GDT: 1st July 2019 - free agent frenzy

[WreckingCrew]

Yeah, I get the thinking, but I guess I don't see much risk from their side. It looks like they're at $69.7m at the moment. Adding Aho's number puts them at $78.1m. That still leaves $2.4m $3.4m under the hard cap, and with the extra 10% margin, $11.5m.

To me, it looks like it's enough to talk to some guys and not worry about the bridge to cap hell unless you actually get there. The odds seem remote enough that it doesn't seem like it would slow them down. And if we actually did let him walk, they'd probably want to ship somebody else out anyway to recover some of the draft picks they'd lose.

I thought we were at approx $62M right now (without Aho), who am I missing? (Looking at Capfriendly) $24.6M in forwards, $22.2M in D, $6.5M in G, $8.6M in buyouts

 

[DaveG]

Aho's agent also represents 2 of the most notable Habs players IIRC.

 

[Roman Yoshi]

coulda left off the "on Twitter" part, would still be accurate

I like the robot.

Seriously though, this happened to us Nashville fans. It sucks and it gives you pause but you match it and things usually work themselves out.

How your GM and organization responded was brilliant. Don't let the Habs win.

 

[Discipline Daddy]

Crazy how busy we've been so far. A part of me thinks Waddell has a massive vacation planned starting 7/2 so he got ALL THE OFFSEASON BUSINESS done by today. Pretty much. We fixed the goalie problem, got rid of Darling for a better asset, signed Aho, freed up cap space with the de Haan trade, got a 3C from Vegas for free, and acquired a 1st just for fun. It's been a wild ride so far this offseason. We do have to sign Williams or another RW, but that's not totally imminent.

Also, we live in a wild world where Arizona of all teams is the 4th highest spending team to the cap right now. Absurd. Yes, Hossa's LTIR frees up $5.3M, but if you ignore that for the moment they have $1.7M in space and need to sign 1 or 2 forwards.

 

[DaveG]

I thought we were at approx $62M right now (without Aho), who am I missing? (Looking at Capfriendly) $24.6M in forwards, $22.2M in D, $6.5M in G, $8.6M in buyouts

No that's exactly where we are. Even after re-signing Aho we're only a hair over 70 million as per the capology thread. And left to sign are McGinn, Maenalainen, Fleury, and Forsling. Only one of those that's going to sniff north of 1M is Brock, and that's probably 1.5 on a 2 year.

 

[cptjeff]

Crazy how busy we've been so far. A part of me thinks Waddell has a massive vacation planned starting 7/2 so he got ALL THE OFFSEASON BUSINESS done by today. Pretty much. We fixed the goalie problem, got rid of Darling for a better asset, signed Aho, freed up cap space with the de Haan trade, got a 3C from Vegas for free, and acquired a 1st just for fun. It's been a wild ride so far this offseason. We do have to sign Williams or another RW, but that's not totally imminent.

DW: "Hey, Justin, I've got a couple weeks set up at Glen Wesley's old beach house. Why don't you come by for a long weekend with the kids?"

 

[Drivebytrucker]

I feel sad for Montreal fans and their Management.

All of the key free agents they were going after spurned their advances.

The only attempt to save face was to sign this offer sheet and say "LOOK, WE TRIED TO GET BETTER"

It's a pathetic attempt and very easy to see right through

 

[SvechneJerk]

DW: "Hey, Justin, I've got a couple weeks set up at Glen Wesley's old beach house. Why don't you come by for a long weekend with the kids?"

I’ve been there - it’s nice.

 

[My Special Purpose]

I know this is a long ways away, but by Aho signing that offer sheet is he basically saying he doesn’t want to be in Carolina? So we really only have 5 more years left with him before he bolts to wherever? Why would he not just let the contract negotiations play out over the summer?

I really thought he was going to be a lifer (or very close to it) for us.

Because that doesn't seem to be his style? I think Aho wanted to be done. They've been talking about this for one year already. And as I think we all know by now, Dundon will run this to Oct. 1 to save $500k. I just think Aho was tired of it and wanted to enjoy his summer without being in constant contact with his agent.

