Salary Cap: '24-'25 Salary Thread: Crosbicles Volume MMXXVI: Sid is Still Goat

[Andy99]

He’s been a good get imo but it might turn out even better if the coach was fired…playing Glass over him on L2 just because of faceoffs is very Mike Sullivan stupid lol…

 

[Khelandros]

For how long? The wheels look like they're in the process of coming off.

Sure, but that's true for multiple UFA wingers. Why Marchand specifically?

1. He kills penalties and actually converts shorthanded opportunities.
2. He is a pest like Hornqvist and is good for 20+ goals a year.
3. Him and Sid have played on a line together at Olympics/World Championships and dominated.

 

[Empoleon8771]

He’s been a good get imo but it might turn out even better if the coach was fired…playing Glass over him on L2 just because of faceoffs is very Mike Sullivan stupid lol…

Honestly this chart makes me think Tomasino as the 3rd line offensive play driver is an appropriate role for him. His 5v5 production has been a bit lacking, but I think he'd have a nice stay as a 3rd liner as a 3rd line offensive driver and PP2 guy.

Bunting-Lizotte-Tomasino would be a pretty solid 3rd line IMO.

 

[Ulf5]

would you sign Boeser to 6x6?

That's an easy yes. But career .37 gpg × 82 = chaching! ($#@!%## auto correct) Some GM is gonna pay more than that imo.

 

[Randy Butternubs]

Bunting-Lizotte-Tomasino would be a pretty solid 3rd line IMO.

Small and weak.

To add, I think Tomasino was drafted as a center. Though the Predators fans I asked said he's no good there.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Small and weak.

Not really and smaller and weaker than what they're already running with

But I do generally agree, I'd want to upgrade Bunting on someone who's heavier and plays a heavier game. Honestly I've grown pretty disappointed in Bunting, he's a great net front guy but he's really lacking at 5v5. He doesn't offer the physicality I would hope to see from him.

 

[Andy99]

Honestly this chart makes me think Tomasino as the 3rd line offensive play driver is an appropriate role for him. His 5v5 production has been a bit lacking, but I think he'd have a nice stay as a 3rd liner as a 3rd line offensive driver and PP2 guy.

Bunting-Lizotte-Tomasino would be a pretty solid 3rd line IMO.

Given our options for scoring in the top six, I think he should be given more a chance there…

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Not really and smaller and weaker than what they're already running with

But I do generally agree, I'd want to upgrade Bunting on someone who's heavier and plays a heavier game. Honestly I've grown pretty disappointed in Bunting, he's a great net front guy but he's really lacking at 5v5. He doesn't offer the physicality I would hope to see from him.

I haven't had much use for Bunting outside of like... three-ish intermittent months in total but to be fair to him it seems like every player with a reputation for having an edge to their game gets their wings clipped in that regard as soon as they play for Sullivan.

And their creativity.

And their positioning in their own end.

And their effectiveness in front of the net (both sides).

And their shooting.

And...

 

[Duffy13]

Little late to the discussion, but I think Gryz is probably a better fit for Dallas if he's not injured after Rempe hit him. He's driving offense decently enough this year, cheaper, and wouldn't take as much to acquire as Karlsson.

I think Karlsson can be traded at the deadline, due to having the remaining retention spot still.... but I think he's probably better to trade during the summer when they can spend much more time on negotiating a deal, without the pressure of an upcoming deadline.

 

[Kasperi kapanen]

People need to lower their expectations on a Karlsson trade big time.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

I simply do not understand this fascination with keeping Rakell, man. He's simply a trade chip. His value's probably never gonna be higher. Sid will still have Geno+1 to play with if/when Rakell is dealt. No idea why people are like "Oh man, I'm gonna need a king's ransom to trade *that* guy." I'm not saying give him away, he has value and it's up to the GM to navigate that road as to when he should be dealt. But I think you take a 2025 1st+ if you find a deal there, or better yet a 2026 1st.

He's a fine player and all that, but you take advantage of the kind of season he's having if you're a team in the Penguins' situation imo. If he can be used to get a young guy like Clarke, you absolutely do the things you have to do to make that happen. Whether that's sending Rakell to the Kings directly, or trading Rakell for a 1st, then flipping that for Clarke.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Sure, but that's true for multiple UFA wingers. Why Marchand specifically?

Because he's really good at both ends of the ice and has established chemistry with Sid.

 

[Jag68Sid87]

It's not about just learning from individual players. It's also important for them to learn to play with each other. If they are the next wave, they will be hear passed everyone. Bringing them up to potentially be in the press box so they can practice with the big club and maybe learn something in the handful of games left isn't going to be valuable to their development. They need to be playing with a ton of ice time and develop the sense of what it takes to lead.

