Around the NHL — Episode XLXVI

[thinkwild]

I didn’t think offer sheets were ever really meant to be used frequently. The point was to give players some leverage when they are RFA’s and in tough negotiations with a team trying to nickel and dime them. It should encourage teams to pay players fairly when they have little leverage. Less hardball. Less rfa holdouts. Less separation from UFA salaries which don’t appear to be increasing as fast as RFA ones. I remember Holik at $9.5m while Havlat was $1.6 and Hossa $2.6 pre cap.



The RFA compensation schedule also sets trade values. Usually you will never get a better offer for a player than the what the RFA compensation schedule dictates.



An offer sheet should only be made if you think you have a good chance at succeeding with it, not just to interfere in another teams negotiations. They are supposed to be hard to make and rare. Especially for top players. I don’t believe that GM’s feels the same sense of stigma over making them though as many fans seem to feel.

 

[BonHoonLayneCornell]

Some guys are willing to take paycut or doscount for team they love- adam henrique said he turned down bigger offers cuz he wanted to won withoulers- but those are guys who have already made a bad and are set as multimillionares.

A guy like broberg doesnt have that luxury as he hasnt even made 1 mil in a year before. Why accept a 1.5 million 1 yeat contract then risk not cutting it in nhl or getting a career ending injury when someone is throwing 9 million at you? Secure your wealth then at back end of career you can be more generous.

Holloways money isnt quote as big a gamebreaker, but Skinner arviddson and henrique returning- perry too- really pushes holloway down the depth chart.

Yup, it's all a choice. Most cases money wins. Some outliers too. That's fine and I'd probably be doing the same in their position. It's just kind of a weird thing to me sometimes. These guys are raised to be so competitive, sometimes talk publicly about it and yet so often they give up a chance to win it all or be on a competitive team to make bank earlier, but as you point out, there's also the chance it never comes again and it is a business from the owner/management side just the same. I see the temptation, just unfortunate to see two budding stars go to a non competitive team that were played key roles on a contender last year.

As you say, Broberg makes the most sense to let walk. It's obviously an inflated amount in an attempt to get him, but the Oilers are in a tough spot giving such an unproven player so much.

Holloway is a slam dunk imo. It's more than they wanted to pay him, but it's not that much for a guy they drafted and developed. He may end up in heavy competition, but after what I saw last year, he'll play his way into the conversation. He was one of Knoblauch's most trusted players and he was a fresh faced rookie.

And mostly I'm just bummed for the Oilers. I like them. They've been my bandwagon team the last 5 or so years while the Senators stunk and were owned by a crook. I'll be cheering them on again next year, but this does hurt their chances. It's a bit of a mess now after a real tidy offseason and it's going to be interesting to see what they do. I still think they match both and make other moves to make room, but they are limited in options there, so maybe not.

Did they know the other guy was also getting offer sheeted? Maybe they both just assumed EDM would match not realizing the two deals combined were designed to squeeze edm

Interesting thought. I guess it doesn't matter either way, the play is essentially from the Blues and has apparently been in the works for some time. Seems like they mostly just wanted to make a mess of the Oilers cap, but maybe they think they'll get Broberg out of it.

 

[bicboi64]

I think you know this, but just in case. Pinto already signed with us for 2 years so he can't sign an offer sheet.

Sorry, meant to type, "if someone had offer sheeted Pinto"/

Even going forward, if any of our younger guys like Greig, Yakemchuk, etc... aren't locked up early on or if we're still spending money poorly in other areas, it's our own fault.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

I think the people saying an offer sheet is a good thing will think differently if one their team’s players get targeted. I mean, some are mad and blame the NHL for not having a No Trade List database, so I can see the emotional & annoyed reaction when it's your team that has to bear the negative consequences.

 

[Icelevel]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1824062704803316186

So boeser is better

 

[Xspyrit]

I think Offer Sheets are great, there are tools available and they should be used.