Aho's agent also represents 2 of the most notable Habs players IIRC.

Now *that's* interesting to me.

This seems like a very stupid move by Bergevin. I was actually wondering how many GMs Aho's agent had to talk to before he found one dumb enough to make a very-easily matched offre hostile bid. But if Bergevin pulled a little quid pro quo with a guy who represents two of his upcoming negotiations, that starts to make a little sense. The only other explanation is that Bergevin is dumb as a rock.

I'm 50-50 right now.

 

[Cane mutiny]

I know it's fair value for him, but the fact that he signed this offer from MTL makes me look at him differently, now. I hope I can get over it and see him like before again. Right now I'm glad I don't have to see him for a while. It's kind of a disrespectful way to negotiate a deal to me. Maybe because I wouldn't do that to my team, if I wanted to stay there. I could never see someone like Slavin doing this. Something feels dishonorable about it. Disappointed.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

Perhaps he was in Aho and Aho's agent's ear, but I think most of this had to do with his agent. For whatever reason, he most likely didn't feel like the negotiations were going anywhere with Waddell and didn't want to negotiate with him any longer once a team could finally submit an offer sheet to their liking.

Sans an offer sheet, aho had no leverage to force the canes to move from their demand of a longer term deal save holding out. Choosing between acquiescence, hostile offer or holdout, he choose l'histile offer.

 

[Canes]

Sans an offer sheet, aho had no leverage to force the canes to move from their demand of a longer term deal save holding out. Choosing between acquiescence, hostile offer or holdout, he choose l'histile offer.

So basically he did have leverage, he just had to wait until July 1st to use it.

 

[Bunch of Jurcos]

One aspect about this I don't mind is if we want to keep Aho in the future, we will have to field very competitive teams from now until then. I am pretty sure that was going to happen anyways but it's nice to know they have to to keep their star.

 

[My Special Purpose]

I know it's fair value for him, but the fact that he signed this offer from MTL makes me look at him differently, now. I hope I can get over it and see him like before again. Right now I'm glad I don't have to see him for a while. It's kind of a disrespectful way to negotiate a deal to me. Maybe because I wouldn't do that to my team, if I wanted to stay there. I could never see someone like Slavin doing this. Something feels dishonorable about it. Disappointed.

I get it, and you have to be you. But I can't imagine negotiating with Dundon is a day at the beach. They had been talking about the extension for a year already (he became eligible July 1, 2018), and from what I can tell, Aho hadn't moved off his five-years demand, and the team hasn't budged off eight years. I just think Aho knew Dundon would take him to the wall to save a few bucks and he didn't want it to go down like that. If anything, now he can focus on hockey, which is what the Aho that I know cares about most.

 

[My Special Purpose]

One aspect about this I don't mind is if we want to keep Aho in the future, we will have to field very competitive teams from now until then. I am pretty sure that was going to happen anyways but it's nice to know they have to to keep their star.

And if you think about it, this offre hostile does nothing to prevent Carolina from fielding competitive teams for the next five seasons. I honestly think Aho thought of that. An offer that had a chance of not being matched would have been in the $10 million AAV range, but Aho didn't want to do that to Carolina. The more and more I think of this, it was incredibly well thought-out by Aho and his agent.

 

[cptjeff]

but he's not losing Aho over a few million bucks when he just spent $3,833,333 for a first-round draft pick in 2020.

What I wanna know is if the NHL bills him for the 33 cents or not.

 

[ndp]

I know it's fair value for him, but the fact that he signed this offer from MTL makes me look at him differently, now. I hope I can get over it and see him like before again. Right now I'm glad I don't have to see him for a while. It's kind of a disrespectful way to negotiate a deal to me. Maybe because I wouldn't do that to my team, if I wanted to stay there. I could never see someone like Slavin doing this. Something feels dishonorable about it. Disappointed.

After thinking on it all day this is pretty much how I feel.
I always figured Aho as the future C and face of the franchise. Now I'm not so sure.
How does this affect relationship's in the locker room?
How will this affect future negotiations? Svech, Nechas?
On one hand I'm pissed at the Borg for lowballing and obviously being a pita to negotiate with. On the other hand I'm disappointed that Aho would sign.
Either way I don't think this ends well for the Canes. Hopefully I'm wrong.

