Salary Cap: 24-25 Salary Thread Crosbicles Volume MXVI: End of season wrap up

[chethejet]

Move Heinen, Hayes who knows. the rest can be handled either trades or DFA. I like Rakell with Malkin as he can do the board work and Koivunen can give them the kid of quick scoring that helps. Sid with McGroarty banging the LW helps Sid. Hallander brings needed help with decent size and some scoring on the third line. But the most important change is the coach who will play to the strengths and not continue to impose his peg in a round hole coaching.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I'm not sure if you love Malkin like you claim or hate him so much it blinds you, but I think there's a reason one post has numerous likes and you're has none.

He is what he is, but he's not as bad as you think either.

Some of it is a stupid, years-held bit admittedly. Reverse jinx stuff that just became reflexive... I admit it's dumb. He's definitely one of my favorite Penguins of all time and at the top of his game easily one of the most entertaining players I've ever watched.

I will say that he probably isn't QUITE as bad as I'm making out and leave it at that. But I dunno... this past year was pretty unfortunate.

The biggest shame of it to me is how he had to spend this last contract he fought so hard for... largely a vestigial component to the team and largely untrusted, unsupported and even borderline disliked by the coach he always came to play for and defended. It almost felt like he was being punished for wanting to stick around. Kind of an ugly way to treat a franchise pillar but then again many people would say I'm out to lunch on that opinion, too.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Splitting up RCR out of the gates is a bad idea imo. It was one of the best lines in the league, and almost our only strength.
At least try them again in October to see where they're at.

If the problem is lack of winger depth for L2, acquire another. And if the kids are good enough to do it, use them.

 

[HandshakeLine]

Splitting up RCR out of the gates is a bad idea imo. It was one of the best lines in the league, and almost our only strength.
At least try them again in October to see where they're at.

If the problem is lack of winger depth for L2, acquire another. And if the kids are good enough to do it, use them.

If we are rebuilding: RCR should ideally be played simply to increase their trade value and then sold off.

If we are trying to compete: we’re gonna need a whole lot more than RCR to do anything of note, so why bother keeping it intact? Try something new and go back to it if necessary.

 

[Andy99]

Splitting up RCR out of the gates is a bad idea imo. It was one of the best lines in the league, and almost our only strength.
At least try them again in October to see where they're at.

If the problem is lack of winger depth for L2, acquire another. And if the kids are good enough to do it, use them.

I would love to see both kids played with Malkin…
Mcg-Geno-Koivunen

 

[eXile3]

Then I think Hayes, Heinen as well as Acciari can be traded.

Acciari is one of the worst forwards in the league. I doubt he is tradable. Hayes and Heinen maybe but no one is taking a 4th liner that bleeds goals every time he touches the ice.

 

[HandshakeLine]

Acciari is one of the worst forwards in the league. I doubt he is tradable. Hayes and Heinen maybe but no one is taking a 4th liner that bleeds goals every time he touches the ice.

lol that the team voted him the “unsung hero” of this failure of a season.

 

[Pancakes]

Acciari is one of the worst forwards in the league. I doubt he is tradable. Hayes and Heinen maybe but no one is taking a 4th liner that bleeds goals every time he touches the ice.

Wouldn't be so sure of that. He's only got a year left on his deal and he kills penalties. Teams always want that at the deadline.

Might be hard to move a guy like that during the off season though. And I doubt the Penguins would even want to. They'll keep him around to be a veteran pker.

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

I think the Washington "model" is actually the Dallas Stars "model", but Dallas just doesn't get credit for it for some reason. Which is really weird because Dallas is actually a legitimate top contender now and clearly demonstrated how to transition from an aging, mediocre team to a top young contender without relying on high draft picks.

In the 2016-2020 window, Dallas was a good but not great team led by older guys like Benn, Seguin, Bishop, Radulov and Pavelski. The only really notable young guy they had was Lindell, everyone else was just a depth guy like Faksa and Nichushkin (who stunk in Dallas if you remember). But they just kept drafting well and gradually adding more and more good talent to the team, with first adding Hintz and Heiskanen near the end of that window and then consistently adding 1-2 "core" level young players basically every season. Now they have an entire core of top young guys that they drafted, plus they're able to add to it externally with guys like Rantanen because of how good of a job they have done.

