Salary Cap: Penguins Salary Cap Thread: We suck again summer edition

[AuroraBorealis]

Brunette was talking as if Saros will be his starter next year.
Don't think they're rebuilding yet.

 

[Turin]

Friedman says Calgary is interested in Reirden? Yes pleaaaaase

 

[66-30-33]

Friedman says Calgary is interested in Reirden? Yes pleaaaaase

Sully to NYR
Rierden to Flames
Vellucci to Ducks

 

[Ugene Magic]

Throwing away the 14OA on a goalie is plain stupid.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Throwing away the 14OA on a goalie is plain stupid.

What's your solution for addressing the goalie position then?

 

[hockeywiz542]

Buyout watch 2023: 13 players to monitor ahead of the NHL offseason

Here are 11 possible buyout situations involving 13 NHL players that are worth monitoring when the buyout window opens later this month.

theathletic.com

Mikael Granlund, Pittsburgh Penguins

The clock is ticking on the Penguins to salvage one more year of contention with the Big Three of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang. That incentivizes Pittsburgh to carve out as much wiggle room this summer as possible to overhaul the supporting cast. Dubas will have room to play with this offseason — just over $20 million or so — but that doesn’t factor in the need to either re-sign or replace Tristan Jarry and Jason Zucker.

Pittsburgh needs to overhaul its third line and ideally upgrade the blue line, which means there’s a fair chunk of work to do. Buying Mikael Granlund out would afford Kyle Dubas more flexibility to address those needs.

Granlund, 31, was a disastrous trade deadline pickup. He notched just five points in 21 games, part of a season where his two-way game fell off a cliff as well. Dubas had a good track record in Toronto of finding a way to trade bad contracts but with two years left at a $5 million it’d probably cost the Penguins premium assets to shed Granlund’s deal, the exact type of limited trade chips that the Penguins might want to leverage in order to acquire impact players on the trade market.

Buying Granlund out would create $4.166 million of relief this summer. The savings would be $3.166 million the year after. Sure, it wouldn’t be ideal to have $1.833 million of dead money on the books for the two years following that, but by 2025-26, the Penguins’ championship window will almost certainly be closed anyway.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Man I'd still love to believe that Granlund can be re-homed without a buyout. But more and more it's starting to seem like the smart play. The team has so much to address and having to dish any assets to move him out feels like throwing good money after bad. And the alternative of letting him try to build value while also pretending this team is trying to compete feels like an even worse idea.

 

[Ugene Magic]

What's your solution for addressing the goalie position then?

Just because they say goaltending is a priority doesn't mean actually going out to get one to start with. It could mean signing Jarry is a priority. It costs them no assets to do so. There are bigger priorities to use the assets on. Like another threat at forward and on defense could use a stable guy at LD.

My solution is sign Jarry. If you want to better the backup FA is there.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I understand that GMs won't care about the context of why Granlund stunk in Pittsburgh, but I still feel like it's bizarre no one is talking about how an offensive playmaking winger was thrust into a defensive 3C role for a reason why Granlund struggled so much with the Penguins. I saw Seravalli call Granlund a "grinder" and I realized a ton of these national media guys just don't have any clue what they're talking about.

With that being said, that doesn't really change the situation with Granlund's value. It's the same concept as with Gibson in Anaheim. It doesn't matter if Gibson's numbers were dramatically hurt by him playing behind a bad team, which is what most Ducks fans insist is the case. What matters is that Gibson has given terrible results, and the context of why doesn't change those results. It's the same with the Penguins, Granlund was massively misused here but that just means the Penguins tanked any sort of value he might have had before he came to Pittsburgh.

 

[Peat]

I still hold that Granlund had no value before he came here and that's part of what makes Hextall's move so unforgivable.

 

[Ugene Magic]

Granlund could be the Zucker replacement. I'm certainly willing to give him time to be used as a top six.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I still hold that Granlund had no value before he came here and that's part of what makes Hextall's move so unforgivable.

Exactly.

Granlund could be the Zucker replacement. I'm certainly willing to give him time to be used as a top six.

Gross.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I still hold that Granlund had no value before he came here and that's part of what makes Hextall's move so unforgivable.

Eh I just can't agree with that. I know you have fairly pointed out his awful analytics, but he still had 64 points last year and was on pace for 50 points this year with the Predators. I think people can just look at that production and say "there is still value there". I think an old-school GM who wanted to get some extra offense out of his middle-6 could definitely have seen value out of Granlund's production, even if it doesn't hold when you dig deeper into it.

