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

[K Fleur]

Okay so Saros isn't being traded.

“2-3 blue chip prospects”

Well Pens are out.

 

[Randy Butternubs]

I don't think the Pens will roll with Blomqvist and DeSmith in net. Nor do I think they should.

DeSmith is just a backup, not even a 1A/1B. And Blomqvist is not yet proven in the AHL, let alone the NHL.

 

[Peat]

Even 41% would be a departure from what Sullivan was doing.
That's a 14% boost on what Carter and Blueger got.
Doesn't sound like much, but over the course of a full season that's pretty big.

Carter got 43% zone starts in his first small season as a Penguin (which I'm using rather than trying to parse what he got at 2C and what he got at 3C the next season).

It's not that Sully is opposed to giving that usage to a 3C. It's fairly common usage for a 3C with him.

If you're looking for reasons as to why Carter was getting less this year, I can see a very obvious one in level of play. I think they got penned in a whole ton and had to take more defensive zone starts as a result.

I think in Toronto's case they are more justified in deploying the top 6 like we did. They carry hard enough to make it worth it. They are stronger defensively and come out with larger net gains for the team.
Our best line, that were given everything they needed to carry, only managed to squeeze out a +7 on the season. It's just not worth the sacrifice. We need to win through balance next year. Malkin may not reach 70 points. Sid is supremely unlikely to have an encore of that even-strength performance. Zucker's gonna be worse if he returns.

There's gonna be a heavy onus on the bottom 6 to help compensate for this.

Pens top six wasn't given everything. They were given a ramshackle, injury hit blueline and 47 games of injury prone inconsistent goaltending. Toronto had their problems but Murray staying on the sidelines let them play their best goalie more.

More to the point though... what makes you think they're going to be better if asked to carry a bigger defensive load? If they couldn't get the results to justify their offensive zone starts last season, what makes you think that giving them more defensive work won't just create an even bigger mountain for the bottom six to climb?

And what makes you think a not particularly talented bottom six is going to be able to climb it even with nicer zone starts?

 

[Peat]

Who would you target that qualifies in your mind as “swinging big?”

As much as I'd like a home runner. Those involve assets we just might not have. The only thing we have and have plenty of is cap space and I'm trying to weaponize it.

I think are third line needs to be better by going after let's say Bunting Barbashev and let's throw Brown in there for 13 to 14 million.

Now we have a 3rd line spot and a 4th line spot left for forwards

GCRak
Bunting Malkin rust
Brown barbashev slot
Slot phoeling Carter

That third line has potential.

Let me be clearer -

When I talk about swinging big, or a home runner, I don't mean rolling the dice on a single target. Not that I'm against that, I'm for it, but I can't see the target that makes sense right now.

What I mean is taking bets on big reward, big risk contracts. Stuff like Connor Brown at 3m. He's easily worth a ton more... or maybe his injury has him too bust and he's not. Or Comtois. Or whoever. Ondrej Kase if he's not retired.

Guys like Bunting... they're going to perform to 5m, and they're going to perform to 5m.

If you can get all of Bunting, Barbashev, Brown, then hey, sweet. But me, I'm not sure 13-14m on Bunting/Barbashev/ANOther when there's still starting goalie, top 4 LD, and 2 more forwards (plus spares) to recruit makes sense.

 

[Jacob]

I think I’d be fine with Bunting if it’s $4.5 million or less. But some idiot GM will start bidding against himself and give him 5x5.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Annual PL Dubois wants out of his current team bonanza has begun.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

I think I’d be fine with Bunting if it’s $4.5 million or less. But some idiot GM will start bidding against himself and give him 5x5.

Depends, is Bunting the answer for Malkin? I think he would be as the LW on that line, but I don't think Rust is the answer on the right wing at all and I hope Dubas doesn't give a shit about loyalty (lol right, let's ignore his comments with the leafs) and actually wants to improve the roster even with moves like swapping Rust out.

Guentzel, Crosby, Rakell
Bunting, Malkin, RW

I wish O'Connor was the LW on the third line but we all know he's getting f***ed over.

 

[Ugene Magic]

Annual PL Dubois wants out of his current team bonanza has begun.

There's also Debrincat.

Those are the swing for the fence type moves.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I wish O'Connor was the LW on the third line but we all know he's getting f***ed over.

I mean maybe if he'd produce at higher than a 20 point pace, the team would feel more comfortable with him as a L3 option

 

[Turin]

I think I’d be fine with Bunting if it’s $4.5 million or less. But some idiot GM will start bidding against himself and give him 5x5.

Not sure that's a super dumb contract. If it came down to that or not getting him I would probably do that.

 

[KrisLetAngry]

Let me be clearer -

When I talk about swinging big, or a home runner, I don't mean rolling the dice on a single target. Not that I'm against that, I'm for it, but I can't see the target that makes sense right now.