Well, it depends on which side you end up. Imagine we lost Shane Pinto just like that, we'd be beyond pissed at offer sheets and at the team grabbing him for basically free. We got lucky nobody was able to abuse Dorion that way too

I'm a players first type guy. I want players to make sure they set themselves up for life. Granted, I want them to also own up to the pressures and consequences of the contracts they choose.

Guys like Broberg and Holloway can set themselves up for life if they handle that offer sheet money correctly.

If someone wants to offer sheet Pinto and we're screwed because our management doesn't have capspace, it'll suck for us, but hopefully it'll convince management to be a bit better with their contracts in the first place. The league needs more offer sheets, its a good way to get players paid but also to screw teams that you'll be competing against. Losing Broberg and Holloway hurts EDM's depth, and therefore their capchances.

If we were in EDM's shoes, I'd be pissed of TML or another eastern conference team did that to us, but its refreshing to see teams use every tool at their disposal to get better & screw their opponents.

I think you'd be (and others who think OS are cool!) singing a very very different tune if we got royally screwed and lost a guy like Sanderson, for example.

 

[bicboi64]

Well, it depends on which side you end up. Imagine we lost Shane Pinto just like that, we'd be beyond pissed at offer sheets and at the team grabbing him for basically free. We got lucky nobody was able to abuse Dorion that way too


I think you'd be (and others who think OS are cool!) singing a very very different tune if we got royally screwed and lost a guy like Sanderson, for example.

I'd absolutely be pissed if another team got one of our younger players via OS, you're right.

I'm a hockey fan before a Sens fan and think that OS are useful tools that can be used to benefit players and screw other teams. I'd rather they exist than not and hope that we have management that is never in a position to lose players to OS because they're vigilant enough to get them signed before other teams even have the opportunity to OS.

If I'm an EDM fan, of course I'm upset at St. Louis, but I'd also be upset at my team for throwing money at JSkinner, Arvidsson, Perry, and Josh Brown before locking up the only young & upcoming players in the system.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

So boeser is better

apparently; White did not live up to the billing. I think the Sens made mistakes with his development but he had lots of time to show who he was.

 

[Boud]

I think the people saying an offer sheet is a good thing will think differently if one their team’s players get targeted. I mean, some are mad and blame the NHL for not having a No Trade List database, so I can see the emotional & annoyed reaction when it's your team that has to bear the negative consequences.

It's part of the game though and offer sheets are already difficult enough to execute. Teams must be willing to offer, in most cases, more than the player is worth. The player must be willing to sign with that team and go to that city.

The cap ceiling also gives all teams a similar playing field, other than taxes and lifestyle. So all in all, if a team like previously Arizona could convince a player to come to their team and sign an offer sheet - It would really increase the level of diligence that GMs should have when creating their roster. It could create more parity in the league as well.

With limited cap space it's not like many GMs are even in a position to do something like that or would even be willing to.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

It's part of the game though and offer sheets are already difficult enough to execute. Teams must be willing to offer, in most cases, more than the player is worth. The player must be willing to sign with that team and go to that city.

The cap ceiling also gives all teams a similar playing field, other than taxes and lifestyle. So all in all, if a team like previously Arizona could convince a player to come to their team and sign an offer sheet - It would really increase the level of diligence that GMs should have when creating their roster. It could create more parity in the league as well.

With limited cap space it's not like many GMs are even in a position to do something like that or would even be willing to.

Yes, the Offer Sheet is part of the CBA.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

I'm a players first type guy. I want players to make sure they set themselves up for life. Granted, I want them to also own up to the pressures and consequences of the contracts they choose.

Guys like Broberg and Holloway can set themselves up for life if they handle that offer sheet money correctly.

If someone wants to offer sheet Pinto and we're screwed because our management doesn't have capspace, it'll suck for us, but hopefully it'll convince management to be a bit better with their contracts in the first place. The league needs more offer sheets, its a good way to get players paid but also to screw teams that you'll be competing against. Losing Broberg and Holloway hurts EDM's depth, and therefore their capchances.