 

[Chrispy]

And if you think about it, this offre hostile does nothing to prevent Carolina from fielding competitive teams for the next five seasons. I honestly think Aho thought of that. An offer that had a chance of not being matched would have been in the $10 million AAV range, but Aho didn't want to do that to Carolina. The more and more I think of this, it was incredibly well thought-out by Aho and his agent.

Agreed. The time this hurts is having TT, Aho, and Pesce coming up as UFAs simultaneously. But that's a problem for 4-5 years from now.

The payroll is actually well structured to deal with Aho's contract after this season:
$59M + Aho committed in salary this year ($71M with Aho)
$41.4M + Aho committed in salary for 20-21 ($51.9M with Aho)
$28.2M + Aho in 21-22 ($36M with Aho)

 

[Primetime8]

I saw offre hostile in the title earlier and was wondering how that happened. I see Lempo and MSP point it out now so I know it wasnt just my phone haha

 

[Chrispy]

I know it's fair value for him, but the fact that he signed this offer from MTL makes me look at him differently, now. I hope I can get over it and see him like before again. Right now I'm glad I don't have to see him for a while. It's kind of a disrespectful way to negotiate a deal to me. Maybe because I wouldn't do that to my team, if I wanted to stay there. I could never see someone like Slavin doing this. Something feels dishonorable about it. Disappointed.

Given the choice?

I'll take Aho's offer sheet negotiation tactics over Nylander's holdout.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

I know it's fair value for him, but the fact that he signed this offer from MTL makes me look at him differently, now. I hope I can get over it and see him like before again. Right now I'm glad I don't have to see him for a while. It's kind of a disrespectful way to negotiate a deal to me. Maybe because I wouldn't do that to my team, if I wanted to stay there. I could never see someone like Slavin doing this. Something feels dishonorable about it. Disappointed.

It makes me look differently at him too.

The man won a negotiation against Don Waddell and Tom Dundon, and was still fair enough, to a man, to not hold the organization over a barrel.

I have more respect for him than I did yesterday.

 

[Chrispy]

It makes me look differently at him too.

The man won a negotiation against Don Waddell and Tom Dundon, and was still fair enough, to a man, to not hold the organization over a barrel.

I have more respect for him than I did yesterday.

Part of me thinks Tom Dundon has more respect for him today as well.

 

[ndp]

Given the choice?

I'll take Aho's offer sheet negotiation tactics over Nylander's holdout.

I feel the exact opposite, at least with a hold out it shows commitment to your current team (Nylander could have very well signed an OS had one been presented and we will never know) but signing the OS shows a complete willingness to move on.

This is not the type of move in want in who I assumed would be our future C. How do you command the locker room when you're teammates know you were willing to walk away completely?
I don't like this one bit and it wouldn't surprise me to see him traded well before this contract is up, if we match.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

Part of me thinks Tom Dundon has more respect for him today as well.

Honestly I think that was the reason for Waddell’s smirk this afternoon. I saw a “that sly son of a bitch did it” smirk, like two old friends playing poker.

 

[Chrispy]

I feel the exact opposite, at least with a hold out it shows commitment to your current team (Nylander could have very well signed an OS had one been presented and we will never know) but signing the OS shows a complete willingness to move on.

This is not the type of move in want in who I assumed would be our future C. How do you command the locker room when you're teammates know you were willing to walk away completely?
I don't like this one bit and it wouldn't surprise me to see him traded well before this contract is up, if we match.

Holding out shows a complete willingness to screw over the team you're "showing commitment to" over your contract demands. An offer sheet doesn't impact a single game when it's done in the off-season.

Aho just got the deal he wanted and got it done on July 1. And all Carolina has to do is agree to it and he gets to stay here.
Who on this team is going to begrudge Aho being the highest paid player? No one.
Carolina matches, he's under contract for the full off-season, reports for camp, and is a long-term fixture.