Just A Bit Outside
Playoffs??!
- Mar 6, 2010
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Jeff Patterson playing 1C scares the shit out of me.
I mean he may have put the time and effort in to approve over the break but still.
2020 Roster and Fantasy GM Thread II
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I mean he may have put the time and effort in to approve over the break but still.
BB06
Registered User
- Jun 1, 2020
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No man is walking away from millions of dollars especially with the way economy has been since Covid.
Least surprising news ever. Water is still wet, too.
As I've frustratingly tried to explain to the hordes convinced this contract will magically disappear, Eriksson has all the leverage. All he has to do is say that he's going to play out his contract and there's really nothing we can do about the whole 'Utica -> retirement!' thing. He could be bluffing or he could not be bluffing, but you don't find out until after the season starts which is the case. And you can't build your team assuming that contract will go away only to find out at the last minute it isn't, so you have to build your team assuming Eriksson is either on it or that you're using $5 million in cap space to put him in Utica. So unless you trade him (hugely difficult) Eriksson's contract is pretty much guaranteed to gunk up any summer plans.
His agent isn't an idiot and will be making damned sure they're taking measures to a) keep Eriksson playing in the NHL as long as possible and b) make sure he gets every penny of the contract he's negotiated.
The whole argument was about attaching Virtanen onto a Eriksson, Sutter or whatever deal to get rid of a bad contract and nothing else. Trading Virtanen alone does not a whole lot to create cap space so you can stop moving goal posts again.
Nail struck firmly upon the head. I am on record months ago stating exactly what @Hughes Unleashed said above. No man walks away from that kind of money. Especially when all he has to do is sit tight and do what he was signed to do. Doesn't matter if he sucks at it. He has a contract and that contract must be honored. Their only out is to trade him and I don't see any team that has actually seen him play, every one of them, willing to do such. The buyout is really not worth all that to much the Canucks. There are bigger fish to use that option on.
Loui’s contract is an albatross but he is still an NHL player and if is actually playing to the level he should be playing given his age and ability..... the next two years at the inflated amount is the pill you swallow for signing the free agent of his caliber to a couple extra cushy years...UNFORTUNATELY we never got those swanky first couple years of 35 goals and legitimate top line production from him, it’s been a real drag the whole time
He still can hold down a spot on this team and yes this team has internal competition for spots and the roster contains legit hockey players on any team in this league, but we don’t have the luxury of cap space to waste and he ultimately is a massive waste of cap space
I’m gonna try and just hope he does well, like that little resurgence he had last season, it did feel good to feel good about LE for a change, not saying I want him here but I’ll at the very least try and accept it
The thing is that even in the unlikely scenario that he is totally bluffing and wants nothing to do with Utica and DID walk away from that money, you don't find out until after the season starts. So there is absolutely no way that scenario can do anything to help you get out of your cap problems in the 2020 offseason, months beforehand.
The notion that Eriksson walking away from his contract in October would solve cap problems in July (assuming regular timetables and no COVID) is absolute nonsense and doesn't even have any sort of logic to it. It's total garbage that people invented out of pure hope.
Diamonddog01
Diamond in the rough
I think the team has to send him to Utica just given his putrid effort level. 4.925 this year if he's buried, and then a buyout for the last year of his contract (4M cap hit for 21/22, then 1M for 22/23). Would love to see him miraculously moved with a sweetener attached but doubt that will happen.
As I stated right from the beginning, I would be looking to move Virtanen for picks, due to the depth chart, and need to replenish picks lost in the Miller and Toffoli deals. Attaching a Baertschi kills 2 birds with one stone, but obviously isn’t a necessity in a Virtanen transaction. That deal could be executed separately.
Again, getting rid of Baertschi isn’t the impetus behind trading Jake Virtanen. The depth chart is. Don’t know how I can make that any more clear.
What did people expect Loui to say? Did they think he was going to say if he’s demoted to Utica he will walk away? That’s ridiculous. Of course he would never say that at this point.
The question always has been, will he be willing to ride a bus in Utica for 2 seasons to finish out his career? Or would he prefer to walk away from his deal to get another shot at an NHL job? That’s not an answer we will have unless, or until he’s forced into that position by management.
The question always has been, will he be willing to ride a bus in Utica for 2 seasons to finish out his career? Or would he prefer to walk away from his deal to get another shot at an NHL job? That’s not an answer we will have unless, or until he’s forced into that position by management.
I've already made a lengthy post on the Comets bus travel and it's not all that brutal. For the money he would sacrifice, a few bus rides wouldn't be that hard to take.
I wonder what happens next year regarding players being demoted to a league that may not be playing games until the pandemic is over
like is it free money if you are in the AHL with an NHL contract?
You would never in a million years be pushing for a young affordable 45-point roster player to be traded for draft picks because 'depth chart' if we had a well-managed team with substantial cap space.
'Depth chart' is a smokescreen to avoid saying 'Jim Benning's colossal mis-management of this team is forcing us to squander quality young assets'.
Duh. That's the whole point. Eriksson has all the leverage. This is what I've been trying to tell people for over a year, that of course he'll say this and when he does … there's really nothing we can do about it in the 2020 offseason. We aren't getting any cap relief from Eriksson this summer unless they pull off some sort of miracle trade.
