What happened to this guy?
Remember when was talked about like a Hjlamarsson caliber defensive specialist ceiling. Fools gold?
Biggest thing with Samuelsson was that it was one of those total "gambler" contracts trying to lock him in long-term at a steal of a deal before he had a chance to fully establish himself more. So it was mostly based on a very small sample of games, and a lot of time being carried by Dahlin from what i recall...and it's Buffalo, so like many things...that hasn't worked out for them. He's also just been constantly banged up. But he was always a pretty limited player. He's tall and in theory, could play a sort of 4D stay at home role if he can stay healthier. But the upside never really fully justified the risk to me. It's not like he was ever going to turn into a big point producer that gets paid the big bucks.
Would think Grubauer would be a candidate though
Absolutely have to think Seattle would love to get out from under that messy deal. Would free up a lot of space for them to play with, and still get better backup goaltending from someone much much cheaper. Goalies are such tough cap dumps though. Only so many teams are willing to burn not only the cap space, but one of their limited goaltending roster spots on a guy who sucks. The buyout isn't too pretty either, but it wouldn't surprise me if they decided to just bite the bullet on that.
I feel like Holl is the sort of guy who could feasibly end up as a "cap offset" type dump in some other deal, if StevenY gets real "tradey" this summer. Terrible contract, but he's a tall RH shooting bottom-pairing defenceman who could be serviceable enough for a team lacking depth, in the right system. Plenty of teams with cap space to burn, and it's not like there's a ton more term left on the stupid contract.
That’s exactly the type of player the Pens should acquire. Very easily flippable at the TDL.
Yeah. Arvidsson to the Penguins makes a ton of sense to me. Either they get previous Arvidsson and he's a useful pickup who could find some chemistry with Crosby/Malkin and get his groove back a bit...or he continues to trend down and he might still even be a low value flip candidate.
Palat in NJ - still has another 2 years at $6M per. On July 1st his NMC changes to a 10 team trade list.
Palat is going to have to be so strategic with that M-NMC. As bad as his contract is for the Devils, there are definitely teams around the bottom of the standings and rebuilding, who i could see poking around a veteran like that who has a track record as a responsible two-way player.
Anyone else surprised that there was 0 buyouts on the first day?
I wouldn't actually be surprised if there were very few buyouts this summer. Largely just because there's so much cap space floating around. Once the dust settles after Free Agent Frenzy...there are going to be plenty of teams sitting around not getting the guys they wanted, with all sorts of cap space burning a hole in their pocket. Probably willing to work some deals to take on players and cap for a reasonable fee.