Dubas is calling it the Capitals model because they're the most recent team to do it, but what he's really trying to recreate is how the Stars built up their contender. Get a lot of picks, draft well and then be aggressive to add NHL talent with the assets/prospects you've collected when you get the chance.

Agreed Dallas is the team we should be emulating. Their drafting has been incredible, and that's got to be the current focus. We need to start drafting and developing guys like Robertson, Hintz, Harley, Wyatt Johnston, etc. Their older guys like Benn, Duchesne, Seguin are still effective too. They are insanely deep and just a perfect blend of young, prime, and veteran.

 

[Pancakes]

Some of it is a stupid, years-held bit admittedly. Reverse jinx stuff that just became reflexive... I admit it's dumb. He's definitely one of my favorite Penguins of all time and at the top of his game easily one of the most entertaining players I've ever watched.

I will say that he probably isn't QUITE as bad as I'm making out and leave it at that. But I dunno... this past year was pretty unfortunate.

The biggest shame of it to me is how he had to spend this last contract he fought so hard for... largely a vestigial component to the team and largely untrusted, unsupported and even borderline disliked by the coach he always came to play for and defended. It almost felt like he was being punished for wanting to stick around. Kind of an ugly way to treat a franchise pillar but then again many people would say I'm out to lunch on that opinion, too.

He put up a 52% 5v5 xgoals despite being on a literal island in terms of winger support and his 50 points weren't bad either considering Sullivan for some reason couldn't figure out how to use him on the top powerplay.

He's not what he once was obviously but he's not late career Jeff Carter either lol. *That* was painful to watch. Malkin is still productive and would still be a useful player on a good team.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

He put up a 52% 5v5 xgoals despite being on a literal island in terms of winger support and his 50 points weren't bad either considering Sullivan for some reason couldn't figure out how to use him on the top powerplay.

He's not what he once was obviously but he's not late career Jeff Carter either lol. *That* was painful to watch. Malkin is still productive and would still be a useful player on a good team.

I don't know that Sullivan ever really knew or cared how to use him... period.

I was assured for many years that they were best buddies and Sullivan only wanted what was best for him. Still don't buy it.

 

[Jared Grayden]

Agreed Dallas is the team we should be emulating. Their drafting has been incredible, and that's got to be the current focus. We need to start drafting and developing guys like Robertson, Hintz, Harley, Wyatt Johnston, etc. Their older guys like Benn, Duchesne, Seguin are still effective too. They are insanely deep and just a perfect blend of young, prime, and veteran.

Dallas started their retool with Benn, Seguin, Lindell all being under 31. Already from step 1 the Penguins can't match that model as they have zero high end players in their prime.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I think people get really touchy about Malkin on here and try to make excuses for his declining performance. I think he did clearly look worse this year than he did last year and the stats pretty universally back it up. That doesn’t mean he’s terrible but he fell off hard this year.

People will blame his wingers, Sullivan and a bunch of other things, but the most likely situation is that a 39 year old player just rapidly declined because that’s what 39 year old players do.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I think people get really touchy about Malkin on here and try to make excuses for his declining performance. I think he did clearly look worse this year than he did last year and the stats pretty universally back it up. That doesn’t mean he’s terrible but he fell off hard this year.

People will blame his wingers, Sullivan and a bunch of other things, but the most likely situation is that a 39 year old player just rapidly declined because that’s what 39 year old players do.

I think reality has to be acknowledged here, yeah. And that he gets slack for being who he is.

But at the same time I think there are plenty of factors that very much exist and are real that have helped contribute to his declining production that are outside his control. I think it's extremely disingenuous of people to pretend that he's been given every opportunity and has simply failed. I imagine that attitude is largely couched in a want to push back against the often favorable light he is cast in by many fans.

 

[Pancakes]

I think people get really touchy about Malkin on here and try to make excuses for his declining performance. I think he did clearly look worse this year than he did last year and the stats pretty universally back it up. That doesn’t mean he’s terrible but he fell off hard this year.

