Salary Cap: '24-'25 Salary Thread: Crosbicles Volume MMXXV - Poolman and Poolparty?!?

[canadianguy77]

More than half way through the season and we have two individuals with a positive +-. Lizotte being the only regular.

Quick glance, the only team that beats us is Chicago with one poor soul positive.

They've been blown out 7 times this season. (I count a blowout as a 4 or more goal difference). The good news is that they haven’t suffered a blowout loss since December 10th. The bad news is they only have 2 blowout wins themselves this season. But yeah, they really put themselves in a hole with the +/- in the 1st quarter of the season.

 

[eXile3]

The more I’ve thought about it, the more of a no brainer I think it is to get rid of Jarry via a buyout than retain salary. Jarry’s buyout is weird due to all of the signing bonus money at the end of it, so the yearly money is fairly tame outside of that awful 2025-2026. But with Malkin presumably retiring after next year, do you even care about Jarry’s dead cap at that point?

A Jarry buyout gives them a $1.7 million cap penalty next year and then has an awful $5 million cap penalty in 2025-2026. Beyond those two years, the cap penalty is less than $1 million. Hard to be upset about a Jarry buyout when 5/6 years of the buyout are pretty minimal cap penalties.



He can both give Marner a huge deal while filling out the bottom-6 with young guys and cap dumps, though. You can take Chychrun out of that lineup and replace him with POJ to save an additional $5 million to do that.

It’s not that it can’t happen. It’s that it won’t. Even if we get Marner, which I think is a pipe dream, Sully won’t allow a 3rd line like that.

 

[Empoleon8771]

It’s not that it can’t happen. It’s that it won’t. Even if we get Marner, which I think is a pipe dream, Sully won’t allow a 3rd line like that.

But like what was said, you still have money to play with to add veterans to the bottom-6. They have a ton of cap space going into next year.

 

[Empoleon8771]

If the Penguins were to sign Marner, they could enter next year with this forward group without any additions beyond re-signing Hallander:

Rakell-Crosby-Rust
Bunting-Malkin-Marner
Hallander-Glass-Tomasino
Lizotte-Ponomarev-Acciari
Hayes

Tomasino falls into that "bottom-6 offensive producer" role while their PKers are Ponomarev, Lizotte, Glass, Rust, Acciari and Hallander. They're not really going "youth heavy" in their bottom-6, but the bottom-6 is still fairly young with Acciari being the only guy over 27. In addition it's also very cheap, Glass probably comes in at around $2.5 million again while Hallander and Tomasino probably come in at around $2 million. That bottom-6 is basically just replacing O'Connor, Nieto and Beauvillier with Tomasino, Ponomarev and Hallander.

Honestly I'd even be pretty satisfied with this forward group, it's what they should be doing anyway. Don't spend money on unnecessary bottom-6 forwards, have a few cheap but effective prime aged NHLers surrounded with young guys. It leaves you a bunch of money to address other positions on the roster, namely top-6 C/W and top-4 D.

If you sign Marner for $12.5 million a year and keep the RFAs at reasonable prices, I'm sitting with $7.5 million in cap space with buying out Jarry and having 2 open LD spots (POJ as the 3rd pair RD). The entire McGroarty-Broz-Koivunen line would be starting in WBS, so you have a strong line to call up in case of injuries.

 

[Jdodd]

If the Penguins were to sign Marner, they could enter next year with this forward group without any additions beyond re-signing Hallander:

Rakell-Crosby-Rust
Bunting-Malkin-Marner
Hallander-Glass-Tomasino
Lizotte-Ponomarev-Acciari
Hayes

Tomasino falls into that "bottom-6 offensive producer" role while their PKers are Ponomarev, Lizotte, Glass, Rust, Acciari and Hallander. They're not really going "youth heavy" in their bottom-6, but the bottom-6 is still fairly young with Acciari being the only guy over 27. In addition it's also very cheap, Glass probably comes in at around $2.5 million again while Hallander and Tomasino probably come in at around $2 million. That bottom-6 is basically just replacing O'Connor, Nieto and Beauvillier with Tomasino, Ponomarev and Hallander.

