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

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AuroraBorealis said:
Crosby is 22nd in scoring with solid linemates most of the year and a #8 rank PP.
He might not even get 25 goals, and will get a little over 80 points. The leaders will get 120.
Still a very fine player, but he's like mid to below mid among the best players for all teams now. And he'll be another year older, with surely his skating slowing down even more. He'll continue to decline.
Malkin has 10 goals right now. 60 points is beyond him at this point in his career and he too will fall more next year. Both are in the -20's, so they're not exactly handling the Center roles defensively either.
Letang is a -17 and completely toast defensively, with declining offense.
Karlsson has never been a good defensive defenseman. That won't change next year.

Why should a GM invest more years in a core like this? Their power to win Cups is gone.
Even if you changed the coach, that won't make them younger and faster.
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I mostly agree with this, with a slight caveat. Their power to win Cups is not gone, but their power to win Cups as the best players on the team is gone. A hypothetical world exists where the Penguins win the Cup next season with all of them being contributing members - but there are better players than them also on the team doing the bulk of the work.
This hypothetical world isn't going to happen, of course, but I think it's necessary to differentiate between great/elite players and totally useless players. They're still useful players. They're just too old to play consistently well anymore.
 
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OtherThingsILike said:
I mostly agree with this, with a slight caveat. Their power to win Cups is not gone, but their power to win Cups as the best players on the team is gone. A hypothetical world exists where the Penguins win the Cup next season with all of them being contributing members - but there are better players than them also on the team doing the bulk of the work.
This hypothetical world isn't going to happen, of course, but I think it's necessary to differentiate between great/elite players and totally useless players. They're still useful players. They're just too old to play consistently well anymore.
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I agree about Crosby not needing to be the best on a legit contender he joins, but not here. There's no timeline where they repair it all quickly enough to win next year, or even the year after that.
They would have to be able to rely on Crosby, Malkin and Letang to still be at the height of their power, and they're not even close. In fact they're gonna get worse.
This is not a 6-month free agency and trade fix, under any GM. This is a drafting overhaul fix.

They have way too many net-negative contracts. Karlsson, Graves and Jarry alone are like a combined -11 million in performance to AAV value. Hayes will be like -2.5M. Glass -1M. Acciari -1M. Still one more year of the Jack Johnson buyout.
Letang could realistically play 3 mil below his value next year, with the way he's trending. Malkin won't play up to 6M either at age 39. He might get like 40'ish points, while defending tragically.

Add it up. This is way too big of a mountain to overcome by crafty GM'ing.
Think of the net positive contracts on the team. There are too few to offset these anchors.
You can't win Cups like this. It's not possible.

They need to sacrifice time for this situation to heal, basically.
 
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Well I guess that just means Nieto isn't going anywhere actually. I'm concerned that they'll use this as a justification for not trading Beauvillier, with thinking that the 4th or 5th they'd get back for him isn't worth trading him with Bunting out. It would be moronically stupid, but I can't put anything moronically stupid past this organization at this point.
 
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Empoleon8771 said:
Well I guess that just means Nieto isn't going anywhere actually. I'm concerned that they'll use this as a justification for not trading Beauvillier, with thinking that the 4th or 5th they'd get back for him isn't worth trading him with Bunting out. It would be moronically stupid, but I can't put anything moronically stupid past this organization at this point.
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I imagine the justification for not trading Beau is nobody wants his washed ass.
 
Buddy Bizarre said:
I think that's a ~3 week recovery, yes?
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Guy I play with had his appendix removed second month of the season, and he wasn't allowed to return for 5 weeks. He could skate after 2, full out skate after 3 but no contact for almost 4 and then another week after that before our trainers let him get the could get into a game. Of course, we're playing for $260 a week for 400 people vs. NHL players with non-stop medical monitoring, performance bonuses to hit, etc... so makes sense that we've seen some guys come back 2 weeks after and as quickly as 3 days after in the play-offs.

I think whether it's laparoscopic or if the appendicitis gets too far along and they need to do some clean up work on the table is a massive factor in recovery. Our guy almost had it burst on the table because he waited waaay too long to go into emerg.
 
I can’t believe this team acquired a 100 point Norris winning defensemen (for not really a lot), has watched him look like a totally different player under this coach and his system, then watch him go and play for Sweden in an international tournament and be one of the best players on the ice for them, and then once again come back to Pittsburgh and look like a totally different player and not think to themselves “maybe the coaching is part of the problem.” It’s gonna suck when they have to sell Karlsson off for pennies on the dollar (and probably retain salary) only to watch him go back to being his old self again.
 
AuroraBorealis said:
In Bunting's case it might have been wise to not move him anyway. This is his worst season by far.
It's pretty realistic to expect him to be much better next year, and we'll get the ensuing value boost.
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Players that don't play with Sidney Crosby are notorious for improving their value in Mike Sullivan's system.

TimmyD said:
I can’t believe this team acquired a 100 point Norris winning defensemen (for not really a lot), has watched him look like a totally different player under this coach and his system, then watch him go and play for Sweden in an international tournament and be one of the best players on the ice for them, and then once again come back to Pittsburgh and look like a totally different player and not think to themselves “maybe the coaching is part of the problem.” It’s gonna suck when they have to sell Karlsson off for pennies on the dollar (and probably retain salary) only to watch him go back to being his old self again.
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If you fire Mike Sullivan, you're immediately looking for another Mike Sullivan (despite the fact we are obviously rebuilding so why would it matter, Kyle).

Kindergarten Kyle up to his usually jinkies.
 
Buddy Bizarre said:
That's what I miss about the Gen X Days: you knew they weren't going to win the game. But damn they tried their hardest given the talent level that was available.

I can't remember the last time I saw full effort from 100% of this team. Probably 2018 Caps series?
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Yohe would disagree with the effort thingy
 
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