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!"

[DesertPenguin]

Smith I like the attempt. 2 years 5 million two way guy for a 3rd instead of signing someone for 5 years. Honestly if it was known or if we could have waited I would have done Zucker for 2 years 5 million.

Graves - I was excited 28 years old 4.5 million 6 years taking a player to 34. Full prime at a decent hit for a 4/5 . Definitely a bad signing with how he doesn't fit here.

Neito - Doesn't matter bury him as ahl depth. Sit in press box.

Accairi - needs to be playing wing. I definitely think the contract was 1 year to long.

Jarry - eh in the camp of better to sign then not with what we knew then. If we can trade him I would and re sign Ned.

Agreed with everything here.

Graves is the real stinker. Smith, Acciari, and Nieto are all short term and/or cheap enough they aren't hard to work around.

Jarry in the context of what was available last off season isn't the worst. The next hottest name that actually moved was Korpisalo and that looks like a Graves level tire fire. Following the names floating around the goalie market this offseason looks very similar. I don't trust Jarry, but until someone clearly better than him moves and Dubas misses out I won't complain too much.

Some of these I agree will or could resolve, and some looked better when the deal was made than they do now. That's Dubas's job to be a better talent evaluator than me though, so whether they looked good or not to me isn't that relevant. He gets graded on results.

Smith didn't fit but looked good on paper.

Nieto and Acciari dont bother me too much. Acciari at W and healthy should look better, and Nieto might just retire or get buried.

Graves I see as an unforced error that gets us back to the D situation that Hextall tripped over himself trying to fix. We had Petts and Matheson both making 2nd pair money with one on the third pair. Neither really fit with Marino so we ended up stupidly swapping Petry and Matheson and dumping the best one of all of them. Marino, to make room. Could have just waited a year, shuffled off Dumoulin, and played mix and match with Petts and Matheson alongside Letang and Marino. Now we have Graves that doesn't fit with Letang or Karlsson, so we have to overpay him to play the OFD on the 3rd pair and go fishing again for a 2nd pairing D man.

In hindsight, we should have just signed Ned and another platoon guy instead of Jarry. There was no way to know Ned would have performed that well though, so I can't lay too much blame there.

 

[Turin]

Hooray, we won the trade!

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Hopefully Jarry doesn't get matched/outplayed again by the journeyman backup like he has been more or less his whole career. Would be nice to squeeze a little value out of that turd of a contract,

 

[Andy99]

Hopefully Jarry doesn't get matched/outplayed again by the journeyman backup like he has been more or less his whole career. Would be nice to get squeeze a little value out of that turd of a contract,

They need to trade Jarry…the way the season went, it’s clear the players didn’t have any confidence in him, or Sullivan…got to get him out of here even if that means getting nothing much back in return and start again with the goaltending…get a couple backups like Ned was and have them battle it out with Blomqvist…maybe Lankinen and Brossoit, probably the best ones..

 

[Gurglesons]

It'd be cool if even if we keep Jarry we waived him.

 

[BusinessGoose]

They need to trade Jarry…the way the season went, it’s clear the players didn’t have any confidence in him, or Sullivan…got to get him out of here even if that means getting nothing much back in return and start again with the goaltending…get a couple backups like Ned was and have them battle it out with Blomqvist…maybe Lankinen and Brossoit, probably the best ones..

Yeah the way Sully kept with Ned even when he was starting to cool off on the late season push, SPOKE VOLUMES how out Jarry needs to be

Because, before then, Sully would go to bat for that f***er every chance he had, despite sinking the ship

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Hopefully Jarry doesn't get matched/outplayed again by the journeyman backup like he has been more or less his whole career. Would be nice to squeeze a little value out of that turd of a contract,

Hey man, if you ignore how he performs after January, you'll be happy with that contract.

 

[SEALBound]

They need to trade Jarry…the way the season went, it’s clear the players didn’t have any confidence in him, or Sullivan…got to get him out of here even if that means getting nothing much back in return and start again with the goaltending…get a couple backups like Ned was and have them battle it out with Blomqvist…maybe Lankinen and Brossoit, probably the best ones..