Honestly I'd even be pretty satisfied with this forward group, it's what they should be doing anyway. Don't spend money on unnecessary bottom-6 forwards, have a few cheap but effective prime aged NHLers surrounded with young guys. It leaves you a bunch of money to address other positions on the roster, namely top-6 C/W and top-4 D.

If you sign Marner for $12.5 million a year and keep the RFAs at reasonable prices, I'm sitting with $7.5 million in cap space with buying out Jarry and having 2 open LD spots (POJ as the 3rd pair RD). The entire McGroarty-Broz-Koivunen line would be starting in WBS, so you have a strong line to call up in case of injuries.

Like the above, but do you really think Glass, Tomasino, and Hallander will cost 6.5 Mil.? I know w salary cap going up but seems high. I was thinking more around 4-4.5 mil for those 3. With that said I have no clue what Hallander is making overseas.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Like the above, but do you really think Glass, Tomasino, and Hallander will cost 6.5 Mil.? I know w salary cap going up but seems high. I was thinking more around 4-4.5 mil for those 3. With that said I have no clue what Hallander is making overseas.

Yeah probably. Hallander and Tomasino probably come in at around $2 million while Glass comes in at $2.5 million.

 

[Ulf5]

Yeah probably. Hallander and Tomasino probably come in at around $2 million while Glass comes in at $2.5 million.

I don't see Glass getting $2.5 million again as a RFA. Hopefully nowhere near that.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I don't see Glass getting $2.5 million again as a RFA. Hopefully nowhere near that.

$2.5 million isn't a lot of money in the NHL today. Considering Glass' performance this year (pacing for 25 points while killing penalties), that's about what he's worth.

His QO is $2.5 million anyway, so he'd need to get that to have his rights retained, but I also don't really see $2.5 million AAV as unfair for him either. $2.5 million in the NHL today gets you guys like Heinen, Kuraly and Wood.

That said I think you can pretty fairly point to Lizotte as a good comparable for Glass and justify getting Glass for a bit less. But once you're talking like $2 million vs $2.5 million, the difference just really doesn't matter to me. I'd see if Glass would take 2 years at $2 million to continue being a bottom-6 center for them, otherwise just give him that 1 year deal at his QO.

 

[Gurglesons]

No reason to sign Glass.

 

[Ulf5]

No reason to sign Glass.

I can see a non-tender and lower amount honestly. Has some nice qualities but he's not much more than a league minimum player at this point.

 

[Empoleon8771]

No reason to sign Glass.

Why not? You need depth and you can move some of these guys to wing.

I don't think Glass is anything special but there's nothing wrong with McGroarty-Broz-Koivunen starting in the AHL next year. And if that Hallander rumor ends up not becoming true, then McGroarty will have a spot in the NHL on L3.

 

[Andy99]

We shouldn’t be spending $2M on nothing players in the bottom six….hate that about Dubas…spend some money on the top six and D…keep bottom six under $2M a player and younger players..stop giving out term to goaltenders…end of rant lol

 

[Empoleon8771]

We shouldn’t be spending $2M on nothing players in the bottom six….hate that about Dubas…spend some money on the top six and D…keep bottom six under $2M a player and younger players..stop giving out term to goaltenders…end of rant lol

The lineup I posted above literally has them paying Marner $12.5 million a year plus having an extra $8 million in cap space to add 2 defensemen.

Touching back on Hallander for a bit, a big reason I hope that rumor of him coming back ends up true is because he's a very logical Bunting replacement once Bunting gets traded as a rental. I looked up his SHL team and he is playing LW there, and his playstyle was basically described as a Hagelin/Hornqvist mesh type of player. That seems like a super logical guy to replace Bunting once Bunting gets traded, which also clears up a spot for McGroarty to firmly have a top-9 spot.