Salary Cap: Pens '24-'25 Salary Thread: The Crosbicles Volume XIX

[Zirakzigil]

Two goals in five games is a downright torrid pace for anyone on this hamhanded team much less a like 38 year old blowed out former star with awful knees, no linemates and likely limited to no PP time. You saw him last year, right?

I bet I'm wrong but not that far off. Love the guy but the very start of the year and the very end aside he looked cooked last season and this team seems determined to not do him much in the way of favors to help him out with his production/comfort level. But what can ya do... time, lots of injuries and a hefty side of mismanagement made a nice ending kinda impossible.

Malkin literally scored four goals in the first five games last year.

He had 27 goals, the same number he had the year before, despite an inept power play.

He finished strong, with 8 goals in his last 11 games.

There is no reason to expect him to suddenly be an anchor. Is he declining? Sure. But I think 20-25 goals and 40-45 assists is perfectly reasonable to expect.

I was about to make a joke about the linemates he would get but then I remembered that the majority of Sid's rookie year was:

Recchi-Crosby-LeClair

This board seems to think that the formula of "suck, get 1OV, get generational talent" is all but an universal absolute. Happened with Lemieux and then Crosby/Malkin. We didn't have to suffer through a Hall, RNH, Yakupov era.

Way back in my slightly prettier and younger days when Twitter was just getting started, I tweeted out to Jessica Alba. Flexed as hard as I could. Got no where.

Meh that was last year. He's a year older, on a worse team, seems to be the subject of whatever small amount of player ridicule DOES come from the coach and GM and will likely be getting less time on the powerplay and probably even at ES, as well. I think a 20+30 year is approaching best-case.

It's good to know you are overly-generous in your estimation of not JUST the head coach, though!

EDIT: It's just the way it goes. Even Lemieux kinda went out with a whisper.

You're sleeping on Bunting. He's the 11th best LW 5v5 producer since he entered the league. Rakell is likely to play better with Bunting here, since he already did that down the stretch. We saw the line work.
His linemate situation has not gotten worse, but better. Smith didn't wanna be here. It wasn't healthy for the line.

Same thing goes for the PP. Karlsson is likely to be better offensively under Quinn. Hard to be worse.
Bunting is gonna be a better net-front than Guentzel. Most importantly, we replaced our dogshit PP coach.

Being 1 year older does not transcend all that imo. He'll get more easy points through the efforts of others. I'll go out on a limb and say his P/PG will be better than last year.
Where I agree with you is that he's unlikely to play all the games again. So if we're talking point regression, that's the source for me.

At first I was like wtf is this bloke on about? Has Sullivan broken all of us? Then you hit us with that last line, lol.


He still posts here.

Yeah, me too.
Im actually mildly curios to see if he can come back to the player he was trending to be 2 seasons ago. That season was pretty good! And if it was injuries that hampered him a bit last season that would explain the step back.

Was checking a while back and I don't remember exactly, but I think he had 10 points in the last 16 or 17 games. So maybe he started to find the groove towards the end of the season.

2022-23 for Glass was pretty comparable to 2023-24 DOC. Good season. Offense pumped up due to heavy usage, but super solid defensively.
Last year he was horrible at both ends.

So it's anyone's guess what we get this year. I expect him to be better though. The attitude's as good as it can be atm.

It should be interesting to see how these guys pan out. My only worry is that he will get overlooked because we have Eller, Acciari, Hayes, and a couple other scrubs.

While I can see the importance of having a strong NHL roster with a deeper prospect pool, I do gush a little bit at the "what-if" when looking at the current group of youngins. Imagine something like:

DOC-Sid-Rust
Bunting-Malkin-Rakell
McGroarty-Ponomarov-Glass
Beauvillier-Broz-Lizotte

Or something like that. Dumping Eller and Acciari should be priorities out the gate for Dubas. Hayes, I'll wait to see how he does but I can't imagine he has much value. Wouldn't hate seeing if Winnipeg wants him back as a depth piece come playoff time though.

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[SEALBound]

Now that I have the privilege of posting first in this thread, I would like to point out that - apparently - we only have ONE season left to add Jagr to the roster in one last comeback attempt. This should be an urgent priority.

 

[Zirakzigil]

Now that I have the privilege of posting first in this thread, I would like to point out that - apparently - we only have ONE season left to add Jagr to the roster in one last comeback attempt. This should be an urgent priority.

 

[Ulf5]

Welp, there's no questions about Malkin.
We all know he did a little more stuffing after this video shoot was over!
AmIdoingitrite?

