Speculation: 2022 Off-Season | Dethroned: What next? - Part 2

[LightningStrikes]

 

[RussianGuyovich]

Their workloads are higher and none of them have a Hedman/McDonagh in front of them, we've all noted how much that fact has benefitted Sergachev's development so don't know why that's being downplayed after he gets a big contract. Sergachev played a 3rd pairing role half the time he was on the ice and the other half was with Hedman. He's been put in an extremely favorable development position for a young d-man and hasn't exactly stood out compared to his peers who have it worse.

The trend with Sergachev in the playoffs is that he gets beat up the 1st 2 rounds and then becomes solid towards the end, how many of those other guys get that luxury? If those guys have a poor series their teams are done. How comfortable would you be if Hedman was out for a season and Sergachev has to go against the leagues top forwards nightly?

Apples to apples I’d say I’d be comfortable with 24 year old serge replacing 24 year old hedman. 30 year old serge? Guess we’ll find out. I doubt he hits hedmans ceiling, but I don’t have a problem with the contract.

The bigger question is: will hedman get back to his ceiling?

 

[Sky04]

Apples to apples I’d say I’d be comfortable with 24 year old serge replacing 24 year old hedman. 30 year old serge? Guess we’ll find out. I doubt he hits hedmans ceiling, but I don’t have a problem with the contract.

The bigger question is: will hedman get back to his ceiling?

The 24 year old Hedman that lead a team to the SCF's shutting down a prime Patrick Kane? I wouldn't.

 

[Felonious Python]

According to main board people, hes;

Michael Sergachev


Are you on crack cocaine?

Good on them for spelling Michael correct.

 

[BoltzManConstant]

No you don’t. No way you do. What do you think stamkos and hedman and whoever else think right now? Right after a finals loss, stamkos said we aren’t done. JBB seems to think we are. This roster will not go far in the playoffs. We could have kept our solid players and worried about our future later, like we have been doing the last few years. Showing our good players the door is something you do when you are rebuilding, not contending for a cup.

As sky mentioned, if I’m stamkos and hedman, I’m pissed off I left money on the table if I’m not going to be on a competitive team anymore.

You made three straight finals and won two cups thanks to the money you left on the table for secondary support. There's no way you're pissed about that decision if you're Stammer or Hedman.

Would we the fans have preferred Serg and Cirelli make the same decision? Absolutely. But the market pays what the market pays and the team willingly entered into these contracts. I find it hard to get upset with any of them.

 

[Stammertime91]

Giordano, Gaudreau and now Tkachuk… what’s going on up there?

Seriously. Calgary is going up in Flames.

 

[BoltzManConstant]

I’m indifferent about the signings of our RFA’s. They’ll suck in the first 2 years and be great for the last 2 years.

But giving Namestnikov 2.5m is brutal

It's fine, not an overpay.

And even if it were by, say $0.5m, what else were we going to do with the money? We can't give it to someone else who'd get longer term, because we need all that money next year. Had to go to someone on a one year deal, and Names is it. And we know he can produce in the right situation, we've seen it.

 

[RussianGuyovich]

The 24 year old Hedman that lead a team to the SCF's shutting down a prime Patrick Kane? I wouldn't.

We lost. Just like serge Shut down PRIME mackinnon?

 

[TheDaysOf 04]

Giordano, Gaudreau and now Tkachuk… what’s going on up there?

 

[LightningStrikes]

Their workloads are higher and none of them have a Hedman/McDonagh in front of them, we've all noted how much that fact has benefitted Sergachev's development so don't know why that's being downplayed after he gets a big contract. Sergachev played a 3rd pairing role half the time he was on the ice and the other half was with Hedman. He's been put in an extremely favorable development position for a young d-man and hasn't exactly stood out compared to his peers who have it worse.

The trend with Sergachev in the playoffs is that he gets beat up the 1st 2 rounds and then becomes solid towards the end, how many of those other guys get that luxury? If those guys have a poor series their teams are done. How comfortable would you be if Hedman was out for a season and Sergachev has to go against the leagues top forwards nightly?

In the same sense most of those guys play PP1 and with their best players. Serg has logged about the same TOI as them with likely lesser quality players and still almost put up 40 points.

 

[BoltzManConstant]

The biggest issue is it kinda ties our hands on deadline deals. 441k in cap space ends up becoming a couple of million in deadline space.

It's one of those things where when we look at the assets it would take to pull off a double-retention three team trade, does it make more sense to just move Seabrook. Might not be an option, just kind of shocked it hasn't happened.

The problem for this year is that we already know Cirelli and Bogo are going on LTIR to start the season, which means that even if we can get under the cap, we're not going to accrue anything while they're both out because we're going to need to use LTIR relief to replace them with bodies in order to ice a whole team. Then if they're delayed in their return or if someone else goes out, we'll be in the same place again, and would end up accruing little or no bonus space for the TDL.

Separately, once everyone (except Seabrook) is healthy, we're over the cap and have to send someone down. And that's with only 21 guys on the roster; sending someone down will put us at just 20, and that's a really hard way to get through a regular season. I'm guessing JBB is planning to put Fleury on a string and yoyo him to Syracuse: down for a few games so we accrue a little cap space, then up for a few games so we can have an extra body and give somebody a night off. Those times where we have him up will dip into the cap we accrued while he was down, which means we're unlikely to bank a meaningful amount of space to
spend at the TDL.

