Speculation: Now what do we do? - Part 3

[TampaJay]

I'm not getting the parallel between the two either but there's a very real chance we end up buying out Filppula and exposing Killorn, in which case Vladdy would be protected.

Hey, it is legal for GMs to make deals before the expansion draft?

I would give McPhee a 2nd round pick for a 4th if he would agree to leave our forwards alone and take Garrison or Coburn.

 

[Leonardo87]

vlad contract spells relief huge relief imho to callahan he NEEDS his bounce back year absolutely but vladdy is not protected and could definitely reasonibly the odd man out

so congratulations my friend. I told you was never hate for him was business and I am a stevie F yzerman fan what he says is gold if he keeps callahan and leaves vladdy to the wind im ok with that.

So I am apologizing to you here cause so far your right but you should do same. Is good to see him get his shot we will see what vladdy can do and if ryan can bounce back enough for stevie to allow vladdy to get lost so to speak. I really thought of vladdy as core this contract says absolutely otherwise imho.

No complaints from me i do think vladdy will have a very good year coming up but i think as of now callahan is very safe moving forward. For now at least everything can change as we have all seen now and in the past

Yet congrats to ryan callahan seriously imho he is gonna ride it out long term so happy for him myself. Is not hated him hated the year he had but was injured and as ive stated this team knows a hell of a lot more than me especially on injuries etc..

LETS GO BOLTS

I don't get the relation to #24 and #90, but if anything Vladdy skating with Callahan the next two years will only be good for him in developing his two way game. I rather see Vladdy center Cally and someone on LW who actually shoots and can finish. I do see all these bridge deals leaving cap space available till when Cally's contract falls off. Drouin will likely get a 3 year bridge deal around 4 million, even if he has a big season. Same with Vasy's deal, he will be due a raise when Cally's contract falls off, so the pieces are in place. I just don't see Yzerman giving Drouin 6 and 6 after one strong full season. Kucherov has two under his belt so it's a different story.

 

[tjs*]

Hey, it is legal for GMs to make deals before the expansion draft?

I would give McPhee a 2nd round pick for a 4th if he would agree to leave our forwards alone and take Garrison or Coburn.

No way Vegas takes this offer unless we move Filppula to protect one of our forwards AND the other has a horrible year. In that scenario Vegas might decide to take Garrison anyway in order to flip him. But they are going to have a difficult time finding quality top six forwards and there's no way they pass one up for a second round pick as incentive.

 

[tjs*]

Also I misspoke with my earlier post. While the list I posted is technically accurate from a contractual standpoint, realistically unless Callahan is somehow moved we're almost certainly looking at losing either Killorn or Namestnikov to the expansion draft. As things stand right now both players will have to be exposed; if Filppula is traded or (more likely) bought out before the draft we will at least be able to protect one of them and thereby choose which one we lose. It's also possible Vegas could opt to draft Garrison in order to flip him, but they will be in desperate need of quality forwards and if we should want Vegas to take a forward for cap reasons we can always force their hand by moving Garrison ourselves before the draft.

So basically after the draft and without taking any moves into account we are probably looking at either $19.9M or $22.45M (plus whatever the cap goes up by) to resign the following:

Kucherov
Johnson
Palat
Drouin
Killorn's/Namestnikov's replacement
Boyle (or replacement)

Sustr (or replacement)
Koekkoek
Nesterov (or replacement)

A backup goalie

This leaves us with three primary scenarios:

1) If $19.9M plus the cap increase plus whatever additional space we can clear via trade/buy out is sufficient to resign everybody (which is unlikely) then it doesn't matter which forward we lose. Most likely we'd want to keep Killorn in this scenario, but if Namestnikov has a breakout season and Killer struggles we might well prefer to keep Vladdy going forward. Either way we would probably want to trade or buy out Filppula before the draft, protect whichever of Killorn or Namestnikov we want to keep, and either let Vegas choose between the other and Garrison or trade one ourselves and let Vegas take whoever's left (depending on the sort of season each player has and what sort of offers we get for each of them.)

Another option if it turns out to be so close between Killorn and Vladdy that we don't have a strong preference in terms of which one to keep is to leave them both exposed. That would allow us to keep Filppula through the expansion draft which would greatly increase the likelihood that we can trade him and thereby save on his buyout.

