Around the League

[Oddbob]

He was the Dir. of European Scouting from 2016 to 2021. Looks like his biggest gets were:
Alexandre Texier
Daniil Tarasov
Emil Bemstrom
Kirill Marchenko
Dmitry Voronkov
Yegor Chinakhov

My man loves the Russians, eh?

These names excite me not.

 

[Oddbob]

YIKES, Oilers set to hire Stan Bowman as GM and EVP of Hockey Ops.

 

[norrisnick]

YIKES, Oilers set to hire Stan Bowman as GM and EVP of Hockey Ops.

Get out while you can, Connor. I want you to check that box so HFB might calm down, but not if Stan gets another Cup...

 

[JediOrderPizza]

 

[jkutswings]

May it blow up spectacularly in their faces and lead to Draisaitl and/or McDavid leaving town.

 

[Konnan511]

I thought Ken Holland was the GM? Did I miss something?

 

[norrisnick]

I thought Ken Holland was the GM? Did I miss something?

They let his contract expire.

 

[Konnan511]

They let his contract expire.

That's wild...

They nearly won the Stanley Cup. I mean, he had Generational talent to work with, but he still put together a Stanley Cup team.

Do we know why they let his contract expire?

 

[norrisnick]

That's wild...

They nearly won the Stanley Cup. I mean, he had Generational talent to work with, but he still put together a Stanley Cup team.

Do we know why they let his contract expire?

Among other things, I would imagine how long it took to get a semi-competent roster of skaters behind arguably the two best players in the world. And then still pinning everything on the backs of Stuart Skinner. It's wasting the primes of the best players in hockey with nothing to show for it thus far. Yes, salary constraints exist. But a lot of them were self-inflicted. They need a wizard to figure out Drai and Bouchard's next contracts before McDavid's next one is due. And I don't think they trusted Holland to do so.

Hilariously... what Bowman ended up doing with the Blackhawks, they didn't pick a guy that did any better managing massive salaries with star players.

 

[ricky0034]

That's wild...

They nearly won the Stanley Cup. I mean, he had Generational talent to work with, but he still put together a Stanley Cup team.

Do we know why they let his contract expire?

IIRC the rumor was he lost an internal power struggle

 

[SoupNazi]

May it blow up spectacularly in their faces and lead to Draisaitl and/or McDavid leaving town.

Oh, it will. Quickly.

 

[Oddbob]

That's wild...

They nearly won the Stanley Cup. I mean, he had Generational talent to work with, but he still put together a Stanley Cup team.

Do we know why they let his contract expire?

Rumours were that Darryl Katz is really liking/close with Jeff Jackson and that meant no Ken Holland.

 

[The Zermanator]

Booooooo, a pox on the Oilers' house.

 

[RabidBadger]

Booooooo, a pox on the Oilers' house.

Or any team that the criminal jagoffs from Chicago go.

 

[jaster]

I read a headline, "No retread is too disgraced for the NHL."

Like, for real.

And I'm a bit disappointed Sheldon Kennedy got roped into this. I understand where he's coming from as a victim, and he should obviously have a voice, but having him at the news conference was cringe, regardless of how much he has worked with Bowman to not be a POS.

And this is all ignoring the smaller elephant in the room.... that Bowman kinda sucks at the things the Oilers are looking to improve, namely contract negotiations.

May the whole operation crash and burn.

 

[jkutswings]

And this is all ignoring the smaller elephant in the room.... that Bowman kinda sucks at the things the Oilers are looking to improve, namely contract negotiations.

May the whole operation crash and burn.

It would absolutely break my heart if Draisaitl went on the record saying, "I'd be thrilled to be an Oiler for life. For $20M AAV."

 

[saska sault]

Larkin deal looks nice compared to Koneckys new contract.

 

[JoesuffP]

8 year deals make no sense to me especially when RFA want you to pay them for pushing their UFA status a couple years. When has this worked out. I understand overpaying term/AAV to make sure you get the guy you want but when the player is signing with your team regardless why not pay them their market value at the time they sign the deal and if they over produce and need a raise so be it. I’d happily pay Raymond as a 100 point player in 3-4 years if that’s what he’s worth. All this to save 1-2M in the last 2 years of their deal and overpay them 2M for the first 3-4 years in an absolute ideal situation. I know GMs won’t be handing out these deals when they see how it’s actually worked out. Time will tell

 

[Winger98]

8 year deals make no sense to me especially when RFA want you to pay them for pushing their UFA status a couple years. When has this worked out. I understand overpaying term/AAV to make sure you get the guy you want but when the player is signing with your team regardless why not pay them their market value at the time they sign the deal and if they over produce and need a raise so be it. I’d happily pay Raymond as a 100 point player in 3-4 years if that’s what he’s worth. All this to save 1-2M in the last 2 years of their deal and overpay them 2M for the first 3-4 years in an absolute ideal situation. I know GMs won’t be handing out these deals when they see how it’s actually worked out. Time will tell

I think a lot will ride on how lucky teams get with the cap. If we hit some high growth years and the cap meets or exceeds projections, those contracts look better. We have something like the covid years cripple the cap and those contracts age horribly.

that said, I think we've also seen players get cap and term, which is just dumb from the team's perspective. I don't have any real issue with just going with shorter deals and giving guys what they are worth if they earn it, either.

