Nashville Predators talk - The Offseason
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Agreed. To say that the Preds really gave Afanaseyev a true shot is pretty lame. 17 games in 23 and 2 games in 24. Avg TOI around 11 min. Then in 24 he played 56 games for the Ads and had 27/27 for 54 pts. Seems like he did what was asked and worked on his game. He was a big guy at 6'4" 212lbs which the Preds surely need! And young at 23yo. We tried Fagemo, Foudy, Gurianov and Beauvillier for more games and with basically no more points. At some point I can see the top players on the Ads saying WTH!Since the Preds picked a 2-year term, it would seem like maybe they are trying to influence the process to land on a 2-way deal in Year 1, and a 1-way in Year 2. He'll be waiver exempt either way, though, so I'm not sure what the penny-pinching is all about.
With the money the team is throwing around this year, whether they pay him $125k+callup$ or just a flat $775k is pretty small potatoes. I'm not sure I'd be worried about "setting precedents" here, because Stastney is 24, has looked good in his callups both of the last 2 seasons, and even good enough to get into playoff games last season. It's not like just any guy in the minors could ask for a 1-way deal if they gave him one. In his case he has shown enough to have actually earned it.
And getting back to the Afanaseyev situation, I know no GM wants an ultimatum from his player, but Afanaseyev is another guy who wanted 1-way money and they preferred to just let him go than to give it to him. I mean, you can play hardball with your developed players like that if you really want to. But again, not just any minor leaguer is even going to be able to ask for this. Afanaseyev put up the great season in Milwaukee that was asked of him, didn't look out of place in his NHL stints - albeit with no production - and yet it was too much to pay him $775k instead of a minor league salary of $150k or $250k or whatever would have been tacked onto a 2-way deal. It's not going to kill the franchise to throw away a candidate 4th-line forward or 3rd-pair D. But at some point when they've reached a certain level of successful development you do just have to integrate them... and pay them. Not everybody is going to be an organizational Yes-Man and sign the Carrier contract and just trust that they'll be taken care of down the road. It's unrealistic to set that as a standard IMO. You put in all the development resources and invest the draft picks, you shouldn't balk at an extra few hundred k right at the finish line and throw all that investment out the window.
It isnt my money so i dont really have a dog in the fight but Trotz seems to care alot about players earning their contracts. Did Afanaseyev earn a good extended look at the NHL level? Yes.
Did he earn a 1-way contract and a guaranteed roster spot? No. He'd need to play atleast half a season at the NHL level in a single year for me to think that.
Does it matter to me because ultimately if things didnt pan out, he could be waived and cap completely buried? Nope. Not my money. Cap is where i pay attention.
Does trotz think it would set a bad example to give a player with minimal NHL time and a 1-way contract? Id imagine so. Consider that every other player he is negotiating with this offseason falls into that bucket. Tomasino, Pärssinen, Stastney all have more NHL experience than Afanaseyev did and we know from Stastney's arbitration that atleast he is being asked for a 2-way contract. You give Afanaseyev one and theyre all going to demand one (as they should if that was the case). Tomasino and Pärssinen have cases since theyve both played over a full season worth of NHL games. Stastney only around 30 NHL games though has a much harder argument and Trotz is going to probably try to argue them all onto a 2-way contract.
Porter Stoutheart
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But the the thing is, a 1-way contract and a guaranteed roster spot are NOT the same thing. Lots of teams (ourselves included) have given players 1-way contracts. Several of our minor league veterans have been on them in recent years while playing in Milwaukee.
You can NEVER give a guaranteed roster spot (well except via NMC). Not to anybody. I'm pretty sure that Afanaseyev wasn't asking for a NMC contract. But he almost certainly was asking for a 1-way deal.
And it is completely normal to give a guy who did what he has done (and Stastney) 1-way contracts. But they still have to earn the roster spot. You can always waive them back down to Milwaukee if they don't make it. We've done that with several guys in recent seasons already. Heck, Jordan Gross had a 1-way contract in Milwaukee last season.
The 1 way contracts we have given out have been to buy UFA years like with Jordan Gross, veteran AHL leadership with a fair amount of NHL time like Mark Jankowski, or players coming off ELC with more than a handful of NHL games. I dont recall us ever giving someone a 1-way contract to a RFA that had such little NHL experience. They dont have the negotiating power that the others do. Gross couldve gone anywhere so Poile paid him
Porter Stoutheart
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Alas the death of CapFriendly for researching that. Aberg and Gaudreau had some 1-way years at some point. Mind you, we don't develop a lot of guys internally who are just depth guys playing out their ELCs, of course. Not that past precedents REALLY matter anyway, given it's Trotz's show now, so anything Poile did shouldn't count.
Anyway, if we're going to pay minor league veterans on 1-way deals, I don't see what the big deal is about paying our best internal prospects like Afanaseyev 1-way money. He just proved he's as good as any of them at the AHL level. And would basically be a "veteran leader" himself if he got sent back there at this point. If anything, I'd use those contracts to reward our internal guys who rose to that level before buying external UFAs with those contracts.
