As in the West is more of a grind or just because both game 2’s went to OT in the West? I think a team from the East will win, but I think that’s because they’ll send a better team, not because they had an “easier” path.
Half-Assed GDT: “We got left out of the party” amalgamated SCP thread
- Thread starter AjaxManifesto
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As in the West is more of a grind or just because both game 2’s went to OT in the West? I think a team from the East will win, but I think that’s because they’ll send a better team, not because they had an “easier” path.
Brian39
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Stastny's going to have to take a gigantic pay cut to stay in Winnipeg. Trouba, Morrisey and Hellebuyck are all due substantial raises this summer and Enstrom either needs to be re-signed for non-insignificant money or replaced. Then next summer, they owe Wheeler a big raise, will owe Laine a garbage truck of cash, will need to give Connor some type of raise and need to re-sign or replace Myers. They have a lot of flexibility, but signing Stastny to anything close to market value eats up a lot of that flexibility.
Hellebuyck is going to get paid coming off a Vezina caliber season since he is arbitration eligible. Trouba already did a bridge deal and will be demanding a large raise. Wheeler has had 3 straight 70+ point seasons including a 91 point campaign this year. He is their captain and is known for being pretty good defensively. He's getting a large raise. Laine is one of the best young forwards in the game and appears to be on the verge of becoming the league's best goal scorer. He'll get a deal in line with Eichel, Draisaitl, Matthews, etc. It would be impressive if they can lock up those 4 guys for under $25 mil. Hellebuyck at $5 mil, Trouba at $4 mil, Wheeler at $8 mil and Laine at $8 mil puts them right at $25 mil for those 4 players and I think that's below market value for all of them. I think those 4 come in closer to $30 mil AAV than $25 mil and could easily top $30 mil. Combine that with the $34 mil they already have tied up in 7 guys for the 2019/20 season and suddenly you have $60 mil tied up in a goalie, 3 D and 6 forwards. Re-signing or replacing Enstrom and Myers is going to eat into that remaining cap fairly significantly and it's hard to bank on ELC or similar priced deals for 5+ forward spots. To make it work, Stastny would need to take a discount of a couple mil AAV from market, because I don't see how they make it work long term if he's making a dime more than $4 mil. Maybe they make it work on a 1 year deal at fair AAV, but even that would make this summer fairly difficult since Stastny is likely only interested in that if the AAV is at least market value.
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Brian39
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I ignored that because the Capfriendly calculation of their cap space already takes that into account, but you are completely correct. That contract should illustrate why I think $8 mil might be a conservative estimate for Laine. They extended Ehlers after he put up a 38 point rookie year and 64 point sophomore season. Laine hit 64 points (in fewer games) his rookie year and 70 points his sophomore year with a significantly higher goals to assists ratio. Laine also has a chance to show playoff performance prior to his deal and is doing well so far. WInnipeg will have to want the full 8 years of Laine, so it's pretty reasonable for his agent to argue for more than a $2 mil AAV cushion between Ehlers and Laine on his deal. I'm not sure Laine gets $10 mil per year (although that seems to be the direction for elite young talent), but I think his AAV will at least start with a 9.
hullderko
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Not sure I understand this? Standards are too high to suck and then build a team from high picks so we are stuck perpetually in mediocre city? Did the Penguins tank and suck for years before building a championship team? The Blues have had plenty of years of suckage to have built a championship team by now.
67Blues
Got it for Bobby
St. Louis won't support a 4-5 year rebuild like Edmonton goes through every decade. Sitting down there with 7000 of my closest friends in 2005-2006 proved that. Rack up a few years of sub-10K attendance here in St. Louis, and the ownership group is probably looking to get out. Missing the playoffs this year hurt the bottom line, missing it for another year will probably push the team to below the salary cap. Missing it for 4-5 years and you are probably looking at a salary floor team or a moving van pulling up.
Brian39
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I agree that this market won't adequately support a 5 year rebuild, but I don't think the 05/06 season proves that. We were just coming off a lockout that soured plenty of fans on hockey in general. During the lockout, ownership traded the franchise D man for spare parts in a deal that was 100% about selling the team and 0% about the on ice product. The team remained for sale through almost the entire season. That season was not marketed well at all (or almost at all). The fans weren't sold on a rebuild as a strategy to build a winner. We weren't a bad team the year before whose only option was to rebuild. And this all occurred in the first year of the salary cap well before the Pens, Hawks and Kings all demonstrated that top picks were the way to build a winner in the cap era. The Wings and Devils combined for 6 of the previous 10 Cups and any thought of them rebuilding by being a basement dweller were long surpassed by the acquisition of players outside the draft.
A multi year rebuild via bottoming out wasn't nearly as popular then as it is now and a rebuild today would have much greater fan acceptance than the 2005/06 gongshow. We're a long way from being in rebuild mode. But if we got there, it would include trading Parayko, Petro, and Tarasenko for tons of futures. We'd stock our cupboard in a way we didn't even approach coming out of the lockout and there would be something to rally around for fans.
