yeah, in theory that could be really good.  Though, if Veleno turns into a solid 2C then you could still draft a winger, like you're talking about, and put Rasmussen at 3C.  I'd still really like that top 9 in theory. 

I'm assuming Veleno spends most of 2019-20 in the AHL and then breaks into the NHL as a winger and then needs some time to adjust to the rigors of being an NHL centerman. At which point Schenn's probably starting to decline and maybe Veleno can bump him down to 3C. Each of Larkin, Schenn, Veleno can play wing, so there's some flexibility there.

I'm not sold on Rasmussen being a full-time pivot, but time will tell.

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3 hours ago, toby91_ca said:

Disagree.  If you want to compare Larkin's contract to Keller's, it's probably not far off.  Larkin signed $6.1 per for 5 years, not giving up UFA years (maybe 1?).  Keller signed a $7 per for 8 years, gave up 3 years of UFA.  You can't discount the value of UFA years, whether you agree or not, it's huge in contract negotiations.  This alone brings the numbers close if not equivalent.  Also, Keller's contract was signed a year later.  As already mentioned, Keller produced significantly more to date as compared to Larkin at the same age.

So, considering all that, one could say Keller's deal is better from a team perspective.  When I look at it in isolation I think it's a huge overpayment and I tend to think the same to all the deals, including Larkin's when they are first signed.  So many of them are signed for potential vs. what they have proven.  This makes some sense of course....I don't want to pay for what you've done, that doesn't help the team, I want to pay for what you are going to do.  History shows that some of these signings blow up in the face of the teams that have signed them and some turn out to be good deals.

These are all fantastic points.  Great post.  One thing i do think you are missing is the players value to his team.  Larkin in the heart of his team.  Keller is the left arm of his team.

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The trouble with projecting either of Veleno or Rasmussen a few years from now is that we're all really susceptible to recency bias.  A year ago people thought Zadina was making the big club out of camp too.  One year, and a "meh" AHL season later, and people have a totally different perception of things.  If Veleno struggles against AHL competition things change.  If he breaks into the NHL and dominates on the wing, a la AA, then things change. If Ras starts in the AHL and dominates as a center, things change. 

In theory I obviously agree that our centers don't have to be elite offensively if our collect group of wingers are.  I made that point to begin with.  But as I've been saying since before the draft, center is our weakest positional groups right now and a lot is up in the air.  We have one quality NHL center and one quality center prospect.  That's it.  So determining the strength of our center group in 2 or 3 years, with or without a Brayden Schenn is pretty tough.

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