GDT: Off-season/July 1st Free Agent frenzy thread-Is Joey Crabb still available?

[behemolari]

We have to keep Sam all other free agents are expendable. Now that the Panthers are at the upper echolon of hockey. I’m Sure Zito is in touch with the best talent available looking for a little less to win. We have already seen that with a jem like Rodriguez.

Now that Panthers are in that position, put Ekblad to LTIR for a regular season and sign everyone

 

[Idiot Stick]

Now that Panthers are in that position, put Ekblad to LTIR for a regular season and sign everyone

so sad to hear about ekblads spleen

 

[I am not exposed]

I hope Tkachuk takes plenty of time off to come back to 2022-2023 levels of play.

Maurice did say he was dealing with injuries this season. He doesn't look fully recovered imo.

 

[TotalHomer]

so sad to hear about ekblads spleen

Need to research liposuction related complications.

 

[Great8Cam]

so sad to hear about ekblads spleen

Also, his foot and ankle ligaments are still bothering him, along with the kidney issues

 

[WaitingForThatCab]

Need to research liposuction related complications.

PSA: Liposuction is one of the most dangerous procedures you can have done to you. If you or anyone you know ever struggle with weight issues, please consider every other available option (PLEASE JUST WORK OUT AND MANAGE YOUR DIET) because it's a really bad way to die.

So yeah, the complication is usually death. Gonna say, I hope Ekblad avoids that one.

 

[RogerRoger]

Another Zito reclamation project?

https://x.com/i/web/status/1805953959376441486

Last time around his choices were Buffalo or Toronto because he wants to be in that area. Leafs might get him for a bargain.

 

[Dread Clawz]

Or he’s like a bubble stock and Zito could cash in big time by selling high. “Stanley Cup Pedigree” sounds good somewhere like Calgary or Toronto…

No, he's a winner and a huge part of our blue line, we keep him.

I don't know. He wasn't terrible, but he wasn't great either. There were at least half a dozen times this playoffs where I unconsciously said out loud to myself, "My god, he's so slow," after watching him in a footrace or chasing down a puck. More than once a winger got behind him with speed and led to a high danger chance. That's not going to get better with age.

He has shortcomings but he's still a great defenseman. He was terrific against McDavid in game 7. And for most of the series, really .

 

[Dread Clawz]

You can either look into trading a guy and bringing back Reino or letting him walk and sign depth guys. No space for both sadly.

If Reino wants 11M or something like Seravalli is saying, let him walk. He's not getting more than Barky or Chuck. At a round 9M, we can afford to bring him back, and won't have to trade anyone. The only casualty would be Monty, and of course older guys like Okposo and Tank who we won't bring back anyway.

A 2M pay cut? I don't see that happening. He's going to want a raise.

No he won't. He understands his situation. He knows he's not gonna get the same money as McAvoy, Heiskanen etc.

 

[Sticksandsun]

First your required viewing before posting:





We have some tough choices to be made:

Reino, Montour, Oel, Tarasenko, Kulikov, Stenlund, Lomberg, Cousins, Lorentz, Okposo, Stolarz are all UFAs.

Lundell will be an RFA and get a significant pay raise.

Right off the bat, I think Florida will try to bring back Reino, and he wants to be back.
For me, 100% gone are Montour (Leafs), Okposo (retirement), Stolarz (huge raise), OEL (huge raise).

Now here's where it gets really tricky. Swaggy, Ekblad and Bennett will be UFAs. Bob has 2 years left, as does Knight who will be an RFA.

My off-season moves would be to move Bob and Ekblad. I realize I'm posting this 5 minutes after they won the Cup and I will love them forever, but Ekblad is made of glass and slow AF and I don't think Zito will give him the money he wants. Bob it pains me to say so much because I love him and he's the GOAT but he's gonna be 36 and we need to see what we have in Knight. After this season, Florida won't have to retain much (if anything) on him. Thoughts?

The best part of the montage is they added Pauls dont f***ing touch it to Barkov and Barkovs little shuffle around it.

 

[RogerRoger]

If Reino wants 11M or something like Seravalli is saying, let him walk. He's not getting more than Barky or Chuck. At a round 9M, we can afford to bring him back, and won't have to trade anyone. The only casualty would be Monty, and of course older guys like Okposo and Tank who we won't bring back anyway.

