Speculation: Caps Roster General Discussion (Coaching/FAs/Cap/Lines/etc) | 2024-25 Summer Edition

[caps4cup]

3,5 Dowd would be a tough decision, lets hope it gets done with lower cap hit.

But no, Appleton or Suter is not similar level players. Dowd is 4th line C playing 3rd line minutes in a shutdown role against the best players in the world.

Wingers come and go but whoever you put with Dowd immediately rises their stock. Caps have had the best fourth line in the league as long as Dowd has been here. Thats quite important when your first line is pretty meh.

Keeping Dowd makes it easier to spend less on the bottom6 wingers too.

Suter is arguably even better than Dowd (his market value is higher according to Dom L’s model), with similar defensive impacts and more production. He’s also 6 years younger.

Appleton has a similar offensive impact, good but slightly lesser defensive impact, and is also 6 years younger. Dom has him as a 3.3mil market value, Dowd at 4mil.

I’m not trying to s*** on Dowd because he’s been unbelievable and is a really good 4th liner. But he will be 35 next season and his two biggest weaknesses (his speed and penalty differential) are only going to get worse as he ages. If they can resign him on a 1 or 2 year deal at under 3mil, they should be all for it. I’d just be wary of going over 3mil or longer than 2 years since they have been so good at finding value depth UFA’s and really need to supplement the top of the lineup.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

Eric Staal was pretty damn good in his prime

But not a Superstar….he’s right.

Wild that his best production year was his 2nd season, age 21, 45+55=100, then a pretty big droffoff to a mostly a 70pt guy (one 82 point season) then lower and lower.

 

[Kolzilla]

Suter is arguably even better than Dowd (his market value is higher according to Dom L’s model), with similar defensive impacts and more production. He’s also 6 years younger.

Appleton has a similar offensive impact, good but slightly lesser defensive impact, and is also 6 years younger. Dom has him as a 3.3mil market value, Dowd at 4mil.

I’m not trying to s*** on Dowd because he’s been unbelievable and is a really good 4th liner. But he will be 35 next season and his two biggest weaknesses (his speed and penalty differential) are only going to get worse as he ages. If they can resign him on a 1 or 2 year deal at under 3mil, they should be all for it. I’d just be wary of going over 3mil or longer than 2 years since they have been so good at finding value depth UFA’s and really need to supplement the top of the lineup.

For both/either Lindgren and Dowd, how does anyone feel about deferred compensation if they would go for it?

Sign them to 2-3 years deals but defer salary for an additional 1-2 years after to keep AAV lower. Once the deferred cap hit kicks in, the cap will have exploded by then.

Just a spitball idea, not sure how all the nuances would work in this scenario.

 

[The Instigator]

For both/either Lindgren and Dowd, how does anyone feel about deferred compensation if they would go for it?

Sign them to 2-3 years deals but defer salary for an additional 1-2 years after to keep AAV lower. Once the deferred cap hit kicks in, the cap will have exploded by then.

Just a spitball idea, not sure how all the nuances would work in this scenario.

Deferring salary probably won't actually drop the AAV all that much.

For example, deferring half of a one year $3 million contract year doesn't save you $1.5 million against the cap that year, nor does it count against the cap your next year.

You'd have to defer a lot of money on a big contract for it to do anything worthwhile. PuckPedia has a pretty good write up I think for more info.

 

[Brian23]

Sign them to 2-3 years deals but defer salary for an additional 1-2 years after to keep AAV lower. Once the deferred cap hit kicks in, the cap will have exploded by then.

That isn't, or I don't believe it should be, possible in the NHL. The closest parallel would be the MLB and that's not how salary deferral works in it.

Generally, the way deferrals works is you sign someone to a 5 year 100 million dollar deal, and then say defer half the payments for the next 5 years. That doesn't mean they have 10 years of 10 million dollar cap hits, they still have 20 million a year for 5 years against the cap, it just ends up letting the team/owners save some money yearly and spread out their payroll.

The closest to what you're describing would I guess be void years in the NFL? But that isn't possible in the NHL due to the guaranteed nature of contracts.

 

[Ovechkins Wodka]

Dowds contract reminds me of Beagle in 2018 and we let him walk

 

[Ovechkins Wodka]

That's why they are saying we are keeping him up. Sorry Bears

 

[Calicaps]

That's why they are saying we are keeping him up. Sorry Bears

I would be unsurprised to see him end up as part of a trade.

 

[Empty Goal Net]

Dowds contract reminds me of Beagle in 2018 and we let him walk

Beags, and before him Halpy, and maybe Kono and Ulfie. Traded or allowed to sign elsewhere for big paydays. Seems like a learned organizational strategy with aging, quality defensively-oriented centers and their linemates.