You're still discrediting the fact that the AHL is a club too. Yes, it is our farm system, but they aren't going to abandon it just to gives it's better players some bottom tier minutes. They want the club to win. They want the prospects to have a consistent sense of winning and playing meaningful games. They absolutely are not getting any of that up here.

Great post, and I am not talking about sitting guys in the press box. OBVIOUSLY, our head coach is a tool so maybe we need to start speaking in terms of what WILL happen and what SHOULD happen.

I believe what they SHOULD do is recall Koivunen, Ponomarev, Pickering and McGroarty after the deadline and play them a LOT. That would require moving on from three forwards and a defenseman before the deadline. I think Grz and Beauvillier will be traded, but I don't have a ton of hope that they will be able to move anybody else. Dubas trading players with term is a believe-it-when-I-see it situation for me. Glass is a potential RFA, maybe we find a taker for teams that miss out on Jake Evans et al.

The second part of this plan would be to send some vets down to help the other prospects down on the farm, and to help that team win hockey games. Nieto should have been waived months ago, but he might be able to help that team. You can probably waive 5-7 players on the current roster and not have to worry about losing them to waivers. Heinen, Desharnais, Shea, Hayes, Acciari maybe, Imama for sure, Graves...this list is embarrassingly long!

At the end of the day, it seems completely illogical to be keeping guys down on the farm that are performing well or even great (I would say Pickering and Ponomarev have been great in the AHL this season, and Pickering was also very very good in the NHL, and yet he is down there for some moronic reason) only to keep all this drek on the NHL roster. This is NOT what Dubas said he wanted to do. He said he wanted to help the core try to compete, and then has basically done the opposite with the big-league roster.

Are you saying they are not developing where they are? Are you saying they can only develop up on the big squad?

I'm getting the sense you are over valuing our current crop.

There are many different ways to develop players. Keeping all of our prospects down in the AHL right now is one way. Having our top guys up in the NHL to play meaningful playoff-caliber games against contending teams is another. I think we should be doing the latter, while giving the AHL team some more help with some of the shitty NHLers (but probably solid AHLers) that we have to try to win down there.

Whatever we decide, we seem to be bad at developing players nowadays.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I simply do not understand this fascination with keeping Rakell, man. He's simply a trade chip. His value's probably never gonna be higher. Sid will still have Geno+1 to play with if/when Rakell is dealt. No idea why people are like "Oh man, I'm gonna need a king's ransom to trade *that* guy." I'm not saying give him away, he has value and it's up to the GM to navigate that road as to when he should be dealt. But I think you take a 2025 1st+ if you find a deal there, or better yet a 2026 1st.

He's a fine player and all that, but you take advantage of the kind of season he's having if you're a team in the Penguins' situation imo. If he can be used to get a young guy like Clarke, you absolutely do the things you have to do to make that happen. Whether that's sending Rakell to the Kings directly, or trading Rakell for a 1st, then flipping that for Clarke.

I would trade him for a 2026 1st right now, but I probably would wait if I could only get a 2025 1st.

But yeah, that Rakell to LA for Clarke idea makes a lot of sense to me. I think Rakell and the NYR 1st for Clarke and Moore is a really even trade on paper, even though Kings fans will scream that Clarke isn't available. Clarke has the upside you'd want to justify moving that NYR 1st for, Rakell fills a big need for LA and I think Moore is a solid top-9 replacement as well.

 

[Turin]

People need to lower their expectations on a Karlsson trade big time.

I’m fine with not getting much with zero to minimal retention. However retaining serious money just to get a crappy pick back is useless. 5 mill in cap space is worth a lot.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I’m fine with not getting much with zero to minimal retention. However retaining serious money just to get a crappy pick back is useless. 5 mill in cap space is worth a lot.

I don't think they'd have to retain nearly that much to get a 1st back.

You're talking Karlsson at like $7.5 million for Dumba and a 1st in value.

 

[Jag68Sid87]

I think Grz makes a lot of sense for Dallas. I think he makes even more sense for Vegas, since Cassidy knows him very well. Both teams have big pieces injured on the blueline and he is an expiring contract so I think it makes big-time sense to trade him to either team. Florida is another team that could really use an upgrade on the blueline. Their right side is particularly weak, with Ekblad, Kulikov and Schmidt but their left side could use an upgrade on the third pairing. Balinskis is solid but they don't even have a No. 7 right now because they lost A. Boqvist to waivers. SO those three teams seem to be logical landing spots for Grz...

this assumes Mike Sullivan wants to part with his Massachusetts boy.