If you sign Reino at 9M and Lundell at 3.5M, Kulikov at 1M, and start Knight in the AHL, it leaves us 7.1M for 6 players: a #2RD, a #3RW, a backup G, and for 3 4th liners.
If Reino and Lundell account for over 11.5M the #2RD is basically a hope and a prayer that someone making 1.5M greatly over perform.

 

[Thewselius]

Ran draft sim a couple of times (Draft Simulator). Pretty cool to see what could be available. Eriks Mateiko looks great. Big 6'5" Latvian winger from the Q. Also, Miettenin 6'3" two-way finish center. There are a couple of projects in that 3rd round.

 

[PSLguy]

What about Ghost? UFA, local guy. Good powerplay quarterback. Made 4.1 this season in Detroit, he'd have to take a bit less here.

Chris Tanev would be a good, physical RD pickup.

 

[Dread Clawz]

If you sign Reino at 9M and Lundell at 3.5M, Kulikov at 1M, and start Knight in the AHL, it leaves us 7.1M for 6 players: a #2RD, a #3RW, a backup G, and for 3 4th liners.
If Reino and Lundell account for over 11.5M the #2RD is basically a hope and a prayer that someone making 1.5M greatly over perform.

Samo will be given the chance to earn 3RW in camp I would imagine.. it would be a cheap contract as we will need it, and we need to bring in some young legs over the next couple years too. We can't keep signing veterans, most of our core will be transitioning to the late 20's, except for Chucky.

We can ice this lineup and be compliant

Rod-Barky-Reino/Guentzel
Swaggod-Benny-Chucky
Luosty -Lundy-Samo
Lombo-Stenner-Cuzzy
Lorentz-Gadjo

Fors -Ek
Mikks-OEL
Balinskis/Bjornfot/Mahura - Kuli

Bob
backup

What about Ghost? UFA, local guy. Good powerplay quarterback. Made 4.1 this season in Detroit, he'd have to take a bit less here.

Chris Tanev would be a good, physical RD pickup.

Wouldn't mind Ghost. Tanev will be too rich for our blood. He had a great playoff run, Toronto or somebody is gonna give him stupid money .

 

[Dread Clawz]

Ran draft sim a couple of times (Draft Simulator). Pretty cool to see what could be available. Eriks Mateiko looks great. Big 6'5" Latvian winger from the Q. Also, Miettenin 6'3" two-way finish center. There are a couple of projects in that 3rd round.

I think Miettinen is going 1st round or early 2nd. Most of the big scouting services have him in the top 45, and I think he's around #40 in consolidated ranking. This draft has great depth though. We should get something decent with our 3rd and the Flyers' 5th.

 

[Jean Luc Discard]

Samo will be given the chance to earn 3RW in camp I would imagine.. it would be a cheap contract as we will need it, and we need to bring in some young legs over the next couple years too. We can't keep signing veterans, most of our core will be transitioning to the late 20's, except for Chucky.

We can ice this lineup and be compliant

Rod-Barky-Reino/Guentzel
Swaggod-Benny-Chucky
Luosty -Lundy-Samo
Lombo-Stenner-Cuzzy
Lorentz-Gadjo

Fors -Ek
Mikks-OEL
Balinskis/Bjornfot/Mahura - Kuli

Bob
backup


Wouldn't mind Ghost. Tanev will be too rich for our blood. He had a great playoff run, Toronto or somebody is gonna give him stupid money .

Even though anything could happen before the free agency... I think that we would've already seen Reino and/or Monty getting signed. I'd reckon that Zito has presented an offer a long time ago to both players and they'll rather see if there are any better options in FA. Only three players across the league have signed +4mil AAV deals in the last month.

If and when Lundell signs his bridge deal, I don't see him being the mainstay 3C anymore. He's way too good at that point and the mgmt/coaching staff will expect him to make a huge jump offensively.

Verhaghe-Barkov-ERod
Bennett-Lundell-Tkachuk

There's few options in the FA to cover the absence of Reino and Monty but the entire team has to get better. Every player score ~5 goals more and Ekblad goes on a diet (I know, too much to ask for) and the Panthers will be fine.