And let's say a team acquired him to use him in an appropriate role and he put up say 15 points in 21 games. Would people still be saying his value is negative and he's this buyout candidate? I don't think so, at least not nearly to the degree being talked about here.

Edit: a good example showing this, the Knights traded Holden and a 3rd to Ottawa for Dadonov after Dadonov only had 20 points in 55 games the previous year.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Prioritize a PP2 2LW over our starting goalie?
Granlund as the Malkin winger?

 

[66-30-33]

Thanks Hextall for that Granlund contract. Giving up a 2nd for FULL 5M CAP HIT OF GRANLUND. I dunno what he was smoking that day, doing a great job cutting cap space only to go for him at 5M. Not even 50% retained...Granlund would not be hard to trade at 2.5 for 2 more years. Hell we could even trade him at 50% of the 2.5M and be better off.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Looking at some past trades, I don't see why the Penguins couldn't do something similar to the Dadonov to VGK trade back in 2020. That deal was Holden and a 3rd for Dadonov, who was coming off a 20 point in 55 game season.

Could you maybe do Granlund to San Jose for Simek and a 4th? Simek sucks and makes $2.25 million a year for next year, but you can stash him in WBS as extra D depth and only have a $1.2 million or so cap penalty from that.

 

[Peat]

Eh I just can't agree with that. I know you have fairly pointed out his awful analytics, but he still had 64 points last year and was on pace for 50 points this year with the Predators. I think people can just look at that production and say "there is still value there". I think an old-school GM who wanted to get some extra offense out of his middle-6 could definitely have seen value out of Granlund's production, even if it doesn't hold when you dig deeper into it.

And let's say a team acquired him to use him in an appropriate role and he put up say 15 points in 21 games. Would people still be saying his value is negative and he's this buyout candidate? I don't think so, at least not nearly to the degree being talked about here.

Edit: a good example showing this, the Knights traded Holden and a 3rd to Ottawa for Dadonov after Dadonov only had 20 points in 55 games the previous year.

Granlund's production only looks good if you don't dig and see how it came. Pacing for 50 points looks good. Pacing for 50 points as a 1st line player with 3 minutes of PP time a night is significant underperformance.

His 5v5 production in Nashville over three years is a strong argument for never seeing an NHL top 6 again. He had one good season as a power play playmaker and that's it.

If he'd done 15 in 21 it'd be different, because it would suggest he's a bad fit in Nashville who can succeed elsewhere. But that didn't happen. Nashville Granlund's production isn't good. It's bad.

And Dadonov had years of strong possession metrics, years of strong goalscoring, his down year came when playing mostly with Nick Paul and Colin White, and his years of being a good 5v5 p/60 producer had come a lot more recently than Granlund's.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Granlund's production only looks good if you don't dig and see how it came. Pacing for 50 points looks good. Pacing for 50 points as a 1st line player with 3 minutes of PP time a night is significant underperformance.

His 5v5 production in Nashville over three years is a strong argument for never seeing an NHL top 6 again. He had one good season as a power play playmaker and that's it.

If he'd done 15 in 21 it'd be different, because it would suggest he's a bad fit in Nashville who can succeed elsewhere. But that didn't happen. Nashville Granlund's production isn't good. It's bad.

And Dadonov had years of strong possession metrics, years of strong goalscoring, his down year came when playing mostly with Nick Paul and Colin White, and his years of being a good 5v5 p/60 producer had come a lot more recently than Granlund's.

But do you think an old-school GM would spend the time to do that digging?

I still just flat out refuse to believe that Hextall was the only GM in hockey who valued Granlund as a positive asset. Hextall was not any more of an outsider or an idiot than 99% of other GMs. I don't think any other GM valued him at a 2nd, because Hextall probably thought he was a good 2-way player that could produce well in a defensive role, but I just refuse to believe that no other team wouldn't have valued him as an offensive guy.

It's the same kind of idea when JR signed JJ to a 5 year deal. The Penguins weren't the only team in on JJ and weren't the only team wanting to give him term. The analytics suggest it's absolute blasphemy, but there are very few management staffs that primarily use analytics when making decisions. I'm pretty confident that a majority of GMs still rely on professional scouts and their opinions over analytics.

According to Yohe (so very doubtful it's true), Pryor was the guy who pushed Hextall to get Granlund. If Pryor is insisting that Granlund is a great playmaker with good vision and would be a strong fit in the 3C role, but the analytics guy is saying that Granlund actually stinks, who would Hextall believe? This is applied to Hextall but I bet this is how most management teams operate. They trust their pro scouts and their opinions over analytics.

