This is why Binny's contract is no better than the one we gave Allen. He was unproven to be handed such a long term contract at that amount. He's no different than your average NHL goalie at this point. There's no guarantee we'll be in a playoff spot come the end of February. One need only look at the standings to see we are artificially in 2nd in the Central right now. Once those games in hand are played we could very well be in 4th in the Central. I've not been big on Husso during his time here, but at least he is trending up. Binny's trended down the entire time he's been here, and I hope that DA takes a sincere look at moving Tarasenko for some back end help and cap to go after Tkachuk next season if we find we are on the outside looking in at the trade deadline.
Having Binner as our starter is much better than having Allen as our starter, but the contract(s) it took to accomplish that is
significantly worse than the contract we gave Allen. I've hated the way the organization handled negotiations with him since they began after the Cup win. I wanted to offer 1 and 3 year deals to him that summer and I was very much in the group that wanted to go to arbitration with him if we couldn't reach an agreement on one of those terms. I hated walking him straight to UFA status with that 2 year deal because I knew that it was going to result in a contract like the one we gave him if he proved to be a legitimate starter. We'd be in such a better position as an organization right now if this was the final year of a 3 year post-Cup Murray-comparable contract. Even if we'd extended him after year 2 of a 3 year deal, we'd have gotten him for a better number than we got him for by extending him mid-season of year 2 with UFA status looming.
I say all this as someone who likes Binner as a starter, is happy with his play recently, and believes that Husso still has much more to prove before we have an actual goalie controversy. We fully boxed ourselves into a corner with him for absolutely no good reason. Basically any negotiating strategy other than the one we took would have left us in a better place than we are with him right now.
With all of that said, I think the "we might be on the outside looking in and should be thinking about moving Tarasenko" talk is extremely premature. We are 3rd in the Central by points percentage. 2nd-4th is very close (the gap between 2nd to 4th is .667 to .658), so I think it is reasonable to say that we could be anywhere among that group by the time all the games played are equal. But all 4 teams in that group are comfortably above the playoff cut line. Those 4 teams are currently all ahead of every Pacific team in points percentage and #5 in the Central is currently at .576. They currently sits 11 points back of us. If they win every game in hand, they will still be 3 points behind us. And if they do get that hot, then it means that the #5 Central team has a massive edge on being the 2nd Wild Card spot. Because the Pacific kind of sucks. Anaheim is currently 4th in points percentage there. They are 4 points behind us despite playing 2 more games than we have. LA is currently 3rd by points percentage and sits 6 points behind us with the same amount of games played. The Central is going to send at least 4 teams to the playoffs and will very likely send 5 if Dallas or Winnipeg goes on a heater to start challenging us.
We're not a lock for playoffs, but we are sitting in great shape. Moneypuck's model hasn't liked our team all season, but we've banked enough points that they've got us up to an 83% chance of making the playoffs (up from 54% pre-season). Sports Club Stats has us at a 93.4% chance to make the playoffs using their weighted model (Colorado is at 94.3%) and 76.9% using their "every game is a coin flip" model (Colorado is at 78.8%). Anything can happen with 45 games left in the season, but we aren't artificially sitting in a comfortable spot. We're 2nd in the West by points, 3rd by points percentage and we have the 2nd best goal differential. League wide, we are 7th in points, 8th in points percentage and have the 5th best goal differential. I think that Colorado and Vegas are still the big 2 in the West, but we're in the group directly below them. And there is a big drop between that group and tier 3.
I only want to move Tarasenko mid-season if it is for a comparable-level stud LHD or a slightly-less-talented-but-way-cheaper LHD that also opens up cap space to absorb Bozak's bonuses this year and opens up space next year. However, I'd still rather acquire a guy like that for a futures package now and then deal Tarasenko at the deadline to for futures if that is possible. I think that right now our focus should squarely be on bringing the best team we can to this year's playoffs. No one in the West looks unbeatable to me this year and the East is going to be an absolute war. I think we are 1 piece away from being real legitimate contenders and I'm just not interested in prioritizing next season's cap issues over going for it now. I don't want to sell a bunch of futures for a pure rental, but I'm very comfortable using the draft to try and create the cap space to do what we want for next season.
