Confirmed with Link: Canucks Re-Sign W Nils Hoglander to 3y/3m AAV Contract

[sting101]

Hoglanders goals per/60 ES the last 2yrs even is 8th best league wide. 7th highest goal total of his draft class total without much PP.

Hoglander is not purely an offensive player and poor defensive player either he's a tremendous wall player forechecker and he brings all sorts of energy and compete and agitation/disruption to our opposition that typically has him as a positive play driver.

I see a world where Sprong goes back to being a 4th liner or worse and where Hoglander playing with Pettersson/Debrusk collects a lot of points in a contract year that would have become very expensive. He may have played top6 last year but how much of that was with EP40 Mikhayev Lindholm at or near their best.

So while some see this as unnecessary and risky to jump the gun they don't see it that way at all and are getting ahead of the potential of a market measure by his agent that would sour the relationship and maybe even make it impossible to keep him.

He doesn't have to really improve at all for that to be either. A 10-12% SH pctg more assists and shot opportunities set up by better playing players and he could easily surpass 40-45pts.

Would be tough to negotiate down to 3 million at that stage no?

 

[MS]

Hoglanders goals per/60 ES the last 2yrs even is 8th best league wide. 7th highest goal total of his draft class total without much PP.

Hoglander is not purely an offensive player and poor defensive player either he's a tremendous wall player forechecker and he brings all sorts of energy and compete and agitation/disruption to our opposition that typically has him as a positive play driver.

I see a world where Sprong goes back to being a 4th liner or worse and where Hoglander playing with Pettersson/Debrusk collects a lot of points in a contract year that would have become very expensive. He may have played top6 last year but how much of that was with EP40 Mikhayev Lindholm at or near their best.

So while some see this as unnecessary and risky to jump the gun they don't see it that way at all and are getting ahead of the potential of a market measure by his agent that would sour the relationship and maybe even make it impossible to keep him.

He doesn't have to really improve at all for that to be either. A 10-12% SH pctg more assists and shot opportunities set up by better playing players and he could easily surpass 40-45pts.

Would be tough to negotiate down to 3 million at that stage no?

It's going to be *extremely* difficult to go much past his current numbers without getting significant PP production, which likely isn't going to happen. Even if he played with Pettersson all year ... 24 goals again at ES would be pretty solid, expected numbers.

To me the odds that he either a) regresses to the player we saw from 2021-2023 or last year's playoffs or b) even playing at the same level his numbers regress due to SH% and fewer opportunities are *much* higher than the odds of him having some crazy breakout.

 

[sting101]

At least we didnt go full Anthony Beauvillier here which would be a 5.428m deal starting next year by cap % who had similar numbers at the same age. And Hogs is a beast physically.

It's a reasonable gamble to keep this player through his prime vs end up in a situation where like the player i just mentioned or a Mangiapane thing where he has a career year and then all you end up wanting to do is get rid of him

 

[Ernie]

Right now with everyone healthy he's on the 4th line.

That's pretty disingenuous. When healthy players return, things will get shifted around.

Dakota Joshua is a better player than Nils Hoglander, and it isn't close right now.

And there's no need to make the bet on huge improvement right now.

We've been through this a million times who overpaying non-core depth players is a bad idea and people understand it with UFAs or guys coming from other organizations but then lose their minds with it's a 'system guy' that they're attached to.

Joshua is also a non-core player and you could say the exact same things about paying players who have breakout seasons at 28 or guys who show up to training camp out of shape in a make-or-break type season.

The last thing we saw was a player not good enough to be in our best 12 forwards in the playoffs. It's pretty relevant.

Just as relevant as the 24 goals. It's very easy to imagine any of Heinen, Sherwood, Suter, or Blueger being healthy scratches as well.

I didn't place him behind of Sprong or Sherwood. I placed him behind Heinen, who is going to be nailed to JT Miller's line and a regular PKer.

Assuming that Heinen is "nailed" to JT Miller's line is a pretty tenuous statement given that he's 29 and no NHL coach has seen him as a top six player to date. Worth a shot perhaps but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

And let's not ignore the hole on Pettersson's line that Sprong is currently filling.

Obviously they don't agree, but that's just an appeal to authority at this point.

You've been one of this management group's biggest boosters and supported their strategy even when most people were pretty negative. Now they've swerved a bit again and you don't think they deserve some benefit of the doubt?

If I'm handicapping the odds of what Hoglander does next season and have it at 10% offensive breakout over last year (deal looks great), 45% similar production to last year (deal looks average), 45% regression from last year (deal looks bad) ... this isn't a good bet. And I feel like I'm being generous with those numbers, if anything, given his current usage. If they were lining him up on PP1 heading into the season ... sure, there will be an obvious breakout looming. But that isn't the case.

I think you're underestimating what he could earn in arbitration. If he matches last years production, he gets $4m. if he exceeds it, he gets $5m. At the minimum he's probably looking at $2m.

At this point I'm kind of done talking about this. We'll see how this deal is looking at Christmas

Well that's too bad, this is an interesting deal to talk about.

 

[sting101]

It's going to be *extremely* difficult to go much past his current numbers without getting significant PP production, which likely isn't going to happen. Even if he played with Pettersson all year ... 24 goals again at ES would be pretty solid, expected numbers.

To me the odds that he either a) regresses to the player we saw from 2021-2023 or last year's playoffs or b) even playing at the same level his numbers regress due to SH% and fewer opportunities are *much* higher than the odds of him having some crazy breakout.

I follow your logic here but you have to project down the line and while i completely agree he will regress to roughly half his SH% he might also end up beside one of the best 5v5 forwards typically (instead of 2 guys struggling) with something to prove and he looked good in the bumper on PP2.

I dont have much faith in Sprong. As talented as he is he looks brutal to play with. He would look off MacKinnon or Matthews wide open on a 2 on 1. This buddies due to travel thing is just a feel good storyline. Dahlen Goldy Kuzmenko yes they all were his buddies too. Tunnel vision

When you look at our winger depth it's Boeser gap Garland Debrusk gap Joshua gap then Hoglander Heinen gap. Your not gonna get away with paying him 2 million through his prime. he brings some unique characteristics and potential for more. Look at Heinen and his pay and he's mostly been poor to vanilla come playoff time. I think Hogs has more jamb to get inside he just needed players to hep him not make it harder.

I do follow your logic for the player type and overall cap structure allocation and agree it might be committing to something vs improving the defence and that could backfire if both Heinen and Hoglander struggle going forward. If he goes to 45-50 pts though your screwed and almost have to trade him