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Salary Cap: Pens 2024 Summer Thread: "Thus, knocking us out of these superior numbers when we emerge! Mr. President, we must not allow a non-playoff bound gap!"

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Summer is all we'll have for the foreseeable future, this is where we'll need to make our hay. Kyle knows that, he'll need to have a strong draft and bring in a significant piece in FA. I expect northing less.
 
Laine's one of the best examples of "what could've been" for a hockey player in my time watching the game, imo. Dude has the size and skill to be an absolute juggernaut, but just never had the drive to reach his ceiling and has dealt with injury woes to boot.

I guess if Columbus takes Rakell at full cap hit *and* retains on Laine, it's worth a "who give a shit anymore, what's the worst that could happen" kinda shot. But other than that, nah.
 
Jacob said:
I think he’s cooked both physically and mentally.
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His play tanked because he was skipping sleep to play games. Now he plays on hidden accounts. I have no doubt that he's back at his dream of being an ESports competitor.
 
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Big Friggin Dummy said:
Laine's one of the best examples of "what could've been" for a hockey player in my time watching the game, imo. Dude has the size and skill to be an absolute juggernaut, but just never had the drive to reach his ceiling and has dealt with injury woes to boot.

I guess if Columbus takes Rakell at full cap hit *and* retains on Laine, it's worth a "who give a shit anymore, what's the worst that could happen" kinda shot. But other than that, nah.
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I'm really confused by this take and I see it a bunch on Laine.

Previous to last year when he was admittedly dealing with some extreme personal issues he had 52 points in 55 games with CBJ and 56 in 56.

Is a 77 - 82 pt winger not someone that we'd find attractive?
 
Even if Laine played up to his potential, which I doubt, I still don't really like paying him the ~$9 million AAV he costs.

I'd honestly rather re-sign Guentzel, you know he fits with Crosby and you wouldn't have to spend any assets on him. And I've been vocal about not wanting to re-sign Guentzel.
 
Empoleon8771 said:
Even if Laine played up to his potential, which I doubt, I still don't really like paying him the ~$9 million AAV he costs.

I'd honestly rather re-sign Guentzel, you know he fits with Crosby and you wouldn't have to spend any assets on him. And I've been vocal about not wanting to re-sign Guentzel.
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The benefit of Laine is he's making 9 million, but you could probably dump Smith on the Jackets and he's only making that for another year after this one so you could probably easily retain and get some very solid futures back for him next year if he pops off.
 
Empoleon8771 said:
Even if Laine played up to his potential, which I doubt, I still don't really like paying him the ~$9 million AAV he costs.

I'd honestly rather re-sign Guentzel, you know he fits with Crosby and you wouldn't have to spend any assets on him. And I've been vocal about not wanting to re-sign Guentzel.
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At this point we should be getting players that will maximize Crosbys stats for 82 games, that's all we should be doing now. We had our playoff runs, they are over time to get Crosby his points now like Caps with Ovy's goals.
 
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Gurglesons said:
I'm really confused by this take and I see it a bunch on Laine.

Previous to last year when he was admittedly dealing with some extreme personal issues he had 52 points in 55 games with CBJ and 56 in 56.

Is a 77 - 82 pt winger not someone that we'd find attractive?
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Because he's not a 77-82pt winger in reality. He hasn't played a full season of hockey in half a decade. On pace production doesn't carry a lotta weight when a guy's playing 45-60 games a year for years on end. /shrug
 
Empoleon8771 said:
Laine has only played in 175 of 302 games in the last 4 years.

Even if you ignore last year, he missed 26 and 27 games in the 2 previous years.
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From what I remember it was a broken collarbone and sprained ankle that kept him out? I'm not sure I'd consider those consistent injuries.

Turin said:
He's had a bad back almost his whole career?
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Is this true? I've never heard this or seen him have surgery related to it?

I dunno, could be out to lunch here on Laine, but I never thought of "injuries" being his issue. His issue has been commitment to playing a full game and a failure in adapting his game to what is required in today's NHL.
 
Tatar UFA again. Good option for cheap, bottom-six scoring depth. He'll probably defend as well as anybody in that bottom-six too, as a bonus.
If he's cool with taking 1.5M or less (which after a down year he probably will be) I don't think it's likely we'd use that money better elsewhere.
 
Empoleon8771 said:
I think fretting about the expansion draft decisions made in 2021 in 2024 is just making up excuses for shitty GMing performances.

They have no depth right now due to Hextall and Dubas doing terrible jobs at adding effective bottom-6 players in the last 2 years. Had Dubas and Hextall not done terrible jobs at that, no one would be complaining about the expansion draft.

Anyway, I think their depth is sitting better now than it did a year ago with the breakouts by O’Connor and Puustinen. Their 4th line still needs to be addressed, but a 3rd line of O’Connor-Eller-Puustinen is at least fine, possibly better if O’Connor and Puustinen improve.
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It's not the only reason we have no depth but it's a major factor.

Obviously losing McC was a huge blow. He was making 2.9M then and still only makes 5M. Had we kept him we don't trade for Gran or Smith saving two picks.

We also lost Tanev who was overpaid at the time but is actually a really good bottom 6 player, which we haven't been able to replace since.

So that's two players we lost in the draft that equal almost exactly what Smith and Carter made this past season. Now let's look at who we kept.

KK, was garbage and eventually waived.

Cater, was old and got even older. He was given an extension with a NMC that was an anchor on the team for years.

So we ended up losing 3 players and holding onto another who was an anchor. The decision to keep KK and Carter over Tanev and McC led to having to scramble to fill the holes and greatly set the franchise back.
 
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Deport Ogie said:
I'm honestly shocked to hear Jeff Skinner is *only* 32.
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What's even more odd to me at times are moves that were made post 17 Cup to the 2020 COVID seasons. Like Skinner was traded to Buffalo in Aug of 2018. That's wild to me. If I had to guess, I would have said like 2015. Something about those years and COVID that just completely warp my NHL timelines.
 
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