Re: Marchand, no interest in acquiring him because of age. No other reason. We are already the second-oldest team in the NHL and we have a bunch of guys that are untradeable. The big name acquisition (if we even get one) has to be under 30, and any other addition has to be 18-24 in age. No more castaways who bring nothing but low-event hockey, please! We have acquired enough future assets that way, we simply cannot afford to make this roster even more meh.

As far as Karlsson and Rakell are concerned, I will again reiterate what Gurglesons said (specifially about Karlsson, I believe): do not give them away; do not trade them unless you are actually getting great value. Rust is in a different category for me. Trade, stay. It matters little to me.

The focus should be trading Grz, Beauvillier, Glass, Ned and Bunting IMO. This assumes you can't trade Jarry, Heinen, Desharnais, Graves, Nieto, Acciari and Hayes.

We could use young center prospects, and if teams insist we have to acquire contracts, then maybe we can take a chance on a goaltender and a left defensive defenseman. We could use help in those two specific areas right about now.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I’m fine with not getting much with zero to minimal retention. However retaining serious money just to get a crappy pick back is useless. 5 mill in cap space is worth a lot.

Yeah I'm fine with him going but even in the state Sullivan has put him in... he's still a pretty crucial offensive driver on this team.

I don't see any reason to go hat in hand to other teams trying to peddle him off for whatever. He's still a damn good player and I am confident will be all the better on another team that actually takes itself seriously.

Also do we HAVE to take Dumba back? He's f***ing terrible. His only useful qualities will be null and void, here.

 

[Turin]

I don't think they'd have to retain nearly that much to get a 1st back.

You're talking Karlsson at like $7.5 million for Dumba and a 1st in value.

You’re taking on Dumba, though. You still just took on serious cap by getting Dumba and then retaining 2.5 mill. Like if you plan to be bad in three years still that’s whatever, but they obviously don’t.

 

[Empoleon8771]

You’re taking on Dumba, though. You still just took on serious cap by getting Dumba and then retaining 2.5 mill. Like if you plan to be bad in three years still that’s whatever, but they obviously don’t.

Everything Dubas has done dating back to the Guentzel trade suggests that this is a full rebuild, he's just not saying it.

It would be really foolish to refuse trading Karlsson for a 1st because they have to to take Dumba back. The cap is going to skyrocket and the Penguins won't be close to the cap anyway.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I don't understand why this team HAS to take on horrible players on horrible contracts just because they are rebuilding. As far as I can tell we're already full up, thanks. And the Sullivan factor is gonna keep us in terrific draft position regardless so maybe lets chill out with trying to actively take on every moronic contract handed out the last few years?

If nothing else I have no desire seeing these other GMs get bailed out of their stupidity.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I don't understand why this team HAS to take on horrible players on horrible contracts just because they are rebuilding. As far as I can tell we're already full up, thanks. And the Sullivan factor is gonna keep us in terrific draft position regardless so maybe lets chill out with trying to actively take on every moronic contract handed out the last few years?

If nothing else I have no desire seeing these other GMs get bailed out of their stupidity.

Because teams can't make a $10 million Karlsson work with the cap, and the Penguins are trying to sell Karlsson.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Because teams can't make a $10 million Karlsson work with the cap, and the Penguins are trying to sell Karlsson.

I'm fine waiting until the offseason, retaining some and trying for a better deal.

I suppose this all just depends on how far you want to stoop. I am of the opinion that this roster is bad enough, old enough and poorly coached/managed enough that that's already taken care of. I would prefer to not take on anymore hopeless players on hopeless deals. And besides they need to start making room for young players that they can devel... HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ahhhhhhhh shit... couldn't even finish that sentence with a straight face.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

If this team doesn't think they're gonna be utter dogshit in three years, they're delusional as hell, man. They're pretty close right now, but once Sid retires? Godspeed.

Even if they end up landing a top 4 pick this draft and somehow luck into McKenna and Dupont the two drafts following, there's still a lotta building to be done. And that kinda stretch of draft fortune is probably a longshot.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I'm fine waiting until the offseason, retaining some and trying for a better deal.

I suppose this all just depends on how far you want to stoop. I am of the opinion that this roster is bad enough, old enough and poorly coached/managed enough that that's already taken care of. I would prefer to not take on anymore hopeless players on hopeless deals. And besides they need to start making room for young players that they can devel... HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ahhhhhhhh shit... couldn't even finish that sentence with a straight face.

The issue though is that Dallas may go for an alternative like Seth Jones and you're left without a trade partner for Karlsson.

I think you could also find a trade with Dumba to swap him for someone else that fills a position of need. Something like Dumba to Vancouver for Soucy could make some sense, Soucy would be a useful LD that the Penguins kinda lack right now.