On the Seabrook insurance issue, I don't see any reason why we couldn't insure Seabrook's contract now. Obviously the insurer would take into account account the fact that Seabrook is done and would charge us a premium that equals (or more accurately, slightly exceeds) what we owe Seabrook, but some bespoke insurer would be happy to make money on that deal, and there is no regulatory problem with it. I suppose it's possible there's a league rule against it, but I'd be highly surprised if they had tried to build in a "everyone just knows this guy isn't coming back" clause in the rules.

So I think it's more that we just don't see much path to accruing cap this year than that we couldn't find a taker because Seabrook's not insured.

 

[BoltzManConstant]

With the more constrained cap issues looming next offseason, an argument could certainly be made to have kept the defense as intact as possible for one more run this season. Keeping McD for one more season may have ended up being a mistake when they then had to move him after next season, but he had just turned 33, not 37 or 38, and still had 1 or 2 good years left imo. I know there was some regression these playoffs, but hard to say how much of that was McD having lost a step vs a combination of injury and how many tough minutes he had logged the past couple seasons.

I get the reasoning for moving him now as JBB is doing a tricky balancing act to keep the team's window open as long as possible, although the value of the Serg contract is crippling for a couple of years in terms of being able to acquire higher quality depth, and mid to long term it was probably right. However, If the team had been willing to hold McD one more year and accept the even weaker return that likely would've resulted from that decision, they could've still signed Fleury as a 6/7 type and signed a bottom 6 F like Janmark, Blackwell etc to help fill out the F group for this year. Not saying a player in this range would've been an amazing signing, but they would've bolstered the 3rd line and moved Hagel to a top 6 role.for sure, which is where he excelled in Chicago.

At full strength, the team could've looked like:
Hagel-Stamkos-Kuch
Killorn-Point-Colton
Paul-Cirelli-Janmark/Blackwell type
Maroon-PEB-Perry
ABB/Koepke
(The F lines would likely need some juggling, just a rough framework)

Hedman-Bogo
McD-Cernak
Serg-Foote
Fleury(with Perbix and Day as call ups)

Vasi
Elliott
Not saying this team would've been demonstrably better than what Tampa will ice at full strength this year, but could've been a different path to take.

I agree completely, that was another way to go, but there's one more complicating factor with McD -- his NTC.

The reason this worked this year is because McD honestly believed that if we waived him we would get picked up, and that's why we he waived his NTC instead. If his play were to fall off even just a little bit more next year, then maybe no one wants to sign up for his contract without a sweetener from us -- and we can only give a sweetener in a trade, and McD would simply block the trade if he thought no one was gonna grab him on waivers.

So keeping him another year probably just posed too big a risk to JBB that the whole thing could go south. Being forced to keep McD in 23-24 would blow up our cap structure with all the extensions, and then we'd be forced to trade someone we want to keep, and to do so from a real position of weakness (with the whole league knowing we have to move salary to get under the cap, like we did with TJ).

So he struck while the iron was hot, and made the move at the only point he could be sure it would be available.

 

[Outl4w]

So honest assessment how would you compare Sergachev at 24 to Hedman a 24?

 

[Bolt32]

So honest assessment how would you compare Sergachev at 24 to Hedman a 24?

There is no comparison. Hedman at 24 was a legitimate #1 D man. Sergachev is not. He still has room to improve sure. Though the quality between the two is immense. Sergachev is a weird case. He will struggle at times, making terrible turn overs after terrible turn overs and make you want to pull your hair out most games. Then randomly like he did in game 5 vs New York everything will click and he will play like a dominate force. Show casing his potential to be what we want him to be.

Hedman at that point in his career, every game was like that game 5 vs New York for Sergachev. He would go out there, shut down the opposition then create scoring chances offensively. He did this game in and game out. They are in reality just two different caliber of players.

 

[RussianGuyovich]

There is no comparison. Hedman at 24 was a legitimate #1 D man. Sergachev is not. He still has room to improve sure. Though the quality between the two is immense. Sergachev is a weird case. He will struggle at times, making terrible turn overs after terrible turn overs and make you want to pull your hair out most games. Then randomly like he did in game 5 vs New York everything will click and he will play like a dominate force. Show casing his potential to be what we want him to be.

Hedman at that point in his career, every game was like that game 5 vs New York for Sergachev. He would go out there, shut down the opposition then create scoring chances offensively. He did this game in and game out. They are in reality just two different caliber of players.

hedman was on a much worse team defensively, and was the de facto #1 so it's difficult to compare. but the gap wasnt the chasm that this, and other posts suggest. and the stats back that up

 

[Bolt32]

hedman was on a much worse team defensively, and was the de facto #1 so it's difficult to compare. but the gap wasnt the chasm that this, and other posts suggest. and the stats back that up

I have been a fan of this team since the first season the Bolts were around. I've seen a lot of defenseman come and go. Dan Boyle, Pavel Kubina, Roman Hamerlik, Cory Sarich......Hedman trumps them all and its not even close. Sergachev while gifted offensively still makes terrible turn overs after terrible turn overs. He has the potential to be a legit Number 1 Dman. (I personally don't think he will hit it, but I will say he certainly has the potential for it.) The problem is Hedman by this stage in their career was just simply better. Even the thing that Sergachev does really well (His offense.) Hedman out produces him at this stage in his career.