 

[Dread Clawz]

Even though anything could happen before the free agency... I think that we would've already seen Reino and/or Monty getting signed. I'd reckon that Zito has presented an offer a long time ago to both players and they'll rather see if there are any better options in FA. Only three players across the league have signed +4mil AAV deals in the last month.

If and when Lundell signs his bridge deal, I don't see him being the mainstay 3C anymore. He's way too good at that point and the mgmt/coaching staff will expect him to make a huge jump offensively.

Verhaghe-Barkov-ERod
Bennett-Lundell-Tkachuk

There's few options in the FA to cover the absence of Reino and Monty but the entire team has to get better. Every player score ~5 goals more and Ekblad goes on a diet (I know, too much to ask for) and the Panthers will be fine.

Even though I agree with Seravalli that we would've seen Reino re-sign already if it was as easy as 9.5 x 8, I think Reino wants to stay. He'll see what offers are out there. If he doesn't get anything above 11, he'll stay imo.

We'll see, our strength is our depth and Maurice knows this. Lundy and Luosty is a great pair, they have terrific chemistry and you can throw them out there to shut down almost anybody, and it frees up Barky in some situations. Lundy might get rewarded with more pp time though. Plus MGMT/ coaching also know that Bennett is much better at center, and a reason his game declined in Calgary is because they moved him to wing and started shifting him all over the lineup.

 

[ShootIt]

wouldn't mind Ghost if Montour walks.

But hopefully these guys "buy in" and take less for a cup run

 

[TotalHomer]

Ghost is bad defensively and soft as butter. Doesn't fit at all IMO.

 

[EnforceTheLaus]

Guys I'd keep:

Reino, Kulikov, Lomberg, Tarasenko Cousins (maybe).

Others I'd let walk, the biggest need is a PPQB d-man.

 

[Jean Luc Discard]

Even though I agree with Seravalli that we would've seen Reino re-sign already if it was as easy as 9.5 x 8, I think Reino wants to stay. He'll see what offers are out there. If he doesn't get anything above 11, he'll stay imo.

We'll see, our strength is our depth and Maurice knows this. Lundy and Luosty is a great pair, they have terrific chemistry and you can throw them out there to shut down almost anybody, and it frees up Barky in some situations. Lundy might get rewarded with more pp time though. Plus MGMT/ coaching also know that Bennett is much better at center, and a reason his game declined in Calgary is because they moved him to wing and started shifting him all over the lineup.

I think that Zito's offer to Reino was 8.5milx6, maybe even 8milx6 if Reino is more of a 70-80pts guy who is more a supplemental piece than a crucial fringe core piece. Any team that has plenty of cap space and wants to surround their younger core pieces with veteran talent will win the bidding war against the Panthers. I'd expect him to sign some 10-11mil AAV deal with that 57 goal total.

Breaking up Lundell and Luostarinen is actually the consequence of them being successful on the 3rd line. If they don't do that then ppl will eventually complain about Lundell not becoming a ppg 2C for the Panthers and thus not worthy of earning an extention, commence the trade talks. Bennett's point production will go up when he doesn't have to worry so much about defensive side of things.

The mgm and coaching staff will push everyone to take a bigger role on this team. Gus to 1PP, Lundell to 2C, more points from Bennett, maybe Lomberg to 3rd line, etc.

 

[TotalHomer]

Even though I agree with Seravalli that we would've seen Reino re-sign already if it was as easy as 9.5 x 8, I think Reino wants to stay. He'll see what offers are out there. If he doesn't get anything above 11, he'll stay imo.

Seravalli is using some model to project UFA salaries. I think he is out to lunch with this one just like he was with Forsling. If Reino really wants to stay like he has been saying he'll take a discount, sticking with my 8.5 million x 8 prediction.

 

[barkovcanfinnish]

Wonder if Alexandre Carrier is someone Zito looks at. Right-handed dman, 27-years-old, decent numbers.

 

[TotalHomer]

Any interest in Trouba? Sounds like he might get bought out. Also Tyler Myers hitting the market. Both are veteran guys who probably would take discounts for a chance at the cup and have previously played for Maurice.

 

[ucanthanzalthetruth]

The best part of the montage is they added Pauls dont f***ing touch it to Barkov and Barkovs little shuffle around it.

The worst was Duchene going BOOM after the OT avs goal, thats copyright infringement