2) If the first scenario isn't sufficient to resign everybody but $22.45M (plus cap increase and any additional space cleared) would be then we're looking at having to lose Killorn. In this scenario we would also want to trade or buy out Filppula before the draft, protect Vladdy, and depending on the sort of season Killorn has possibly move either him or Garrison before the draft (if Killer has a down year that plus the term on his contract could actually make him difficult to trade and limit his return if he were traded. In that case we may want to move Garrison ourselves, both for the better return and to ensure that Vegas takes Killorn. On the other hand if Killorn has a big year then we might well want to trade him before the draft and let Vegas take Garrison.)

3) If even the second scenario isn't enough then we're either looking at losing one of Johnson/Palat/Drouin or adding Coburn to Filppula, Garrison, and Killorn. If the former Yzerman would have to act fast to move one of them before the expansion draft in order to avoid losing Killorn/Namestnikov on top of him; if the latter our defense is going to look really shaky for a couple of years.

 

[TampaJay]

No way Vegas takes this offer unless we move Filppula to protect one of our forwards AND the other has a horrible year. In that scenario Vegas might decide to take Garrison anyway in order to flip him. But they are going to have a difficult time finding quality top six forwards and there's no way they pass one up for a second round pick as incentive.

The other choice would be to go with the 8 skater option and protect Hedman and 7 forwards and expose Stralman. That looks worse than losing Killorn or Vlady. The ultimate solution is to get Callahan and Fil to waive their NMC or trade them. If SY can pull that off he is a jedi.

 

[tjs*]

The other choice would be to go with the 8 skater option and protect Hedman and 7 forwards and expose Stralman. That looks worse than losing Killorn or Vlady. The ultimate solution is to get Callahan and Fil to waive their NMC or trade them. If SY can pull that off he is a jedi.

There would be no point in doing that since we can protect seven forwards anyway with the 7/3/1 scheme. The eight skater option is really only useful for teams with a lot of blue line depth and not much at forward.

 

[TampaJay]

Also I misspoke with my earlier post. While the list I posted is technically accurate from a contractual standpoint, realistically unless Callahan is somehow moved we're almost certainly looking at losing either Killorn or Namestnikov to the expansion draft. As things stand right now both players will have to be exposed; if Filppula is traded or (more likely) bought out before the draft we will at least be able to protect one of them and thereby choose which one we lose. It's also possible Vegas could opt to draft Garrison in order to flip him, but they will be in desperate need of quality forwards and if we should want Vegas to take a forward for cap reasons we can always force their hand by moving Garrison ourselves before the draft.

So basically after the draft and without taking any moves into account we are probably looking at either $19.9M or $22.45M (plus whatever the cap goes up by) to resign the following:

Kucherov
Johnson
Palat
Drouin
Killorn's/Namestnikov's replacement
Boyle (or replacement)

Sustr (or replacement)
Koekkoek
Nesterov (or replacement)

A backup goalie

This leaves us with three primary scenarios:

1) If $19.9M plus the cap increase plus whatever additional space we can clear via trade/buy out is sufficient to resign everybody (which is unlikely) then it doesn't matter which forward we lose. Most likely we'd want to keep Killorn in this scenario, but if Namestnikov has a breakout season and Killer struggles we might well prefer to keep Vladdy going forward. Either way we would probably want to trade or buy out Filppula before the draft, protect whichever of Killorn or Namestnikov we want to keep, and either let Vegas choose between the other and Garrison or trade one ourselves and let Vegas take whoever's left (depending on the sort of season each player has and what sort of offers we get for each of them.)

Another option if it turns out to be so close between Killorn and Vladdy that we don't have a strong preference in terms of which one to keep is to leave them both exposed. That would allow us to keep Filppula through the expansion draft which would greatly increase the likelihood that we can trade him and thereby save on his buyout.

2) If the first scenario isn't sufficient to resign everybody but $22.45M (plus cap increase and any additional space cleared) would be then we're looking at having to lose Killorn. In this scenario we would also want to trade or buy out Filppula before the draft, protect Vladdy, and depending on the sort of season Killorn has possibly move either him or Garrison before the draft (if Killer has a down year that plus the term on his contract could actually make him difficult to trade and limit his return if he were traded. In that case we may want to move Garrison ourselves, both for the better return and to ensure that Vegas takes Killorn. On the other hand if Killorn has a big year then we might well want to trade him before the draft and let Vegas take Garrison.)

3) If even the second scenario isn't enough then we're either looking at losing one of Johnson/Palat/Drouin or adding Coburn to Filppula, Garrison, and Killorn. If the former Yzerman would have to act fast to move one of them before the expansion draft in order to avoid losing Killorn/Namestnikov on top of him; if the latter our defense is going to look really shaky for a couple of years.