I think Ullmark to NJ is inevitable. LA needs someone...that seems like the most logical destination. Toronto could use an upgrade and taking Robertson back would make a lot of sense.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Hey man, if you ignore how he performs after January, you'll be happy with that contract.

"He's been to the ASG twice!"

Wow. How incredible. What a feat. THE All Star Game, you say? Just induct him now.

 

[GilbertSeinfeld]

Sullivan vouched for him last off season, which is why he was given that contract.

 

[SomeDude]

Sullivan vouched for him last off season, which is why he was given that contract.

Sullivan would also vouch for Enron. Buy low, baby.

 

[Pancakes]

Carolina not signing Jake seems strange. I wonder if that puts him back into play for us.

Lol if he actually does sign with like the Blackhawks of all teams. I guess Jake already got his cup so what does he care.

 

[BusinessGoose]

Carolina not signing Jake seems strange. I wonder if that puts him back into play for us.

Lol if he actually does sign with like the Blackhawks of all teams. I guess Jake already got his cup so what does he care.

This will be a final career contract. CHI is closer to success than we will be over the next 5+ years.

We cannot and should not spend the money for the amount of years Jake will be getting on this contract.

 

[Gurglesons]

Carolina not signing Jake seems strange. I wonder if that puts him back into play for us.

Lol if he actually does sign with like the Blackhawks of all teams. I guess Jake already got his cup so what does he care.

Why? Jake wants to go to UFA in a season when teams could potentially be throwing bags around.

Carolina is notorious for low balling and it's not like Carolina is some great market.

I always figured he'd be going to somewhere closer to Minnesota.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

We already have missed the playoffs for 2 seasons. I just don't think Dubas is going to decide anything until either Sullivan leaves or Sid does and there's no longer the excuse of his legacy to hide behind.

It just depends on if FSG are willing to rebuild properly, really.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

I’ve been wrong many times. I’ll admit it!



I feel like FSG will hold Dubas accountable if we miss the playoffs for 5 years.

I don't think they are in the business of sitting on their thumbs and losing playoff revenue after spending a billion.

The idea behind signing Dubas was to get a GM that was smart enough to bridge the eras while still making money.

At this point Hextall did a better job at that.

Well firing him right before the proper rebuild years could be a big mistake from FSG. We're unlikely to find another GM who will execute that better. He understands drafting and development well. And he cares a lot about the farm system. The guy was a scout and AHL GM for years.

 

[Turin]

The discourse on Dubas besides "wait and see" is all annoying. Karlsson great. Graves bad. Eller and Ned good. Jarry bad. Acciari meh. Waiting so long to fire a coach bad. We'll see what happens. I thought JR sucked in 2015 and I thought Hextall was doing alright in 2022.

 

[66-30-33]

wonder if Canucks sign Jake?

 

[AuroraBorealis]

The discourse on Dubas besides "wait and see" is all annoying. Karlsson great. Graves bad. Eller and Ned good. Jarry bad. Acciari meh. Waiting so long to fire a coach bad. We'll see what happens. I thought JR sucked in 2015 and I thought Hextall was doing alright in 2022.

It's not wrong though. 1st round exit or playoff miss woulda happened no matter what he did, starting in summer 2023.
So we gotta look at what the net gains and losses were for the year, in terms of how it affects the future, when it actually does matter.

All the Karlsson trade achieved is adding 10M x 4 to the books. It changed nothing about the end season result.
We would have been better off not doing the trade at all, because Granlund and Petry were short term commitments, and we would have been free after 2 years. Not to mention saving that 1st round pick.
Then after that we coulda used that free 10+ mil in years 3 and 4 to take on bad contract(s) in exchange for futures, which we actually do need. The cap would have been funnelled to the right place.

The Guentzel trade was a clear net positive. We have no use for him here anymore, and we got a pick, prospects and Bunting out of it. We avoided taking on yet another long term commitment at big dollars. That was Dubas' best work.

Graves was kind of a dice roll and still is. He might be better in year 2. Bad start, but it's too early to judge what we'll get out of this. If he improves he could still be traded later on.