If we were in EDM's shoes, I'd be pissed of TML or another eastern conference team did that to us, but its refreshing to see teams use every tool at their disposal to get better & screw their opponents.

Offer sheets or not, the salary cap is the cap. There's a hard limit to what players can be paid. Tossing around more offer sheets won't change that.

 

[Sun God Nika]

I'm a players first type guy. I want players to make sure they set themselves up for life. Granted, I want them to also own up to the pressures and consequences of the contracts they choose.

Guys like Broberg and Holloway can set themselves up for life if they handle that offer sheet money correctly.

If someone wants to offer sheet Pinto and we're screwed because our management doesn't have capspace, it'll suck for us, but hopefully it'll convince management to be a bit better with their contracts in the first place. The league needs more offer sheets, its a good way to get players paid but also to screw teams that you'll be competing against. Losing Broberg and Holloway hurts EDM's depth, and therefore their capchances.

If we were in EDM's shoes, I'd be pissed of TML or another eastern conference team did that to us, but its refreshing to see teams use every tool at their disposal to get better & screw their opponents.

Im pretty pro player too, but as a Sens fan I side with the club in that there needs to be more measures for teams to retain their talent.

Could that be limiting free agency contracts to 6 years vs the team that drafted/hold rights get to sign said player for 8?

A cap credit on a max set of players that were drafted by the team? Ottawa gets 800k (10%) cap credit on Stutzle and 800K on Tkachuk. for a total relief of 1.6M or only have credit apply when players are playing for this team in their UFA years.

Still likely wont be enough to stop a guy from looking at more attractive destinations like Florida but it gives the sens a fighting chance.

 

[DrEasy]

Im pretty pro player too, but as a Sens fan I side with the club in that there needs to be more measures for teams to retain their talent.

Could that be limiting free agency contracts to 6 years vs the team that drafted/hold rights get to sign said player for 8?

A cap credit on a max set of players that were drafted by the team? Ottawa gets 800k (10%) cap credit on Stutzle and 800K on Tkachuk. for a total relief of 1.6M or only have credit apply when players are playing for this team in their UFA years.

Still likely wont be enough to stop a guy from looking at more attractive destinations like Florida but it gives the sens a fighting chance.

Yeah, as it currently is, and if my understanding is correct, offer sheets favor the more attractive destinations. Would a player have signed an offer sheet coming from Dorion operating under Melnyk?

 

[Golden_Jet]

Yeah, as it currently is, and if my understanding is correct, offer sheets favor the more attractive destinations. Would a player have signed an offer sheet coming from Dorion operating under Melnyk?

Yes, a lot of times offer sheets are overpaid, so they will go for the money.
I don’t think there is a correlation to destination. If the team is good, it makes it more attractive than a team that is bad.
I think it’s more about the money when they sign, compared to what their current team is offering.

 

[GCK]

Well, it depends on which side you end up. Imagine we lost Shane Pinto just like that, we'd be beyond pissed at offer sheets and at the team grabbing him for basically free. We got lucky nobody was able to abuse Dorion that way too



I think you'd be (and others who think OS are cool!) singing a very very different tune if we got royally screwed and lost a guy like Sanderson, for example.

Offer sheets will likely never work on high end talent like Sanderson. These players get locked up early and compensation would be very prohibitive. The offers that make sense are for lower priced kids.

 

[BondraTime]

Offer sheets will likely never work on high end talent like Sanderson. These players get locked up early and compensation would be very prohibitive. The offers that make sense are for lower priced kids.

Sebastian Aho signed a huge offersheet with an 11.3 bonus and 23 million in his first season a few years ago

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1824121663791010011

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

Offer sheets will likely never work on high end talent like Sanderson. These players get locked up early and compensation would be very prohibitive. The offers that make sense are for lower priced kids.

Offer sheets work, but indirectly.

There are quite a few trades over the years that were expedited by the possibility of an offer sheet.

