OEL Buyout Revisited

[Nick Lang]

The point you are trying to make isn't lost on me. What I am saying is, what good is another 5mil player if your 1D, 2D, 1C, 1G, and a whole bunch of depth players miss considerable time? Or, if there is some sort of broken down locker room culture? Sure, another 5mil defender would be great, but I don't think that alone fixes what we have been experiencing this year. I don't think "cap space" is the present excuse for our issues, is essentially what I'm getting at.

Aha. Yeah another player doesn't stop injuries or the poor play of the team sometimes. It sure would have helped a lot of things though. Covering for Hronek and making us a more complete team. We're obviously missing at least one better defender.

 

[pitseleh]

When evaluating the buyout you do have to take into account the extra roster spots the team was able to add cap on. They would have had to replace most of the team’s depth with effectively replacement level players to end up at about the same overall cap hit:

- OEL + 4 x $1 million players would have been $11 million for five spots.

- Soucy, Cole, Blueger, Lafferty, and Suter was $10.9 million for those same five spots.

It would have been tough to field a competitive roster last year without the buyout, basically wasting the last cheap years from Pettersson/Hronek and a great Miller season while he’s still at the top of the game. There was also serious risk that OEL wouldn’t rebound as a 32 year old with serious injury concerns, which would have made things even worse.

On balance I think it was the right move, though it looks like the team may waste one of the two years of breathing room they created for themselves, and have made maintaining things much tougher the next two years.

 

[timw33]

It was about setting a new bar of standards for the organization.

I firmly believe that he bounced back by going to a smaller market and only being paid 2.25MM and we would not have seen the same level of bounce back staying here with a 7.25MM contract weighing him down mentally.

 

[F A N]

When evaluating the buyout you do have to take into account the extra roster spots the team was able to add cap on. They would have had to replace most of the team’s depth with effectively replacement level players to end up at about the same overall cap hit:

- OEL + 4 x $1 million players would have been $11 million for five spots.

- Soucy, Cole, Blueger, Lafferty, and Suter was $10.9 million for those same five spots.

It would have been tough to field a competitive roster last year without the buyout, basically wasting the last cheap years from Pettersson/Hronek and a great Miller season while he’s still at the top of the game. There was also serious risk that OEL wouldn’t rebound as a 32 year old with serious injury concerns, which would have made things even worse.

Your analysis is the crux of the debate. Buyout OEL in summer 2023 instead of 2024 was a short term move with long term implications if you look at OEL's dead cap. Given that Soucy and Cole takes up $6.5M in cap space, I think it's fair to say that one of the two wouldn't have been signed. More importantly, are the Canucks better off this season having signed Soucy and Cole last season? It sure doesn't look like it.

On balance I think it was the right move, though it looks like the team may waste one of the two years of breathing room they created for themselves, and have made maintaining things much tougher the next two years.

There is no extra year of breathing room. OEL's cap hit would have been lower starting this season had he been bought out in summer 2024.

It was about setting a new bar of standards for the organization.

And what has that done for the Canucks this season? Are we sitting here thinking that once we have our horses back healthy we'll get back to looking like contenders? We have Allvin criticizing our players for not playing up to standards. "Setting a new bar of standards" for the organization means very little if our players aren't leading the way. Like I'm sure Lindy Ruff from Day 1 talked about playing the right way and having the players commit etc. etc.

I firmly believe that he bounced back by going to a smaller market and only being paid 2.25MM and we would not have seen the same level of bounce back staying here with a 7.25MM contract weighing him down mentally.

I think OEL needed to be put into a position where he's the primary shutdown defenseman alongside Myers on a bad team. Even the last iteration of Edler with Tanev didn't look all that great. But regardless, all that leads to possibly is the Canucks missing the playoffs last season. We likely would have kept our 1st round pick and we can use it to draft a good player or use it as a valuable trade chip at the draft.

 

[I Hart Conor Garland]

Your analysis is the crust of the debate. Buyout OEL in summer 2023 instead of 2024 was a short term move with long term implications if you look at OEL's dead cap. Given that Soucy and Cole takes up $6.5M in cap space, I think it's fair to say that one of the two wouldn't have been signed. More importantly, are the Canucks better off this season having signed Soucy and Cole last season? It sure doesn't look like it.



There is no extra year of breathing room. OEL's cap hit would have been lower starting this season had he been bought out in summer 2024.



And what has that done for the Canucks this season? Are we sitting here thinking that once we have our horses back healthy we'll get back to looking like contenders? We have Allvin criticizing our players for not playing up to standards. "Setting a new bar of standards" for the organization means very little if our players aren't leading the way. Like I'm sure Lindy Ruff from Day 1 talked about playing the right way and having the players commit etc. etc.