What I mean is taking bets on big reward, big risk contracts. Stuff like Connor Brown at 3m. He's easily worth a ton more... or maybe his injury has him too bust and he's not. Or Comtois. Or whoever. Ondrej Kase if he's not retired.

Guys like Bunting... they're going to perform to 5m, and they're going to perform to 5m.

If you can get all of Bunting, Barbashev, Brown, then hey, sweet. But me, I'm not sure 13-14m on Bunting/Barbashev/ANOther when there's still starting goalie, top 4 LD, and 2 more forwards (plus spares) to recruit makes sense.

Granlund buy out gives us 24.3 million in cap space.

2 forward rfas signed bring us down to 22.3 million.
9 forwards.


We need 1 starting goalie

1 top 4 LD

4 additional forwards. I would like one be an internal cheap guy. 1 probably be a cheap UFA vet.

20.3 million

2 forwards 1 goalie 1 LD.

Maybe we cheap out on the goalie and go big on forwards. Maybe we get Connor Brown.

The biggest hurdle is convincing People to sign here for a last hurray.

 

[Peat]

Since I'm bored, here's the totality of my thoughts -

I don't know what Dubas should do. In terms of chasing success, he's being sent out to get 60 bucks worth of food with 30 and a vague assurance there's some great bargains down at market. But which bargains? I don't know, so I don't know what he should do.

But what I do feel fairly sure about is

1) If you want 60 bucks worth from 30, you're probably going to have to cut some corners and take some risks. Get food that might have already gone off, try cheap brands that might taste appalling, and so on

2) There's two ways to build a contender. There's an awe inspiring top six (with supporting defensive pieces) and a group of relentless bastards to shut the door behind them, and there's top to bottom depth. (You rarely see a team that has enough to be both).

I don't think Sid, Geno, and Tanger are up to being the first without some equals. Getting that sort of player would be tricky.

I do think they're good enough to spearhead a deep team, but our last couple of GMs have gutted us there.

I think the awe inspiring top six teams are harder to stop, but it's generally easier to restock a team's depth quickly (if still difficult).

Either way, I think that's the goal. Bring in a shockingly good piece or two, or get real deep. But we can't rely on the big three to spreadhead things with a merely good top six and shutdown bottom six. The team needs to shy away from that. We'd have reached the playoffs with that, but not much more.

 

[Ugene Magic]

When the Pens had depth they built on the fly and filled in with prospects. They don't have the depth so the prospect fill ins mean nothing. They are also not going to be able to fill every hole "pick your poison". The best case is an adjustment at the TDL to tweak.

 

[Gurglesons]

When the Pens had depth they built on the fly and filled in with prospects. They don't have the depth so the prospect fill ins mean nothing. They are also not going to be able to fill every hole "pick your poison". The best case is an adjustment at the TDL to tweak.

This team should easily be able to fill in our depth with some shrewd moves and having Poehling and DOC as regulars.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Yeah just don't do anything stupid in free agency and you should have all of the cap space you need to create a team with solid depth. It won't be amazing unless you explicitly focus on spending big money on depth pieces, but it should be solid.

And by "do anything stupid", I'm referring to things like re-signing Dumoulin, giving Zucker over $5 million a year and stuff like that.

 

[SEALBound]

When the Pens had depth they built on the fly and filled in with prospects. They don't have the depth so the prospect fill ins mean nothing. They are also not going to be able to fill every hole "pick your poison". The best case is an adjustment at the TDL to tweak.

Something to note - in 2015, it's not like we all thought much of Rust, Sheary, Wilson, or Kuhnhackl. I certainly did not expect any of them to have the impact they did outside of what Kuhnhackl provided - solid 4th line performance. The rest were pleasant surprises. It's tough to keep it in perspective looking at who we have now.

I'd rather go a bit bigger on a top 6 wing and bottom 6 players and then fill out with DOC, Poehling, etc.

 

[Empoleon8771]

To expand on the Ullmark conversation from last night, I've been looking around other team's cap situations and I think the market for Ullmark may end up being insanely small for the kind of trade Boston would be looking to do. I know that I and others here are basically thinking "Boston would never trade with us", but there really aren't a ton of trade options that they have because Boston needs to send him out without taking notable money back.

Looking at Capfriendly, the only teams that have the cap space and need to take on Ullmark while also trying to compete now are Detroit, Carolina, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Ottawa, Buffalo and LA. A lot of other teams with goaltending problems need to clear out their own goalie issues, a team like Edmonton can't take on Ullmark without dumping Campbell's deal. There are really only about 7 teams that can take on Ullmark's deal right now, and 5 of those 7 are in the East and 3 of those 7 are in the Atlantic division.

I could realistically see Ullmark being a 4 horse race between Carolina, Pittsburgh, Seattle and LA, and I don't really see anything on those teams that they would offer that would be on par with POJ as an asset. Drury from Carolina and Kartye from Seattle seem to be the closest fits there, and I'd take POJ over both.