Also, players getting locked up early for big money is leverage based. So it's partly because teams think they will cost more later on, but offer sheets also sometimes can play into it. Look at Garrioch's claim that we didn't mess around with Pinto because of the possibility of an offer sheet. I'm fine with Pinto's contract, but you can argue that it's on the higher end of what a 2 bridge deal should have brought, given his status, games played, and potential. We're talking about a player who missed roughly half of the last possibly 246 regular season games. While there might have been other reasons why they didn't want it dragging on, like minimizing distractions around the team, I'm sure the possibility of an offer sheet played into it.

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

Im pretty pro player too, but as a Sens fan I side with the club in that there needs to be more measures for teams to retain their talent.

Could that be limiting free agency contracts to 6 years vs the team that drafted/hold rights get to sign said player for 8?

A cap credit on a max set of players that were drafted by the team? Ottawa gets 800k (10%) cap credit on Stutzle and 800K on Tkachuk. for a total relief of 1.6M or only have credit apply when players are playing for this team in their UFA years.

Still likely wont be enough to stop a guy from looking at more attractive destinations like Florida but it gives the sens a fighting chance.

For the most part, I don't think small market teams have a problem with keeping players under the current status quo. I do agree that contenders, or big money teams that can offer buyout proof signing bonuses and big front loaded money do have an advantage.

I think they need reform with NMCs and signing bonuses. I would create some sort of franchise player tag and limit each team to a set number of them. Maybe 2 or 3. To get signing bonuses beyond the first year of the contract, the player needs to have a franchise tag. For a player under 35 to get a NMC, they need to have a franchise tag.

I would also create a system that supplies some sort of aid for the franchise tag signing bonuses to smaller market teams. So that the player can be paid out their signing bonus on July 1st by the league, but small market teams can be eligible to pay the league back in the same increments they would pay the player if they did not have bonuses.

I would make the unused tags a tradeable asset. That further allows small market teams a chance to compete. Because a team that knows they will be rebuilding for the next 5+ seasons could trade five seasons worth of franchise tags to the Toronto Maple Leafs for a haul of draft picks.

That system also spreads talent around, because if we're limiting franchise tags to 2 per team, teams that are 3+ franchise players deep might see their player go to a rebuilding or upcoming team strictly to get the franchise tag. In this scenario, Tavares probably never goes to Toronto (wait, we want him to go there, but still!), and he stays with the Islanders because they unless they can secure 7 years worth of franchise tags in trades, they may not want to burn one on Tavares with Matthews, Marner, Nylander, and then possibly Reilly coming up. Ultimately, it artificially creates incentive for legitimate franchise players to move around as UFAs, or for teams who cannot attract these UFAs to get heavily compensated by teams who can via trading their franchise tags for future assets.

 

[Xspyrit]

I'd absolutely be pissed if another team got one of our younger players via OS, you're right.

I'm a hockey fan before a Sens fan and think that OS are useful tools that can be used to benefit players and screw other teams. I'd rather they exist than not and hope that we have management that is never in a position to lose players to OS because they're vigilant enough to get them signed before other teams even have the opportunity to OS.

If I'm an EDM fan, of course I'm upset at St. Louis, but I'd also be upset at my team for throwing money at JSkinner, Arvidsson, Perry, and Josh Brown before locking up the only young & upcoming players in the system.

Perry and Brown are close to league minimum so no big deal, they can be buried without any cap consequences. Arvidsson and Skinner are good to have at 7M$ IMO but these OS put them in cap hell, the 2 young guys would have been much much cheaper on a bridge (which should have been done earlier)

I understand your position as a hockey fan but as a Sens fan, if OS were more a common thing, I can assure you we would have been screwed someway somehow with a GM like Pierre Dorion for 7 years. We dodged a disaster.

Offer sheets will likely never work on high end talent like Sanderson. These players get locked up early and compensation would be very prohibitive. The offers that make sense are for lower priced kids.

With you I took Pinto as an example, with the other poster I used Sanderson because of the angle of the discussion. We're talking about if OS were a common thing, in that case you might see players like Sanderson being stolen or teams forced to trade a good player to not lose their Sanderson, which would be awful for us. Last thing you want is going into war mode with markets like Montreal, Toronto and/or New York, our uber-rich neighbors.