 

[ricky0034]

the thing about the cap is you're competing against other teams

not every one of those long term deals for young guys are gonna work out but some of them will and those teams will get a cap advantage out of it

in theory you could not play that game but you'd be dumb to if you believe in your young players at all because other teams will play it and at that point you're just ceding away a cap advantage

and in the Wings case specifically they're already at a talent disadvantage to begin with due to the whole lottery thing so if you also aren't even using the cap the best you can and don't even have a depth advantage then at that point what do you even have?

 

[norrisnick]

The trick with deals for young players is this. If you're on the upswing towards a window of competitiveness, you sign for term at the expense of immediate cap space because on the upswing you don't need it, but you will later. If you're solidly in your window you go short to reduce cap and stay in that window as long as you can and hope for the best once it comes time to pay them. So teams like the Wings, Buffalo, Ottawa, etc... lock in kids now and teams like Colorado, Florida, Edmonton, Vegas will be trying to reduce immediate cap hit as much as is possible. Bridging Mo or Ray for 3-4 years wouldn't be wise because you don't want a big raise right when you should be looking to add the final pieces.

If you f*** up on the valuation it really doesn't matter if it's 4 years or 8 years, you f***ed up anyway. The Kings just proved that no contract is impossible to move.

 

[JoesuffP]

From watching hockey the last decade these killer team friendly deals have only come from guys who nobody thought much of and became something special. Braden Point, Kucherov etc. On the other hand the list of high end draft picks that signed long term deals that crippled their franchise for years is a long one and even the ones where the player ends up being good you never got really good value out of those contracts at any point despite over paying them severely for the first 2-3 years. Both Tkuchuks, Dhalin, Matthews, Marner etc. you paid top dollar for those guys anyways when do they become steals? Such high risk for such a low reward and that’s is if everything pans out perfectly. Players agents laughing their way to the bank at this new trend

 

[JoesuffP]

Seider signing for 9.5M for 8 years is fun to think about in the offseason but if he can’t break 50 points the next two years then we are calling for Yzerman’s job and it will be the same people that begged for that deal

7.75M for 3 years and if he’s a top 5 defensmen demanding 11.5 I’ll gladly pay him that

 

[Axel Sandy Pelikan]

8 year deals make no sense to me especially when RFA want you to pay them for pushing their UFA status a couple years. When has this worked out. I understand overpaying term/AAV to make sure you get the guy you want but when the player is signing with your team regardless why not pay them their market value at the time they sign the deal and if they over produce and need a raise so be it. I’d happily pay Raymond as a 100 point player in 3-4 years if that’s what he’s worth. All this to save 1-2M in the last 2 years of their deal and overpay them 2M for the first 3-4 years in an absolute ideal situation. I know GMs won’t be handing out these deals when they see how it’s actually worked out. Time will tell

Eh, we're approaching a tipping point one way or another.

Either

A) The cap resumes a rocket ascent and we're looking at a 95-100M cap sooner rather than later and the psychological barrier of a $10M contract goes away and you start seeing a lot more of them

or

B) Rookies are going to continue to get the Tim Stutzle level deal and it's not cheap anymore, it's just a UFA contract.

The 8 year deal is still informed a little bit for fans by the Roman Josi deal where Nashville got a Norris level D for 6 years for 500k less annually than the Wings are playing Ben Chiarot or Colorado got 6 years of Nathan MacKinnon at 6M

But mathematically, if you could get Raymond at 3x6 and then say he kicks ass and gets 8x10 at the end of that. You're talking 68M over 8 years or the same as an 8x8.5M deal.

The only way I'm dying on the 8 year contract hill for Raymond and Seider is if I think the cap is gonna go banana bread boom boom in the next couple years and their agents decide to rake me over the coals for 12M if they keep developing.

 

[norrisnick]

From watching hockey the last decade these killer team friendly deals have only come from guys who nobody thought much of and became something special. Braden Point, Kucherov etc. On the other hand the list of high end draft picks that signed long term deals that crippled their franchise for years is a long one and even the ones where the player ends up being good you never got really good value out of those contracts at any point despite over paying them severely for the first 2-3 years. Both Tkuchuks, Dhalin, Matthews, Marner etc. you paid top dollar for those guys anyways when do they become steals? Such high risk for such a low reward and that’s is if everything pans out perfectly. Players agents laughing their way to the bank at this new trend

None of those guys got 8 years after their ELC. They got high bridges then even higher 3rd contracts.

Closest is Brady, but he almost proves the point I'm making. He signed 7 x $8.2M. If he signed a 4 year bridge he sure as shit wouldn't be signing for just $8.2M next offseason when he'd be UFA. But Ottawa has him at $8.2M for 4 more seasons when on the market he'd have half the league tripping over themselves to give him $10M+.

Seider signing for 9.5M for 8 years is fun to think about in the offseason but if he can’t break 50 points the next two years then we are calling for Yzerman’s job and it will be the same people that begged for that deal

7.75M for 3 years and if he’s a top 5 defensmen demanding 11.5 I’ll gladly pay him that

Seider not breaking 50 points has nothing to do with Seider and everything to do with Lalonde.