Shwabeal
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That's easier to sell to people that frequent this board to talk about the team/hockey in general than it is to my neighbors that see a handful of games a year, but don't really know all that much about the team. There's no way to predict what attendance/fan engagement would look like in St. Louis until it becomes a necessity and we actually see it play out. St. Louis is an extremely underrated hockey city, but I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if attendance was even 11k/game in year 3 or 4 of a 4 or 5 year rebuild.
mk80
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First of all great posts in looking all that up on Capfriendly so I don't have to. I knew they were young but wow Chevaldayoff is going to need to be a wizard when orchestrating contracts. They did some work to retain their roster already considering they traded their first-round pick last year and a third-round pick in the 2019 in exchange for Vegas drafting Thorburn.
You can't throw that kind of bait out on this board. People will go nuts!
Brian39
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I'm not trying to say attendance won't take a hit. It will. I just don't think that the 05/06 season proves that since it was a perfect storm of fan alienation. Teams have gotten way better at selling a rebuild to fans in the cap era (as demonstrated by the uptick in fan engagement after 05/06 when we were still bad but actually marketing a rebuild instead of just giving the middle finger to the fanbase with a for sale sign out front).
I don't think we are anywhere near a lengthy rebuild and I don't think it would be good business to go that way. But I do think that if/when we hit a point where it is clearly needed, the franchise can weather it.
Shwabeal
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I agree with you about this last part. I think the organization would be fine and we wouldn't be in danger of losing our team, but there is really no way to know what the outcome would be. I'd only be concerned if it was an extended rebuild where it takes up the better part of a decade. Just like you, I think they'd be able to get through it, I'd just rather not have to find out lol.
If it got to the point where the Blues needed to rebuild, they'd have to have some already good/great pieces in the pipeline and be able to point to a high lottery pick with name recognition to appease the casual fan in the first year or two. Short of that, I think it could be a very difficult sell to those types of fans.
Brian39
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In the abstract, I think the "plan" for rebuilding teams is trending towards short rebuilds rather than multi-year rebuilds. Edmonton, Buffalo, and Arizona have to give organizations pause when considering a rebuild where the team intends to be bad for 3ish years, stockpile assets and then come out of the basement. It can be successful, but it also is not a guarantee of success. I think we'll see teams doing what the Rangers seem to be doing where they sell a bunch of older/rental assets in a throwaway year, get multiple 1st round picks (including an early one), bring in a couple younger guys as part of those trades and then attempt to add in UFA over the summer. Or a retool like we've seen with the Blues where you remain in playoff contention but sell for futures at the deadline.
With the league trending younger, I think that 3+ years in the gutter is more a sign of bad management than a successful planned rebuild.
Shwabeal
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I think what the Rangers did is going to be the new blueprint for retools/rebuilds. They couldn't have handled that any better with the assets they acquired. I don't see them being a bottom feeder for more than a year. In their situation, it does help to be an attractive destination to UFAs that should help them accelerate the process, though.
The problem for any team trying to is that there haven't been many successful examples to follow. As you mentioned, the Buffalo, Arizona, and Edmonton rebuilds have been the model NOT to follow at this point. Hopefully what DA has done the last two years can help take the team to the next level and his model then becomes the "blueprint" for other teams. These retools can all go south quickly though if there is any sort of misstep along the way. It looked like Chia had brought the Oilers out of it finally, makes an ill advised move or two, and bam, they're back to suckage. Extremely narrow line to walk.
Gotta love Murray taking a dive as soon as he takes the first sog after one of his guys take a penalty.
Pittsburgh is getting some favorable treatment tonight. I can see why it was ruled a good goal, but we never get calls like that.
Shwabeal
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Not saying it was the case on that one, but I hate how those calls have to have video "proof" (they actually see the puck across the line) to call it a good goal. There have been a handful of ones for the Blues alone where the puck is under a goalies glove or blocker and you can see space between the glove or blocker and the goal line, but you don't actually see the puck.
Common sense should be allowed in those situations. I get why they don't do that because it leaves it up to a guessing game, but there have been some that are pretty obvious ones without a clear view of the puck.
Common sense should be allowed in those situations. I get why they don't do that because it leaves it up to a guessing game, but there have been some that are pretty obvious ones without a clear view of the puck.
AjaxManifesto
Pro sports is becoming predictable and boring
Brian39
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Laine didn't have a great game, but he still scored their only goal, which gave them a chance in the final minute. That's a perfect example of how guys like him, Tarasenko, Kane, etc are so valuable. They can be invisible all game but capitalize on the one thing they do right the entire night. He got destroyed on the NBC broadcast, but I didn't think his play was much worse than about half of Winnipeg's roster.
I can't help but laugh when Roenick is blasting him for a 6 game goal drought when he has a 4 game point streak going. We might be setting expectations a tad high for a guy who just turned 20.
I can't help but laugh when Roenick is blasting him for a 6 game goal drought when he has a 4 game point streak going. We might be setting expectations a tad high for a guy who just turned 20.