The distinction being made between veteran UFAs and internally developed players is a bad choice IMO... if it costs you the player. Now maybe a guy like Stastney has nowhere else to go like Afanaseyev did, and he's bound now by arbitration to a 2-year term now regardless. But we have a lot more good prospects than we ever used to, and hopefully more and more guys are going to be reaching a stage of AHL excellence like Afanaseyev did. If they aren't going to get paid by our organization, I would definitely urge more and more of them to go get paid somewhere else like he did.
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Well shit. Stupid to take this hard a line with him
Freddy Gs last contracts with us were 2 way. Even his 1st ufa contract was a 2 way with Pittsburgh. The wild gave him a 1 way and he broke out.
I personally dont mind 1 ways that are completely buriable but management seems to disagree typically. Seems like a silly sticking point with promising players
Porter Stoutheart
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The 3rd year of Gaudreau's contract with us was 1-way, fwiw. But again, I don't really care, since he's a Poile guy.
Freddy Gs last contracts with us were 2 way. Even his 1st ufa contract was a 2 way with Pittsburgh. The wild gave him a 1 way and he broke out.
I personally dont mind 1 ways that are completely buriable but management seems to disagree typically. Seems like a silly sticking point with promising players
Bottom line still being I think it's only fair to pay your own internally-developed "tweener" candidates 1-way money *if* you are going to sign AHL veteran types to the same 1-way money.
Now internal RFA guys don't really have MUCH choice, in reality. They can what? Sit out. Go to Russia or Switzerland or wherever? Well, it works if you are Afanaseyev maybe. But for the rest, you might as well take the 2-way deal, just be very good, and if the team sends you down hope you're good enough that somebody else claims you on waivers.
Like if we're hard-balling Tomasino or Parssinen to take 2-way contracts... wellll... to me that's just unecessarily tough, but at the end of the day, they would still have to just take those offers. Then either they make the NHL money by sticking in the NHL, or they hope they get claimed on waivers by another NHL team and can still make the NHL money. It's actually a bad idea for them to file for arbitration (as it was for Stastney IMO) because if the team picks a 2-year term, you don't want that. You want the flexibility of a 1-year term, even if you have to swallow a 2-way contract and just pray to get a chance somewhere else on the waiver wire.
To me it just looks bad to our own drafted players when they are asked to work on their game in Milwaukee for a few years and see what happens. Afanasyev played 3 seasons for the Ads. Season 1 he played 74 games and had 12/21/33 and 0 pts in PO's. Season 2 he went 13/13/26 then 16 games in PO's with 5/6/11. Then season 3 his stats were 27/27/54 then in PO's 5/4/9 in 15 games. Sprinkle in 19 NHL games in 2 years. Looked like the kid was progressing while the Preds were bringing in players that were not very good (Fagemo, Foudy, Gurianov, Beauvillier) and a few got a chance to play before him or basically any Ads forward. I think any of the top Ads forward, including Afanasyev, could have performed as well or better than any of the players GMBT brought in.
Don't disagree. I still dont really understand why Egor wasn't given more than 2 games last year. We wanted to win but it isnt like Beauvillier was adding much to the party.
I understand why we gave the others a shot as well though. Fagemo has excellent production on the AHL level. Foudy was a free speedy player with some draft pedigree. Gurianov like Afanaseyev was playing very well in the AHL. We really didnt give Fagemo much of a shot either though. Only 4 games at the start of the season. Foudy and Gurianov got alot of runway to try and prove themselves though by comparison.
Since 2017 the Preds have drafted 2 players who are playing full time in the NHL. They are Tolvanen and Vange. A few others have played a few games but are not regulars (Tomasino, Parssinen, Stastney). No player from 2021 and on have seen the NHL as of yet. Its amazing how some teams have drafted players that are playing now and the Preds seem to draft players and they are not playing.
Predsanddead24
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I get the point but we also didn’t have any draft picks in the first through third rounds in 2018 and Tomasino is 19th in GP in his draft class. For the 2021 draft class on very few players have made the NHL at all and even fewer have become full time players. The true test is going to be how we do in these next few years because we have enough high quality prospects that some of them should make the jump.
I mean what do you really expect from the classes 2020 to now? Look at the 2020 draft class and outside of the top 10 there are only a few that have made it to the NHL full time. Evangelista is the exception there and Askarov was our 1st round pick. Goalies usually take a couple years at a minimum. How many picks outside of the top 10 from other teams have made it into the NHL full time for 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 drafts?
Now for the older drafts, it is pretty valid.
Porter Stoutheart
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I guess my main thing is, just because you have the leverage on these younger guys, do you REALLY need to use it in the most heavy-handed way possible? I don't think it should set a precedent to pay a guy a bit more once you see he is making the strides that put him in serious contention to earn a spot on your team. Another youngster who doesn't meet that threshold can't come along and ask for the same treatment, it's a high enough threshold.