I think OEL needed to be put into a position where he's the primary shutdown defenseman alongside Myers on a bad team. Even the last iteration of Edler with Tanev didn't look all that great. But regardless, all that leads to possibly is the Canucks missing the playoffs last season. We likely would have kept our 1st round pick and we can use it to draft a good player or use it as a valuable trade chip at the draft.

da fuq

 

[Tables of Stats]

And what has that done for the Canucks this season? Are we sitting here thinking that once we have our horses back healthy we'll get back to looking like contenders? We have Allvin criticizing our players for not playing up to standards. "Setting a new bar of standards" for the organization means very little if our players aren't leading the way. Like I'm sure Lindy Ruff from Day 1 talked about playing the right way and having the players commit etc. etc.

I don't think the complete collapse of a team's core is a that any team should plan around.

The injuries and coinciding cold streaks have dredged up the same locker room ills we seemed to have cured when we moved Horvat. If we knew that this core was this fragile the correct move would have been to hold OEL, trade Pettersson, Boeser, and Miller and try to pull off a re-tool within Hughes' window. That might still end up being the best thing we can do.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

I don't think the complete collapse of a team's core is a that any team should plan around.

The injuries and coinciding cold streaks have dredged up the same locker room ills we seemed to have cured when we moved Horvat. If we knew that this core was this fragile the correct move would have been to hold OEL, trade Pettersson, Boeser, and Miller and try to pull off a re-tool within Hughes' window. That might still end up being the best thing we can do.

I think the larger picture is still that you should not go all in on a tiny contention window because hockey is extremely prone to variance. The better true talent team in basketball and soccer wins far more often than in ice hockey.

No you shouldn't plan for an implosion like we've experienced this year. But your cup window should not be 2 years long (not saying thats the case here) because the likleyhood that your goalie gets hurt or goes cold in a playoff round alone can destroy a window of that size.

 

[Tables of Stats]

I think the larger picture is still that you should not go all in on a tiny contention window because hockey is extremely prone to variance. The better true talent team in basketball and soccer wins far more often than in ice hockey.

No you shouldn't plan for an implosion like we've experienced this year. But your cup window should not be 2 years long (not saying thats the case here) because the likleyhood that your goalie gets hurt or goes cold in a playoff round alone can destroy a window of that size.

I don't think management thought the window was that small. Even if we ended up having to move on from Boeser the idea would have been to build around Miller and Pettersson carrying their lines while players like Hoglander, Silovs, Raty, etc. continue to progress and provide surplus value. We've hit on almost none of the gambles management went in on which sucks but I think you generally have to gamble if you want to win.

 

[F A N]

da fuq

Autocorrect. Relax.

I don't think the complete collapse of a team's core is a that any team should plan around.

The injuries and coinciding cold streaks have dredged up the same locker room ills we seemed to have cured when we moved Horvat. If we knew that this core was this fragile the correct move would have been to hold OEL, trade Pettersson, Boeser, and Miller and try to pull off a re-tool within Hughes' window. That might still end up being the best thing we can do.

I don't think management thought the window was that small. Even if we ended up having to move on from Boeser the idea would have been to build around Miller and Pettersson carrying their lines while players like Hoglander, Silovs, Raty, etc. continue to progress and provide surplus value. We've hit on almost none of the gambles management went in on which sucks but I think you generally have to gamble if you want to win.

I'm big on rationalizing and giving management the benefit of the doubt but I am having a bit of trouble here. I keep saying that that plans can obviously change but then if plans keep changing is the plan to be as flexible as possible and somewhat reactionary? Take a few of the moves:

1) When Rutherford took over, he talked about the team being about 2 years away from contending. We don't know if contending means making the playoffs but regardless that seems reasonable and fit into what many of us felt was the timeline.

2) Center Ice position. Rumour was that we wanted to trade Miller and it sure sounded we were serious about that. In the end, Miller was re-signed, afterwhich, we still tried to re-sign Horvat. Our last offer to Horvat was reportedly 7x$7.5M AAV. Had Horvat re-signed were we trading Miller? Last summer we wanted to sign Lindholm for 7x$7M AAV. Was the plan to move Miller to wing? Trade Petey?

3) OEL Buyout. In ~April 2023, Allvin said "I don't want to use buyouts if it's going to affect us in a couple years when this group is actually, hopefully, taking off." So at least if we can trust Allvin here, he doesn't think 2023-2024 was the year to go for it.

4) 2023 Off-season - Our offseason moves were largely short-term. Soucy got a 3 year deal but otherwise we got guys on 1-2 year terms.

3) Post start of 2023-2024 season. We got off to a hot start and I assume that plans changed (which is fine). We made moves to compete and traded assets to acquire guys we intended to re-sign long term.

As for Boeser, I think it's more about the player here. Management reportedly wanted to go after Guentzel and ended up with DeBrusk. I don't think their desire to sign Lindholm was predicated on Guentzel not being available either. So I think cap dollars were allocated to paying fair money for a high end/higher end winger here.