 

[DrDangles]

Granlund had great chemistry with Zucker when Koivu was their center in Minny. I really think Zucker - Malkin - Granlund is worth a look before we spend assets to move him. We have plenty of cap space to work with even if Zucker comes back around 5M, no need to make rash decisions based on 20 games last season.

 

[Ugene Magic]

Granlund's production only looks good if you don't dig and see how it came. Pacing for 50 points looks good. Pacing for 50 points as a 1st line player with 3 minutes of PP time a night is significant underperformance.

His 5v5 production in Nashville over three years is a strong argument for never seeing an NHL top 6 again. He had one good season as a power play playmaker and that's it.

If he'd done 15 in 21 it'd be different, because it would suggest he's a bad fit in Nashville who can succeed elsewhere. But that didn't happen. Nashville Granlund's production isn't good. It's bad.

And Dadonov had years of strong possession metrics, years of strong goalscoring, his down year came when playing mostly with Nick Paul and Colin White, and his years of being a good 5v5 p/60 producer had come a lot more recently than Granlund's.

Who did Dadonov play with?

Right... all his best years were with Barkov and Huberdeau. A resurgence in Vegas.

 

[ChaosAgent]

I still just flat out refuse to believe that Hextall was the only GM in hockey who valued Granlund as a positive asset. Hextall was not any more of an outsider or an idiot than 99% of other GMs. I don't think any other GM valued him at a 2nd, because Hextall probably thought he was a good 2-way player that could produce well in a defensive role, but I just refuse to believe that no other team wouldn't have valued him as an offensive guy.

Hextall made an emotional panic trade because fans were chanting for him to be fired, Sullivan was throwing him under the bus and he had already mentally committed to trading the 2nd. He may have thought he wouldn't even last to the TDL.

There were times that Hextall was very rational. Trading the 2nd for him with no retention was not rational. It was a panic "oops."

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I wonder what the Venn diagram of people who are willing to have a look at Granlund sucking up good air on L2 next season and the people that will unironically bitch a blue streak all next year about how "terrible" Malkin is playing looks like?

 

[Darren McCord]

Sully to NYR
Rierden to Flames
Vellucci to Ducks

Would be the perfect offseason but only a dream

 

[Peat]

But do you think an old-school GM would spend the time to do that digging?

I still just flat out refuse to believe that Hextall was the only GM in hockey who valued Granlund as a positive asset. Hextall was not any more of an outsider or an idiot than 99% of other GMs. I don't think any other GM valued him at a 2nd, because Hextall probably thought he was a good 2-way player that could produce well in a defensive role, but I just refuse to believe that no other team wouldn't have valued him as an offensive guy.

It's the same kind of idea when JR signed JJ to a 5 year deal. The Penguins weren't the only team in on JJ and weren't the only team wanting to give him term. The analytics suggest it's absolute blasphemy, but there are very few management staffs that primarily use analytics when making decisions.

It barely takes any digging. Any scouting report on him should note the role he had (I'd assume). We are a long way removed from 50 points being acceptable for a guy with his role.

While I probably shouldn't go around underestimating the level of idiocy and incompetence in anything, I would point out that Hextall was under exactly the sort of "do something" pressure that traditionally produces boneheaded blunders in any walk of life, and that the absolute shock with which the move was greeted suggests there really weren't that many agreeing with him. Ditto the lack of Granlund on trade boards leading up to the day (although it's hard to find the Feb ones now).

 

[Empoleon8771]

I think people need to realize that most GM decisions aren't made by just the GM, unless you believe that Philly story about Hextall going rogue and selecting Patrick is a common practice. GMs can't go around and watch every single player on every single team, so they have to rely on their assistant GMs and scouts to give them accurate scouting reports. These kind of decisions are never just made by the GM. What does that mean? There was more than 1 person who wanted the Penguins to acquire Granlund.

It's the same thing as when Toronto traded for Matt Murray last off-season. That wasn't just Dubas saying "lol he's from my junior team, so I'm trading for him". That move had to get approved by Shanahan, who seems like a major meddler with the Leafs, and had to get insight from their scouts on what they thought of Murray. Another example was when JR traded Despres for Lovejoy, do you think that was just JR or do you think there were more people there (such as Guerin, who was rumored to be a big supporter of that deal) who supported that deal?

A GM has the final say for the most part, but I'd bet it is extremely rare for a GM to make a trade without the consent of his supporting cast. And following that, I'd bet that it's extremely rare that the only people who would support acquiring a player were only on 1 team.