Jarry was above average last year. Bad ending, but overall totally fine. He's tradeable too, because teams are desperate for starters. We'll see if we can still get a return on that.

 

[HandshakeLine]

It just depends on if FSG are willing to rebuild properly, really.

FSG doesn't even believe we need to rebuild by all accounts. So I'm not willing to bet they'll do it properly.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

Carolina not signing Jake seems strange. I wonder if that puts him back into play for us.

Lol if he actually does sign with like the Blackhawks of all teams. I guess Jake already got his cup so what does he care.

We heard for a calendar year that Jake's camp was pretty much steadfast in refusing to negotiate a new deal. I think he was always set to test FA, whether he stuck around or got traded. I imagine the Canes have tried, but with his final shot at a huge contract, he' was almost certainly always gonna go to FA. I don't blame him tbh.

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

If Dubas is super active this summer I’ll be happy. And I say that thinking that more velocity of activity in FA/trades = more likelihood of a few bad moves.

If he makes a ton of changes including a complete overhaul of the goalie room, and getting rid of one or more of the middle six vanilla we’ve accumulated, I won’t really hold it against him when some of the moves inevitably go poorly.

I just don’t wanna see this team run it back.

 

[chethejet]

Jarry has the talent here. His contract is not a killer with 4 years left. Dubas bet on him being that guy and I think he still can be. What I want from Dubas and staff is this is a roster than can compete physically. Add Stephenson, and strong 4th line winger who can bring some bang. Rakell hopefully healthy and Letang can stay healthy. Graves if used as more stay at home guy with Letang can work. But he has to play with more intensity and use his size more. I think adding a physical LW like Stephenson, with DOC and Bunting that is a very good 3 line LW group. Rust, Rakell and the one of Puustinen, Jesse P at RW third line are options. In short, Pens are capable here if a couple things go their way.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

Dubas' stated goal is to try to compete during Sid's final years without further hemorrhaging assets/picks which will make the post-Sid years even harder to deal with. He inherited a team that had missed the playoffs. EK fell into his lap for basically what JR payed for a 3rd liner in Kapanen. Dubas f***ed up with the Jarry and Graves deals, imo. Refuses to accept that Sullivan may be any sort of issue and continually dives on grenades for the guy. I think his tenure's been relatively bad through a calendar year. Not much different than Hextall's work, which was dogshit. Bottom-6 still sucks. Top-6 still missing a scoring punch to help Sid/Geno who are nearing 40. Goalie situation's still a mess.

Hextall inherited a playoff team and once his mark was on the organization, they were floundering and clawing to even stay in the WC race. /shrug I know pixies constantly does his feigning idiocy re: Hextall/Dubas but one inherited a semi-functional team and cratered them, the other inherited an already cratered team and just kept on with the same sort of lame moves. This is not a defense of Dubas.

All that said, I think given his insistence on not mortgaging the future and his contract term, this holdover period was always just gonna be lame and shitty. The team's just petrified into inaction because they're scared to piss Sid off, so instead of trying to salvage things *or* blow it up, they just stand in the middle of the road waiting to get hit by the bus. I guess with Dubas, I'll judge him on how he sets up the years post Sid/Geno era, though we probably won't see how that works out for like five years, and I'm not sure he'll still be here. But Sullivan might, which sucks. As of his work so far, not impressed with Dubas whatsoever. But maybe nobody was gonna salvage the remaining years of Sid/Geno. I stopped caring about the here and now when the team made it clear they didn't genuinely care to try anymore following the Habs play-in. Just been (im)patiently waiting for the next chapter since.

 

[BusinessGoose]

Jarry has the talent here. His contract is not a killer with 4 years left. Dubas bet on him being that guy and I think he still can be.

Okay.... Can you actually justify any of this? He's never been the guy at any level. He's constantly hurt. Sure, his save percentage was better than Ned, 903 v 899. And his saves above average were better at -0.67 v -1.57.

But he's 28. And those numbers aren't good. And he costs nearly $5.5mil.

You can get the same middling performance from the Neds of the league for $1.5mil.

....jarry is not worth 3x the cost.

Jarry was able to grab a lot more shutouts. Cool. He's a hackfraud.