Sebastian Aho signed a huge offersheet with an 11.3 bonus and 23 million in his first season a few years ago

It was 12M$ in his first season (base was just 700 K$) but point made

 

[GCK]

Perry and Brown are close to league minimum so no big deal, they can be buried without any cap consequences. Arvidsson and Skinner are good to have at 7M$ IMO but these OS put them in cap hell, the 2 young guys would have been much much cheaper on a bridge (which should have been done earlier)

I understand your position as a hockey fan but as a Sens fan, if OS were more a common thing, I can assure you we would have been screwed someway somehow with a GM like Pierre Dorion for 7 years. We dodged a disaster.



With you I took Pinto as an example, with the other poster I used Sanderson because of the angle of the discussion. We're talking about if OS were a common thing, in that case you might see players like Sanderson being stolen or teams forced to trade a good player to not lose their Sanderson, which would be awful for us. Last thing you want is going into war mode with markets like Montreal, Toronto and/or New York, our uber-rich neighbors.



It was 12M$ in his first season (base was just 700 K$) but point made

Bad GMs will always screw over their teams regardless of Offer Sheets.

I doubt any offer sheet for Pinto would have been successful.

Aho signed but Montreal failed to get him.

 

[Senscore]

Ceci DUMPED

https://x.com/i/web/status/1825371797199417720

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

Ceci DUMPED

https://x.com/i/web/status/1825371797199417720

It shows you the disconnect between how fans view Ceci and how real pros view him.

All the fans thought it would take Edmonton a 1st to get out of this situation, but even know none of the GMs wanted to help Edmonton, Ceci was too enticing for them to pass up, and it only cost Edmonton a 3rd because of it.

 

[bert]

It shows you the disconnect between how fans view Ceci and how real pros view him.

All the fans thought it would take Edmonton a 1st to get out of this situation, but even know none of the GMs wanted to help Edmonton, Ceci was too enticing for them to pass up, and it only cost Edmonton a 3rd because of it.

Yup.... They'll likely flip him at the deadline for a 2nd or a 3rd. Two assets to take him for 60 games. These are the things Dorion never did when they were rebuilding. Insteadd he was giving assets for cap dumps. Now here we are, 31st in prospect depth having missed the playoffs for 7 straight seasons. It's kinda mind boggling. He has to be there as a bottom 5 NHL GM all time.

I see all these people ripping on Grier saying he could have got this or that for taking the contract and he's 'stupider 'dumb. Yet he is making his team better. The market dictated that was the cost of business.

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

Yup.... They'll likely flip him at the deadline for a 2nd or a 3rd. Two assets to take him for 60 games. These are the things Dorion never did when they were rebuilding. Insteadd he was giving assets for cap dumps. Now here we are, 31st in prospect depth having missed the playoffs for 7 straight seasons. It's kinda mind boggling. He has to be there as a bottom 5 NHL GM all time.

I see all these people ripping on Grier saying he could have got this or that for taking the contract and he's 'stupider 'dumb. Yet he is making his team better. The market dictated that was the cost of business.

He got a similar return to what Pittsburgh got for taking Glass, but Ceci is more established player. It's an expiring contract, and there are finite opportunities to use cap space to get assets. Cap space expires at the end of the season. It was fine. They got a bit less than Pittsburgh got for Glass, but Ceci is also more of a known entity than Glass.

Another factor that has to be considered is that they need roster players to surround Celebrini with. They are beyond the point of their rebuild where putting an AHL team out there is acceptable. Ceci gives them another veteran NHL defender to eat up minutes this season. Even if they do not get an asset for Ceci at the deadline, his presence on their roster might enable them to move on from a different defenseman who they otherwise might have kept.

Based on using a specific advanced stat I developed to translate what role Ceci will play on San Jose's roster, which is much weaker than Edmonton's roster, it is clear to me that we could expect Ceci to play as many as 47 minutes per night.