You might have to subtract more from your cap space figure. Drouin has a bonus potential of 2.3 mil and Koekkoek's is 600K. It wouldn't be surprising if both of them hit their numbers next year, whatever those are.

 

[tjs*]

You might have to subtract more from your cap space figure. Drouin has a bonus potential of 2.3 mil and Koekkoek's is 600K. It wouldn't be surprising if both of them hit their numbers next year, whatever those are.

Good point. Basically no matter how we slice it we're almost certainly looking at losing one of Killorn/Johnson/Palat/Drouin unless we either somehow clear most of Callahan's salary or are willing to destroy our blue line by putting Stralman into play.

 

[TampaJay]

Good point. Basically no matter how we slice it we're almost certainly looking at losing one of Killorn/Johnson/Palat/Drouin unless we either somehow clear most of Callahan's salary or are willing to destroy our blue line by putting Stralman into play.

Yup, I think you are spot on. I’ve done the math every which way I can and one of those guys is gone. But when you say losing it doesn’t mean for nothing. The one we can’t afford to resign can be traded at least for futures and maybe for a cheaper player. You may be able to get a decent young RHD (like Ryan Ellis at 2.5, just an example) for one of them.

 

[tjs*]

Yup, I think you are spot on. I’ve done the math every which way I can and one of those guys is gone. But when you say losing it doesn’t mean for nothing. The one we can’t afford to resign can be traded at least for futures and maybe for a cheaper player. You may be able to get a decent young RHD (like Ryan Ellis at 2.5, just an example) for one of them.

We can get something for one of them (unless we decide to feed Killorn to Vegas) but we can't afford to take much salary back so we're probably looking at a young ELC player or prospect. In addition if the trade happens before the draft we can't take anybody back who would be likely to be taken as we'll have no protection spots to spare. So unless we swap Johnson for a young expansion-exempt puck-moving RHD I wouldn't expect to get a whole lot in the return - at least not anything that would help us in the next couple years.

 

[Steazy Doo]

Why can't people (person) understand that we have a SALARY CAP, and that we have CORE pieces that we would could keep at similar money compared to a COMPLIMENTARY piece.

Did he have an injury? Obviously. Does that mean we should keep him to give him another shot while we put ourselves at risk losing, as tjs pointed out, one of Killorn/Johnson/Palat/Drouin?

Simple answer is no. That's why IF Callahan has value to other teams, he should be unloaded. Bottom line. Don't care about his injury, don't care about giving him another chance to redeem himself, don't care that he's a nice guy. Tough choices have to be made. It really isn't that hard to grasp. Some people here would take it more personal then Cally would himself. It obviously would be a business/money/cap casualty.

 

[Sky04]

I'm actually curious to see how this season plays out with Johnson and Vladdy. I don't know why and its purely speculation on my part, but I wouldn't be terribly shocked to see Johnsons right dangled at the end of the year. I actually wouldn't be surprised to see either guy out there in rumors.

Obviously losing either of them sucks, but think about it - Vladdy blows up this year, goes 20-20-40 and drives play, possession, and his value goes through the roof. Does it make sense to flip him when you have bottom six material everywhere (which is also a waste of his talents, obviously)? What if Minnesota comes knocking, still looking for that offense boost and floats something like Dumba for Namestnikov at the end of the season?

Absolutely, I don't see an elite #1/2 center in him, and he'll likely never be as good as Johnson, if he has a big season it'd be a great chance to pull another Conacher-esque trade.

 

[2020 Cup Champions]

Why can't people (person) understand that we have a SALARY CAP, and that we have CORE pieces that we would could keep at similar money compared to a COMPLIMENTARY piece.

Did he have an injury? Obviously. Does that mean we should keep him to give him another shot while we put ourselves at risk losing, as tjs pointed out, one of Killorn/Johnson/Palat/Drouin?

Simple answer is no. That's why IF Callahan has value to other teams, he should be unloaded. Bottom line. Don't care about his injury, don't care about giving him another chance to redeem himself, don't care that he's a nice guy. Tough choices have to be made. It really isn't that hard to grasp. Some people here would take it more personal then Cally would himself. It obviously would be a business/money/cap casualty.

Because WHY DO YOU HATE HIM

 

[Volodya Krutov]

Absolutely, I don't see an elite #1/2 center in him, and he'll likely never be as good as Johnson, if he has a big season it'd be a great chance to pull another Conacher-esque trade.