People will blame his wingers, Sullivan and a bunch of other things, but the most likely situation is that a 39 year old player just rapidly declined because that’s what 39 year old players do.

I don't think anyone would dispute he's declined even compared to last year but it would be hyperbolic in the extreme to suggest he's washed or not still a useful player.

I'll give you one example here that should illustrate my point. Bill Guerin in 2009. I'd take 2024-25 Evgeni Malkin over 2009 Bill Guerin any day, and Guerin was still useful enough to be a key contributor on a Stanley Cup winning team.

Like I said, this isn't late career Jeff Carter we're talking about here. Geno is still useful. He's just at the point now where when he's on a team that is largely filled with garbage he can't make up the difference. Doesn't mean he's washed or should be retiring immediately.

 

[plaidchuck]

Let’s be real. People here want everyone not named Crosby to LTIR so we can have all that extra cap space to.. do what exactly?

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Let’s be real. People here want everyone not named Crosby to LTIR so we can have all that extra cap space to.. do what exactly?

I dunno. Recent trends would suggest spending it on awful players on toxic contracts for the sake of some scratch off tickets.

 

[plaidchuck]

I dunno. Recent trends would suggest spending it on awful players on toxic contracts for the sake of some scratch off tickets.

Yeah that’s my point. Until the prospect pool acquires or develops some real contributors it’s not going to do much. I mean yeah you could go after Marner to try to pad Crosbys stats I guess but this is all hypothetical stuff that wont happen either way.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Yeah that’s my point. Until the prospect pool acquires or develops some real contributors it’s not going to do much. I mean yeah you could go after Marner to try to pad Crosbys stats I guess.

Not very many inspiring options at the moment. None, really.

Honestly at this point in time I'm not really irritated about where the team currently is or where they are going. It's how horribly they mismanaged the last years of Crosby and to a smaller degree the rest of the core... and for the sake of what? Some coach and a buncha overinflated egos emanating from the front office? If I always seem a little vexed when I'm talking about this stuff it's probably because of that. Well that and I'm just a bitter old bastard.

 

[Gurglesons]

I think people get really touchy about Malkin on here and try to make excuses for his declining performance. I think he did clearly look worse this year than he did last year and the stats pretty universally back it up. That doesn’t mean he’s terrible but he fell off hard this year.

People will blame his wingers, Sullivan and a bunch of other things, but the most likely situation is that a 39 year old player just rapidly declined because that’s what 39 year old players do.

He’s a 2C. Rossi put up similar numbers with his most common linemates being Zucc, Kaprizov, and Boldy last year.

 

[HandshakeLine]

I think people all have their dumb pet causes on this board that are frankly stupid. Malkin is among the least bad “nonobjective” (lol nobody’s objective) pet causes IMO.

 

[HandshakeLine]

Death to objectivity.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

I think he's in that Sam Bennett category. Utility guy in the RS that will put up respectable numbers but will be an absolute monster in the playoffs. Nylander and Knies have been their best players IMHO. Knies is the kind of playoff warrior that's gonna get you over the top. Like Hornqvist was for us.

Tough to put a value on that. 1st, 2nd, 3rd in 2026...hard, HARD pass.

Hornqvist historically was a poor playoff performer.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

Obv we can’t pick a depth player or prospect from every NHL team like Vegas

But imo the lesson to take from them is trading extra 1sts for impact players.

The number one thing to turn us around is hitting on high picks. But I don’t think we should put all our eggs in the drafting basket.

I’d keep the high firsts, make a million dart throws in the 2nd thru 4th round, and trade every mid/late 1st we add for current NHLers.

The problem with this is that the more of those trades you do for current NHLers, the less likely it becomes you'll get a high first.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

The sell is that Lafreniere is already a capable young NHL player whereas anyone we pick at 11th (or 12th) is going to take probably a minimum of 3 years to make the team.

The gamble is that Laf might not get much if at all better. Is he worth that pick if this is all he ever is?

Why do the Penguins need help now? They aren't going to be a contender in the next 3 years. No bonus points for being slightly less bad.