They could have (and should have) sent him to the AHL at the start of last season when he was a consistent healthy scratch to see how he reacted, but the didn't … so we can have a pretty good idea that ownership isn't cool with paying a guy $5 million to play in the minors. And if recent reports that Aquilini is further tightening the purse strings are correct, that isn't likely to change.
VanillaCoke
Registered User
- Oct 30, 2013
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Trade for another bad contract with less cap but more real money is probably the best option that can be hoped for.
Diamonddog01
Diamond in the rough
I wonder if any team would take him at 50% retained, we'd save 3M in cap space per year for the next 2 years. Other team would be paying 1.25 per year in actual dollars for him. One can dare to dream.
It's still pretty unlikely.
1) virtually all NHL owners are super-rich and very few actually are interested in saving money by taking extra cap. Most are trying to do the exact opposite.
2) very few teams have any cap space right now.
3) if you do have a rare team like Ottawa that might be interested in adding cap and saving money, and did have the cap space to do it … with like 20 NHL teams having cap issues, you're going to be in a competition to make a deal with that team and the cost could be very high.
4) Eriksson has a NTC and even if you jump through every other hoop to get some sort of deal done … he can veto it. As he apparently did with a trade to Edmonton for Lucic last year. And if he vetoed a trade to Edmonton, hard to think he'd accept one to Ottawa.
And yet when I asked you what you would do with Virtanen a year from now if Podkolzin steps onto the roster you said you would look at trading Jake. So surely you can see why an NHL depth chart factors into personnel decisions, specifically Virtanen in this case.
The Canucks are stacked on right wing. It’s easily the deepest organizational position, and it’s showing, as Virtanen found himself on the 4th line to finish the season, and wasn’t even taking line rushes yesterday in a crucial pre-playoff practice.
As for Eriksson, of course he wants a buy-out over walking away from his contract. What he has to say right now means absolutely nothing. Let’s see if he’s singing the same tune once the rubber meets the road in Utica, if it comes to that. Which it should.
I still maintain it’s unlikely he’s willing to finish out his career riding busses for 2 years away from his family. Guy has made too much money to go out like that.
If the Utica season is cancelled, is there a loophole in the CBA to rid the club of Eriksson?
Could they SPC, paragraph 17 him?
Could they SPC, paragraph 17 him?
You trade Virtanen and Toffoli walks and all of a sudden there is no depth at all.
Just because you have a solid prospect that may or may not make the team in 1-2 years you dont trade an established player if you want to compete.
Diamonddog01
Diamond in the rough
As I stated from the beginning, a Virtanen trade is predicated on a Toffoli re-signing. Because if you’re re-signing Toffoli, you are essentially writing off Jakes chances at a top 6 job through the prime of his career. If Toffoli isn’t retained, let Jake fight for the 2nd line job.
Podkolzin isn’t the only other factor at play here. Josh Leivo is a good fit on the 3rd line RW, and could likely be signed for half what Jake will command. And Travis Green has Leivo ahead of Virtanen on the depth chart this season.
Then you have Michael Ferland. If he’s healthy, he will need somewhere to play. Wouldn’t count on him being healthy, but they do need to be mindful of the possibility.
You also have Zack MacEwen on a nice developmental arc, pushing for minutes in the bottom 6. He was actually taking reps on Jakes place yesterday and Green state it was because he likes the chemistry he has with Roussel and Gaudette.
If that’s not enough, you have the best forward prospect in Utica also being a RW’er in Kole Lind. Another guy that could push for minutes over the next couple years.
But in the end, you can write off Leivo, MacEwen, Ferland and Lind and still see why Jake’s future in Vancouver could be limited, and that’s due to the organizations top prospect, Podkolzin. I just don’t see what will stop this kid from breaking the door down a year from now on the Canucks right side.
If Toffoli is re-signed, I would peg the chances Virtanen is in a Canuck uniform a couple years from now as exceptionally unlikely. And it always comes back to the depth chart.
I would consider trading Virtanen - or a different player - in a hockey deal at that point to help the blueline or some other position. Nobody is saying that depth charts don't factor into personnel decisions (hey, look, another straw man from you!). We're saying that trying to frame a cap dump of Virtanen for picks as a 'depth chart deal' is ludicrous.
There is absolutely zero depth chart pressure to trade him now. He was solidly in the top 9 to close the season on a team that had Toffoli.
Why are you suggesting trading Virtanen for draft picks - which are pennies on the dollar when you're talking about young established roster players - instead of making a hockey trade to improve depth somewhere else? Why aren't you pushing for the team to acquire an equivalent young defensive winger or 3rd line center?
Why wouldn't you want to trade Virtanen for, say, Radek Faksa to fix the hole at the #3 center spot?
As has been made clear multiple times, if he is bluffing that would help us in 2021. It doesn't do jack shit to help a single thing in our current mess in 2020.
And again, the fact that we didn't do this last year coupled with reports that ownership is tighteining purse strings indicates that trying this approach is probably a no-go.
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