2025 26 Roster…too Soon



If he wants to stay, then he has to compromise. I don’t mind upping the dollars a bit, but you can’t give him more than 4 years, preferably 3 though.
 
The core is in place with a good draft lottery in 2 weeks.

Bedard-Misa
Nazar

Vlasic-Rinzel
Levshunov

Knight

Lets go
Worst the Hawks can pick is 4th and 32nd in round one…best is 1st and maybe 25th

Anyways with Matthew Schaefer the only nonforward ranked top 4 the Hawks should be guaranteed one of Misa, Hagens, Mortone or Desnoyers…I’m okay with any of them being added to our current group
 
2yr 6m per for Donato, more money up front but less term for team, roll with him through next year regardless and then move him year 2 if you want to clear a spot or get some value for him

Higher net present value contract for Donato and more flexibility for Davidson, win win for both sides
 
Pionk extended in Winnipeg, another RHD bites the dust. Would be nice if this helps drive a desperate team to want to trade for Murphy (logic is it's a 1 year deal so they're not making a big commitment and if they need to fill a hole, a primeish guy with 745 career NHL games could be seen as worth a low-risk gamble)
 


If he wants to stay, then he has to compromise. I don’t mind upping the dollars a bit, but you can’t give him more than 4 years, preferably 3 though.

This is a guy no contender was willing to give up even a 2nd round pick for (in a sellers market where Anthony Beauvillier pulled a 2nd). If he won't take 12 million for 3 years, wish him luck and let him go to market where someone else can overpay him for his career year (DOUBLE his points from any other season at age 29). I would rather invest all of Donato's 4 million current offer into overpaying Marner long before I contemplate upping Donato's offer. If we go to 4 years, it should be a compromise at a lower annual rate. Donato will never have a shooting percentage of 17% again (he'll revert back to the 10-11% career norm) and should not be sniffing 14 PP pts as we better have other options on the PP then a 3rd/4th line tweener. .
 
Weird game of chicken where it seems like Donato wants to stay, Hawks want Donato to stay, but Donato wants to be paid a fair value in his prime coming off his career best season and Hawks don't want to tie up too much for what might be a fluke.
 
Unpopular opinion but Hawks should just cave and drive up the AAV by whatever amount to lower the term in a way that makes mathematical sense for Donato/his agent.

If they don't sign Donato they'll have to sign a different UFA anyways, who is if nothing else, not going to be more inclined to give the Hawks any sort of "discount", so either way you're just kind of banking on what level of potential "overpayment" you make for a UFA price as is, and with Donato you have more continuity assurances as far as on ice/off ice fit.
 
Hawks might just tell him go to market get your best offer and if you truly want to be here then we'll decide if we want to match or not
 
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Hawks might just tell him go to market get your best offer and if you truly want to be here then we'll decide if we want to match or not
He would probably just sign with the new team for two reasons

First is pride, "you don't think I'm worth it, but team X does, clearly they value me more, friendship with Hawks over, team X is my new BFF"

Second is how quickly UFA market works. Probably saw a bit of this on deadline day. Someone offers Donato a deal, he says "ah gee, let me think about it", that team isn't holding that spot indefinitely, if he goes to Hawks and a day later the Hawks say "no, sorry, we aren't matching", then team X may have already allocated their cap and their roster spot somewhere else.
 
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Unpopular opinion but Hawks should just cave and drive up the AAV by whatever amount to lower the term in a way that makes mathematical sense for Donato/his agent.

If they don't sign Donato they'll have to sign a different UFA anyways, who is if nothing else, not going to be more inclined to give the Hawks any sort of "discount", so either way you're just kind of banking on what level of potential "overpayment" you make for a UFA price as is, and with Donato you have more continuity assurances as far as on ice/off ice fit.
The mathematically equivalent using a 4% discount rate is ~5.875m AAV on a 2 year deal to be equivalent to 4m per on a 3 year deal...would be fine with that if they want him back and don't want to get silly in UFA
 
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He would probably just sign with the new team for two reasons

First is pride, "you don't think I'm worth it, but team X does, clearly they value me more, friendship with Hawks over, team X is my new BFF"

Second is how quickly UFA market works. Probably saw a bit of this on deadline day. Someone offers Donato a deal, he says "ah gee, let me think about it", that team isn't holding that spot indefinitely, if he goes to Hawks and a day later the Hawks say "no, sorry, we aren't matching", then team X may have already allocated their cap and their roster spot somewhere else.
yeah very good points, Davidson was firm on his ask for Donato at the TDL and it looks like he'll be firm on his own bid
 


Bye bitch

Very likely got the same offer as Aidan Thompson, 2 year ELC beginning 2025-26 and an ATO to finish out the regular season with Rockford. He wanted the Landon Slaggert deal from a year ago (and similar to Greene/Moore/Rinzel albeit with one less year because of age at signing), 2-year ELC that encompasses a burn year for 2024-25 and end of season NHL games. Hawks probably said no. He said "ok I'm going to August 15th free agency", Hawks said "good luck".

Personally, I'd rather have Thompson aboard than James... higher draft capital in the same year, more productive player on better teams. James decided against an opportunity to play AHL games at the end of the year to help the adjustment into pro hockey. We'll see how many of the 31 other teams are going to be bidding for his services come August 15th and what sort of opportunity that leads to.
 
Bedard Turbo Foligno Dickinson Bertuzzi Reichel Nazar Veleno Mikheyev have spots locked up as of now. Kurashev is an RFA that I don't really want back. I'm expecting a Donato or better addition and a vet spare forward. That leaves two spots for a whole mess of kids.
 
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Bedard Turbo Foligno Dickinson Bertuzzi Reichel Nazar Veleno Mikheyev have spots locked up as of now. Kurashev is an RFA that I don't really want back. I'm expecting a Donato or better addition and a vet spare forward. That leaves two spots for a whole mess of kids.
Slaggert, Dach, Moore, Greene, Savoie, Hayes, Ludwinski, Thompson, Lardis, Misiak, would be the "kids" sorted by NHL GP. That doesn't seem too crazy with only 4 entering with any NHL experience and 2 with more substantial experience. Not sure if Misa/Hagens/Frondell/Martone would be likely to play NHL next year, I can see Misa doing 1-year in college with a burn year at end, Hagens likely back to BC and burn year as well.

4 Vets and Reichel would all be on expiring contracts as well, meaning it's very easy to put any of them on a farm as necessary if they have no trade value. Hawks basically have 4 Forward "locks" for 2026-27 in place with Bedard, Nazar, Bertuzzi, Teravainen, and then a whole bunch of opportunity as it stands.
 
Slaggert, Dach, Moore, Greene, Savoie, Hayes, Ludwinski, Thompson, Lardis, Misiak, would be the "kids" sorted by NHL GP. That doesn't seem too crazy with only 4 entering with any NHL experience and 2 with more substantial experience. Not sure if Misa/Hagens/Frondell/Martone would be likely to play NHL next year, I can see Misa doing 1-year in college with a burn year at end, Hagens likely back to BC and burn year as well.
Yep. Moore is pretty much a lock to grab one of the remaining spots and I'd put Slaggert as the front runner for the last one.
 
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