Really doubt that. The Caps have no impact on whether some big shot back at St Petersburg would release Mitchkov from his contract or no. In fact, I'd bet he's gonna be under pressure to sign another deal like Kaprizov was some years back and Malkin some more years back
Right? That Backstrom contract has been horrific since before it got put to paper. Leonsis really spends unnecessarily a lot. If only he could manage his sports teams and intervene as well as he's willing to pay..
Well as a FAN, I don't want to see somebody like Backstrom railroaded out of town. He is a fan favorite and will have his numbered retired here. Arguably the 2nd most important cap ever. So while handing out thank you contracts isn't smart, I don't see them doing that. I see two contracts handed out to two of the all time greats because that's what the fans what to see. Going all the way back they traded away big names like Gartner and Bondra. We didn't hold on to guys like Green/Gonchar/Alzner. We are 5 years removed from 2018 and have only like 5 guys left. I don't see an issue with "thank you" contracts right now? Mantha wasn't, neither was Kuzy. We even let Holtby walk when the time was right.
Their moves this week don't make much sense to me. If there's a market for buying bad contracts, and lots of teams seemingly in need of that service, why'd they squander their valuable cap space by overpaying Foligno and Perry? And as much as Bailey's fallen off I'd still rather have him at 5M than Perry at 4M, so why buy out Bailey and then spend a pick to get the rights to Perry and give him nearly the same contract? There's a lack of cohesive strategy here that's bugging me.
Foligno and Perry are 100% there to be sure Bedard isn’t ran all the time and to teach leadership to their group. They’re overpaying to make sure the you guys learn the right way from some vets.
So give them 2M each for one year. Still would’ve been enough of an overpay for them to sign, and you keep another 4M open for cap dumps or retention on pass-through trades. It just doesn’t make sense to me that cap space is such a direly limited resource that it’s stifling trades throughout the league, but Chicago can’t find a better use for theirs than to throw some loony contracts at decrepit vets?
You’re not wrong, but for some guys, you occasionally take the bullet. I think other than 8 and 19, they are at least a bit more ruthless.
Like Twabby mentioned above you: They'll be able to flip them at the deadline for more assets. You think at the deadline teams aren't going to be lining up for a potential 40 point Foligno or Perry at 50% retained. 2 mil for either of those guys in the playoffs contenders will line up for.
So lower your asking price on salary dumps/retention if you’re not getting enough bites or give those one year overpay contracts to higher-end UFAs who’d actually return a significant pick with retention at the deadline. You could pay market rate for Perry and Foligno, give 7M to someone like Jason Zucker, then trade all three at the deadline while only having to use a retention slot on Zucker. Keep in mind they’re already got one retention slot tied up via Jake McCabe, so if the plan is to retain half on these two in order to trade them at the deadline (I can’t see teams taking them without retention), they can’t do any other retention cause they’ll be taking the last two slots.
Zucker wouldn't sign a 1x7 contract. So you lose some value as a team trying to bring him in because you'll have to fit whatever isn't retained into your future plans. They can always find a 3rd party thats willing to eat 50% for assets if they want to trade both with retention it happened just this past season I'm pretty sure.
See my last comment. If they’d signed them at reasonable rates they would be forcing themselves to either A) reserve their last two retention slots for a couple veterans that probably won’t return more than a 3rd each, or B) use the retention slots another way and just accept that one or both of them won’t be movable at the deadline because of the crazy contracts they just gave out.
So offer 8M it shouldn’t be hard to find a wing of around that caliber and say “hey, we’ll pay you 3-4M over your market rate, you come in and rack up points next to Bedard for 3/4 of a season before we send you to a contender, then next summer when the cap finally starts rising again you can take your inflated numbers and cash in on a long term deal somewhere else.”
GMs overpay all the time for playoff experience I wouldn’t at all be surprised if either garnered more than a 3rd come next year.
Again, see my last comment for why it makes sense for Zucker to take a big one year deal and bet on himself. This being the (expected) last year of the flat cap make this year uniquely perfect for this kind of situation, since teams have basically been pushed to the breaking point by 5 years of the flat cap while next year it's projected to go up by 4M. Any player who's not on their last legs has to be seriously wondering how much more they'd get on a long term deal in that environment, and whether they're willing to gamble on a one year deal to set themselves up for a bigger one in the future. There's plenty of Zucker-caliber wingers on the market this summer, and it just takes one of them to feel like rolling the dice.