If Sergachev was already playing like a legit Number 1 Dman we would of rolled him out just as much as Hedman as that 1-2 punch would be deadly. Simply hes not. Do I think he can get there? Sure. Is he there now? Nope, he has tons about his game he needs to clean up.

Hedman at 24 really didn't have things glaring like Sergachev to fix. He went out there and dominated and help propel us for deep playoff runs. Sergachev for the most part part barring games like game 5 vs New York has primarily been a passenger. That needs to change.

 

[More 2004]

Our 4th line adds 1.5 years to the avg..

 

[RussianGuyovich]

I have been a fan of this team since the first season the Bolts were around. I've seen a lot of defenseman come and go. Dan Boyle, Pavel Kubina, Roman Hamerlik, Cory Sarich......Hedman trumps them all and its not even close. Sergachev while gifted offensively still makes terrible turn overs after terrible turn overs. He has the potential to be a legit Number 1 Dman. (I personally don't think he will hit it, but I will say he certainly has the potential for it.) The problem is Hedman by this stage in their career was just simply better. Even the thing that Sergachev does really well (His offense.) Hedman out produces him at this stage in his career.


If Sergachev was already playing like a legit Number 1 Dman we would of rolled him out just as much as Hedman as that 1-2 punch would be deadly. Simply hes not. Do I think he can get there? Sure. Is he there now? Nope, he has tons about his game he needs to clean up.

Hedman at 24 really didn't have things glaring like Sergachev to fix. He went out there and dominated and help propel us for deep playoff runs. Sergachev for the most part part barring games like game 5 vs New York has primarily been a passenger. That needs to change.

This is a lot of post to say hedman is better which is what I said too.

 

[More 2004]

So honest assessment how would you compare Sergachev at 24 to Hedman a 24?

for reference only, here are the stats through age 19-23 seasons.

 

[RussianGuyovich]

for reference only, here are the stats through age 19-23 seasons.

View attachment 571004

hrmmm, yes as i am proven right again and again i become stronger and more handsome (not to mention wittier) and i have begun to emit a pleasant floral scent

The problem is Hedman by this stage in their career was just simply better. Even the thing that Sergachev does really well (His offense.) Hedman out produces him at this stage in his career.

lmao

 

[LightningStrikes]

Wasn’t Hedman sheltered too behind the likes of Ohlund and Brewer on much worse teams? While the Fosters, Clarkes, MABs and Carles got PP1 time and o-zone starts the coaches wanted Hedman to focus on his defense and play shutdown on the 2nd pairing. Kinda like what we’re seeing with Serg so far.

I could be wrong but I remember that we as fans were furious that they wouldn’t finally “unleash the Hedman”.

 

[Wester]

Wasn’t Hedman sheltered too behind the likes of Ohlund and Brewer on much worse teams? While the Fosters, Clarkes, MABs and Carles got PP1 time and o-zone starts the coaches wanted Hedman to focus on his defense and play shutdown on the 2nd pairing. Kinda like what we’re seeing with Serg so far.

I could be wrong but I remember that we as fans were furious that they wouldn’t finally “unleash the Hedman”.

Yea lot of people think Hedman then was the beast from today, but actually he took an awful lot of time to develop into the Hedmonster we see now

 

[LightningStrikes]

Yea lot of people think Hedman then was the beast from today, but actually he took an awful lot of time to develop into the Hedmonster we see now

I mean memory can be cloudy when we’re used to nothing but pure dominance from the guy in the past 5-ish years.

 

[OffBy1]

The thing is, Yzerman didn't offer Hedman an 8 year contract when he was 24. Hedman was 26 when he got his 8 year deal, and we had two more years of seeing Hedman playing in the #1 role, seeing he could do it. Everyone is just speculating on whether Serge can eventually do it because the need\opportunity for him to do it hasn't been there yet. And he's actually struggled at times in his lesser roles, though he showed improved at the end of this playoff run.

Serge has had 5 full seasons in the NHL. Hedman showed improved points per game each of his first 4 seasons and exploded in the 5th, going from .45 to .73. We've seen neither steady progression from Serge or a breakout season yet. His points per game each season has been bouncing up and down from .45 to .53 and a greater percentage of those have come from the power play than did for Hedman in his first 5 years.

 

[RussianGuyovich]

I mean memory can be cloudy when we’re used to nothing but pure dominance from the guy in the past 5-ish years.

like McD, hedman just gets the benefit of the doubt from the hive mind.

this past playoffs, "bonehead" Michael Surgachef had a better take away/give away ratio (8:21) than hedman (6:23) contrary to the many many posts describing the many bad plays by serge and proving Malcolm Gladwell's "our minds create the past we want to remember, not necessarily what happened" Brian Williams memory theory