 

[Pens x]

Maybe Acklin will follow Jagr
awkwardly around Pittsburgh again. Sadly, Jags was the one bright spot from last season.

 

[Randy Butternubs]

Maybe Acklin will follow Jagr
awkwardly around Pittsburgh again. Sadly, Jags was the one bright spot from last season.

Acklin followed him all the way the the Czech Republic too.

PS: Nice to see you again, hope you're doing better.

 

[Malkinstheman]

So the NHL has opened the expansion process up again. Any one else hate the idea of having 34 teams and then likely 36 to balance the conferences? 32 seemed like a nice place to stop imo.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I ALREADY thought 32 is too many.

I said years ago that owners were just getting addicted to that giant expansion fee check and I stick to that. This does not strike me as a sport that can carry getting on to 40 teams.

 

[KrisLetAngry]

I ALREADY thought 32 is too many.

I said years ago that owners were just getting addicted to that giant expansion fee check and I stick to that. This does not strike me as a sport that can carry getting on to 40 teams.

Billion dollar expansion fees that the players union gets 0 dollars of. Must be great.

I am pretty happy at 32. I really hate this but the NHL is like well we got Canada so we can add to more cities.

Expect 36 and 40 is not out of reach.


Must be really nice for star players playing against 2nd pairing AHL defensemen at times.

 

[Pens x]

Acklin followed him all the way the the Czech Republic too.

PS: Nice to see you again, hope you're doing better.

Thank you. Yes, doing much better. It’s good to be back in Pittsburgh full-time.

 

[Borgir]

The more teams the better, bring it on!

 

[molon labe]

I think 36 is doable.

The biggest issue challenging the league right now is mostly some administrative stuff, some penalty/reffing related items, and an utter lack of quality goaltending. The talent among young forwards has never been higher - it's just that the crop of coaches cemented in this league completely removes their talent from their games before they step into the NHL.

Shore up some of that and 36 will feel really good.

Here are some positives since most of the board usually harps on negative:
- It becomes harder for bad teams to continually draft top 3
- It becomes harder for teams to combat the league with a single game plan
- Harder to make the playoffs meaning regular season become more important

 

[SEALBound]

Welp, there's no questions about Malkin.
We all know he did a little more stuffing after this video shoot was over!
AmIdoingitrite?

Most likely. Fairly obvious I would imagine. Not as obvious as the 2005 interview between some blonde and Ovechkin when she asked the biggest differences between the RSL and NHL and Ovie said "in NHL, after practice, pretty girl asks me to do interview" while giving her the eyes the entire time.

 

[Ryder71]

So the NHL has opened the expansion process up again. Any one else hate the idea of having 34 teams and then likely 36 to balance the conferences? 32 seemed like a nice place to stop imo.

It's already watered down enough, no thanks!

 

[Pens x]

I cant imagine how awful the Pens bottom six would be in a 36 team league.

 

[Ryder71]

I cant imagine how awful the Pens bottom six would be in a 36 team league.

Hard to believe just how bad it is now.

 

[Ulf5]

I cant imagine how awful the Pens bottom six would be in a 36 team league.

Hey, in a 36 team league Jansen Harkins might become a useful....eh, nevermind carry on.

 

[Borgir]

But but but the league is already watered down!

*Watches NHL's greatest plugs highlights pre 1990 edition*

 

[BusinessGoose]

The NHL can't really support that many teams because it's still like the 5th most pulse popular league. MLB, NBA, NFL NCAA-F, NCAA-BB...

They can run more teams, but it's a bold strategy

Where is the money coming from? Just fantasy sport kickbacks? I hardly see NHL merch on people away from a game. At most youre getting 17k in ticket sales.

We need shorter seasons, so adding teams will need a very tweaked schedule when we already need to dump at least 10 games

 

[Ryder71]

The NHL can't really support that many teams because it's still like the 5th most pulse popular league. MLB, NBA, NFL NCAA-F, NCAA-BB...

They can run more teams, but it's a bold strategy

Where is the money coming from? Just fantasy sport kickbacks? I hardly see NHL merch on people away from a game. At most youre getting 17k in ticket sales.

We need shorter seasons, so adding teams will need a very tweaked schedule when we already need to dump at least 10 games

It's a dumb idea, the talent level is already suspect beyond core players. Anyone who would champion that cause probably is a fan of glorified plugs and no talent hacks who every once in a while throw a thunderous check. Likely individuals who have no lives or no discernment for taste.