He can become a nice, reliable secondary piece with great peripherals and an asset in case of injury but I don't think anyone sees an elite center in Namestnikov.

 

[geoo9]

Vasy need to be traded, he is not a good #1 for bolts. His mind burns in Playoffs and he plays like Fleury- overreacting by goals and etc.

 

[Sky04]

He can become a nice, reliable secondary piece with great peripherals and an asset in case of injury but I don't think anyone sees an elite center in Namestnikov.

Johnson is an elite 2nd line center, why are people talking about downgrading to Namestnikov when we'll be fine capwise in 2 years?

I mean I don't see "reliable" anywhere written on Namestnikov right now either, he gets extremely cold, plays the perimeter and is gone in the playoffs.

 

[Volodya Krutov]

Johnson is an elite 2nd line center, why are people talking about downgrading to Namestnikov when we'll be fine capwise in 2 years?

I mean I don't see "reliable" anywhere written on Namestnikov right now either, he gets extremely cold, plays the perimeter and is gone in the playoffs.

There is some confusion because I personally never stated we should move Johnson for Namestnikov. I was just making clear not many people here claimed Vlad has elite center potential. Johnson on the other hand, is as long as possible a core player, Vlad is clearly not.

I see Namestnikov as reliable because he's playing the right way, his possession numbers are terrific, he's always well positioned and I definitely saw him spending most of his past regular season in the right half of the rink. For a center he's limiting opposite chances very well. As for being a perimeter guy, Namestnikov had the highest number of high-danger scoring chances last year on the team. The area of the high-danger scoring chance is basically defined by the crease. I'm not sure where this label is coming from, probably due to his poor playoffs performance, but Namestnikov, in the regular season, was getting to the dirty areas, and effectively.

Playoffs definitely remain a question mark and I fear he'll always be a playoffs choker but he's only worth $2M for a reason, he has some flaws.

 

[Steazy Doo]

Because WHY DO YOU HATE HIM

I love you though, and that's all that matters.

 

[Steazy Doo]

I'd cry if Johnson left. We've never had a better playoff performer on this team. Ever.

 

[JFleegs]

I'd cry if Johnson left. We've never had a better playoff performer on this team. Ever.

Exactly..Would be a hugeee mistake

 

[CupsOverCash]

Exactly..Would be a hugeee mistake

Agree. It really brings up the question: if it came down to having to lose on of Palat, Johnson or Drouin, who would you choose??

I still think Yzerman finds a way to keep all 3 of them, but this may be my delusion from overconfidence in SFY.

 

[Todd1a]

Agree. It really brings up the question: if it came down to having to lose on of Palat, Johnson or Drouin, who would you choose??

I still think Yzerman finds a way to keep all 3 of them, but this may be my delusion from overconfidence in SFY.

Johnson and drouin I'd always go with the playoff performers

 

[DFC]

There is some confusion because I personally never stated we should move Johnson for Namestnikov. I was just making clear not many people here claimed Vlad has elite center potential. Johnson on the other hand, is as long as possible a core player, Vlad is clearly not.

I see Namestnikov as reliable because he's playing the right way, his possession numbers are terrific, he's always well positioned and I definitely saw him spending most of his past regular season in the right half of the rink. For a center he's limiting opposite chances very well. As for being a perimeter guy, Namestnikov had the highest number of high-danger scoring chances last year on the team. The area of the high-danger scoring chance is basically defined by the crease. I'm not sure where this label is coming from, probably due to his poor playoffs performance, but Namestnikov, in the regular season, was getting to the dirty areas, and effectively.

Playoffs definitely remain a question mark and I fear he'll always be a playoffs choker but he's only worth $2M for a reason, he has some flaws.

Feels like we have to find a way to move Flip so Namestnikov can be the 3C. I've lost all hope he'll ever be more than that, but as a 3C making $2m, I'm fine. He has to not be a liability in the playoffs.

This gets really interesting two years from now when Point and maybe Peca will be pushing for a full-time spot. Might be other young players (Richard, Stephens) in the mix as well by then.

 

[dechire]

I don't know if this has already been talked about but who are you guys expecting to see called up to replace Callahan while he's on IR ? I'd like to say that a prospect would get a look but last year's callups don't give me a lot of optimism.

 

[DFC]

I don't know if this has already been talked about but who are you guys expecting to see called up to replace Callahan while he's on IR ? I'd like to say that a prospect would get a look but last year's callups don't give me a lot of optimism.

Conacher to start, I would think.

BP has been saying for about 6 months that Tanner Richard could get a shot too.