Edit: actually Seattle also has a ton of draft capital, so if they want Ullmark, I could totally see them offering Kartye and a 2023 2nd for him and I don't think Boston would be able to pass that up.

 

[Jacob]

I think you can probably cross Seattle off too. Almost 10 million dedicated to goaltending next year. They’ll bury Driedger in the AHL but even still no owner is going to sign off on spending $15 million on goaltending.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I think you can probably cross Seattle off too. Almost 10 million dedicated to goaltending next year. They’ll bury Driedger in the AHL but even still no owner is going to sign off on spending $15 million on goaltending.

I don't really agree. Sure that's a ton of money to spend on goalies, but they have a ton of cap space available and not really much to spend it on. Like I've posted before, their forward group is absolutely stacked and I think their defense is mostly full.

After Dunn, Geekie and Borgen get re-signed, they're probably sitting at about $10 million in cap space with 12 F, 5 D and 1 goalie under contract, and the holes they need to fill are a 3rd pair LD. They might price themselves out of Ullmark though if they go after someone like Graves, but I don't think it's super likely they do that.

Speaking of which, the Kraken with Graves looks like a nasty team to me:

McCann-Beniers-Eberle
Schwartz-Gourde-Burakovsky
Tolvanen-Wennberg-Bjorkstrand
Kartye-Geekie-Tanev

Dunn-Larsson
Graves-Schultz
Oleksiak-Borgen

Grubauer-XXXXX

Just gotta figure out who the other goalie will be.

 

[3ladesof5teel]

I don't think Zucker looks like he'd be all that useful on L3. I think he's a complementary guy on a scoring line, I don't think it makes sense to push him to L3.

I think the only guy in their top-6 that would make sense on a defensive 3rd line is Rust.

Which you could in that case have
Zucker Geno ........... New guy and put Rusty on the 3rd.

If anything Zucker would be a luxury middle 6 winger on this team if he took a team friendly deal.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Which you could in that case have
Zucker Geno ........... New guy and put Rusty on the 3rd.

If anything Zucker would be a luxury middle 6 winger on this team if he took a team friendly deal.

The issue is you know Sullivan isn't going to do that.

I think they just need to plan on Rust on Malkin's RW and try to bring in a LWer that brings what a Malkin-Rust duo needs. I don't really see any position where re-signing Zucker makes sense, you can't trade Rust due to his NMC and Sullivan won't play Rust in the bottom-6.

It only makes sense to bring Zucker back if Rust wasn't here and you were bringing in a goal scoring RWer like Tarasenko to play with Malkin and Zucker. Zucker doesn't make sense with the composition they have in their top-6 RWers.

 

[Jacob]

One thing we have that Boston might want, and those other teams might not have, is a reasonably priced backup like DeSmith. Boston has nothing in the system as far as I can tell and there’s no guarantees in free agency. And because of Jarry’s injuries DeSmith has shown he can handle a little more than the usual backup workload. Of course then *we* need a backup but *we* have the cap room to see what’s out there in free agency.

Wouldn’t be Ullmark or DeSmith one-for-one, we’d probably add a pick and/or prospect.

 

[TKalltheTime]

Trevor Zegras offer-sheet LFG BAAAAABAYYYYYYYY

 

[3ladesof5teel]

I don't think the Pens will roll with Blomqvist and DeSmith in net. Nor do I think they should.

DeSmith is just a backup, not even a 1A/1B. And Blomqvist is not yet proven in the AHL, let alone the NHL.

I think it's time to move on from DeSmith. We were kinda handcuffed signing him last year with how the market was.

Let's not make that mistake again

Trevor Zegras offer-sheet LFG BAAAAABAYYYYYYYY

Kris Letang

 

[3ladesof5teel]

The issue is you know Sullivan isn't going to do that.

I think they just need to plan on Rust on Malkin's RW and try to bring in a LWer that brings what a Malkin-Rust duo needs. I don't really see any position where re-signing Zucker makes sense, you can't trade Rust due to his NMC and Sullivan won't play Rust in the bottom-6.

It only makes sense to bring Zucker back if Rust wasn't here and you were bringing in a goal scoring RWer like Tarasenko to play with Malkin and Zucker. Zucker doesn't make sense with the composition they have in their top-6 RWers.

This is where I think our man Dubas needs to step in.

I have no issues with how Sully has handled WBS, they suck and the depth sucks despite what some believe. It's his usage that needs to change if he wants to have any form of success from here on out and I think Dubas will have some say.

Zucker is a great heart and soul guy for this team and loved his game last year. If he would make L2 better and Rust on L3 these are the things that need to happen moving forward. If Rust isn't happy he can happily waive the NMC. (I think this team can be successful with both of them on it and playing a middle 6 role according to the hot hand).

Of course this would be dependent on Zucker and a nice team friendly deal.