They're offering Stastney less than they're going to pay Gravel, for example. They give a 1-way deal (year 2 anyway) to Blankenburg. Ufko already outplayed Gross at the end of last year, now he's shuffled back behind Blankenburg too? Afanaseyev may or may not have made the team, but the same held for Gurianov or Jankowski.
Anyway, they do have leverage to pay these younger guys less, and maybe there is an organizational philosophy that says, hey, if you are going to be an NHL player, you are also going to have to outplay the AHL veterans we've brought in and are paying more money to. "Pay your dues" - and keep paying for a couple extra years so that it's beyond any shadow of a doubt. Then when you've proven BOTH your worth as a player AND your loyalty to the organization, you're in. They won't lose everybody with this approach. But they'll lose some. We have drafted some Russians and they'll need to be careful with Askarov, Svechkov, Surin, they will always have the same option as Afanaseyev, pushing the "loyalty" part of that approach could be dangerous.
They're offering Stastney less than they're going to pay Gravel, for example. They give a 1-way deal (year 2 anyway) to Blankenburg. Ufko already outplayed Gross at the end of last year, now he's shuffled back behind Blankenburg too? Afanaseyev may or may not have made the team, but the same held for Gurianov or Jankowski.
Anyway, they do have leverage to pay these younger guys less, and maybe there is an organizational philosophy that says, hey, if you are going to be an NHL player, you are also going to have to outplay the AHL veterans we've brought in and are paying more money to. "Pay your dues" - and keep paying for a couple extra years so that it's beyond any shadow of a doubt. Then when you've proven BOTH your worth as a player AND your loyalty to the organization, you're in. They won't lose everybody with this approach. But they'll lose some. We have drafted some Russians and they'll need to be careful with Askarov, Svechkov, Surin, they will always have the same option as Afanaseyev, pushing the "loyalty" part of that approach could be dangerous.
Just seems stupid and wasteful to me.
Armourboy
Hey! You suck!
Foudy and Gurianov are the ones that stand out. You could tell pretty much from game 1 neither had anything. Should have been waived much earlier.
Kat Predator
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Don't forget what's-his-face we nabbed from the Los-Angeles-Kings as a hot-dog-tester.
Everyone we draft sucks. I read it on a message board somewhere.
glenngineer
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I'll say one thing about Egor, while he may have progressed every year, he never made the front office go, he needs to be on this team full-time. I'm tired of people blaming the front office for the failures of the players. It's on the players to make an impression and make his mark. Progress is nice, an imprint is even better. Also, the fact that he couldn't knock McC, Jank, Smith or Woody out of the lineup says all you need to know about him. Same could be said about Tomasino and Glass.
I still feel like health is the only thing stopping Glass. A full season without getting seriously injured might go a long way for his confidence and overall game.
King Weber
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I'll be real disappointed if even with the additions of Stamkos and Marchessault our PP is still middle of the pack or worse.
On paper, adding a righty one-timer option on the left dot like Stamkos and one of the best bumpers in the league in Marchessault should help the PP tremendously but we'll see how it translates on the ice
On paper, adding a righty one-timer option on the left dot like Stamkos and one of the best bumpers in the league in Marchessault should help the PP tremendously but we'll see how it translates on the ice
Porter Stoutheart
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But the thing is, the player DIDN'T fail. He did as much as he needed to anyway to at least peek in the door. Now, everybody here is agreeing he still had MORE he needed to show in order to stick. Maybe he could have knocked out McCarron, Jankowski, or Smith, maybe he couldn't have and would have gone on waivers. Who knows. The point is, we threw him away before he even got the chance.
Of course, there's another level of knowing the player, his training, his off-ice habits, having something more of an in-depth view of him than we see on the ice. So who knows, maybe he was just a guy the organization didn't like, and figured even if he did pan out to be as good or better than our depth guys, he wasn't going to be worth keeping in place of them, and that he had no ceiling to be so much better than them that you'd keep him despite his character flaws. I don't know, I'd have thought maybe some inkling of that would have trickled out before this, but maybe not. I bought a razor that says it really was just a case of him demanding a 1-way deal and Trotz getting his back up at the audacity of some young (23-year old) whippersnapper doing that.
Is that possible though? The dude gets injured pretty easily. I imagine that has caused all sorts of anxiety on the ice for him. Id love to see him get going again as i think he could still have 2C potential but the odds of him ever getting there are pretty low
Nashville got to pick the contract length since Stastney chose to go to Arbitration correct? So it should be a two year deal
Armourboy
Hey! You suck!
Two year deal is a given, its the details of the money that is the only thing to be determined.
He didn't really get a chance to beat those guys, not by this coaching staff anyways. He came for two games, which was when we played some of our worst hockey of the year and got blown out ( and then had their trip to Vegass Cancelled). He didn't do anything great, but he was the one semi bright spot cause he didn't get owned defensively at least like everyone else in those games.
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