Revisiting the Disastrous Kotkaniemi Offer Sheet By Carolina

[M88K]

Kotakniemi's playoff stats: 10 GP 0 G 1 A and had 27 points in the regular season this year all for $4,8M cap hit. Provided basically 0 offense in the playoffs.

Carolina let Vincent Trocheck go and rolled with KK. Trocheck now has 14 points, with 8 against his former team and a few huge points in the clincher.

The move to offer sheet KK started a chain of events that might have closed the Canes' contention window shut, and it all started as a petty PR troll job. This may be one of the most franchise damaging offer sheets we have seen.

Discuss.

The offer sheet wasn't the current contact. Them trying to get a good deal on the extension is what f***ed them. Should have paid him what he was actually worth

 

[Absolut]

Maybe he'll have a trajectory similar to Pavel Zacha's - that's the best case scenario at this point.

 

[Garbageyuk]

Maybe he'll have a trajectory similar to Pavel Zacha's - that's the best case scenario at this point.

Zacha has steadily (but slowly) improved throughout his career. KK has done the opposite.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

It was pretty clear that Canes had not scouted KK properly when that OS was made. Waddel came out and said he thought KK would be a good fit in the top 6. I remember at the time thinking....do they not know that he can't skate?

I think they thought MB would match the OS, that they could stick him with a bad deal.

And here we are, they could have had Tro AND a 1st and 3rd to add more talent.

Team is never going to win anything meaningful until they solve their issues at C. It was ridiculous thee answer to Aho and Staal as 1/2 was adding KK and Kuz. Canes MGMT thinks they are smarter then they are, that replacement players will always be easy to find. Wrong, they have had incredible drafts and deserve credit for that but lost the plot. Hamilton and Trochek vs. KK, Kuz and Orlov. I wouldn't say their window is closed, but they really blew it putting together the final pieces on a very good core with the best coach in the league.


Drafting KK in the first place is the ground zero error. At least with Dvo he's been a contributing player, and will still have value at the deadline. So 4 years of him, and a second in return, isn't THAT bad and didn't change the trajectory of the team at all.

Most of this isn’t true. But other team fans have pretended to know this situation. They heavily scouted him going into the draft.

Trocheck wasn’t re-signing, kk didn’t prevent this. Tro said no.

The canes were 6 weeks into the offseason. They needed a top 6 player still and basically left with him as the option at option 10. Maybe they shouldn’t have settled but if they truly believed in his potential. Canes manage the cap well that his cap hit wasn’t ever going to prevent anything.
the 1st and 3rd had a low chance of playing 100 games with us, kk has played three seasons.

 

[STL fan in MN]

The offer sheet was bad but it was for only 1 year. Nobody forced them to then sign him to an additional 8-year contract. That was just throwing good money after bad.

 

[Negan4Coach]

Does anyone realize there is a ton of daylight between "The offer sheet was fine- shrewd even" and "Signing him to an incredibly lengthy contract the year after that was f***ing dumb"?

 

[Hoochi Papa]

Great post.

KK's current contract has the buyout being very low as well, and Couturier took 6 years and 1st line minutes with being leaned on heavily to finally produce. KK isn't on his level yet (if at all) even before that, He's had decent goal scoring totals the entire time, is only 23, and is fine defensively. Couturier also hasn't been a 1st line center in like 4 years and that's because he isn't being given the same opportunities he was. If KK receives 1st line minutes and PP time, I could definitely see him blowing up. Even without that, he probably at minimum develops into a good shutdown center and hopefully starts showing up in the playoffs more.

Welcome to the Seeing Things That Are Not There Club. It was started by Montréal Canadiens fans during the notorious Marc Bergevin era and I am delighted to see other fan bases share our preoccupation to find hints of glorious future in Kotkaniemi's brand of hockey. Did you know that early in his career he was compared to players like Wayne Gretzky or Jaromir Jagr as a goal scoring playoff prodigy?

 

[Dead Coyote]

Welcome to the Seeing Things That Are Not There Club. It was started by Montréal Canadiens fans during the notorious Marc Bergevin era and I am delighted to see other fan bases share our preoccupation to find hints of glorious future in Kotkaniemi's brand of hockey. Did you know that early in his career he was compared to players like Wayne Gretzky or Jaromir Jagr as a goal scoring playoff prodigy?

I honestly don't know what you're on about. I'm not a habs or a canes fan?

I'd be interested in seeing someone actually compare him to Jagr or Gretzky, that would make me laugh.

Did you know that Couturier had a high of 39 points before breaking out? Kotkaniemi had a high of 43.

Now no one is suggesting he is going to turn into that kind of player, but it's true that Couturier had a similar statline and was better defensively before he was given the opportunity and capitalized on it.

 

[Hoochi Papa]

I honestly don't know what you're on about. I'm not a habs or a canes fan?

I'd be interested in seeing someone actually compare him to Jagr or Gretzky, that would make me laugh.

Did you know that Couturier had a high of 39 points before breaking out? Kotkaniemi had a high of 43.

Now no one is suggesting he is going to turn into that kind of player, but it's true that Couturier had a similar statline and was better defensively before he was given the opportunity and capitalized on it.

A little jest, m'lady. An innocuous and foolish wordplay.

Our boy Jessie KK was compared to Grezzy and Jagrbomb by stats weirdos, cuz 'e 'ad like nine ole net bangers in playoffs while being a kid. Oh well, back to reality

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ty. Anyway, Kotkaniemi has had couple of decent seasons but he has never really improved as a player. And although he is relatively young, I am not sure his most glaring defiencies can be fixed. Force-feeding first line minutes can spark players out of funk but I don't believe it can overcome KK's lack of progression. He's still very streaky player who has good stretches every now and then and longer stretches where's he's lost. And he's still relatively bad skater compared to his peers.

 

[Dead Coyote]

Anyway, Kotkaniemi has had couple of decent seasons but he has never really improved as a player. And although he is relatively young, I am not sure his most glaring defiencies can be fixed. Force-feeding first line minutes can spark players out of funk but I don't believe it can overcome KK's lack of progression. He's still very streaky player who has good stretches every now and then and longer stretches where's he's lost. And he's still relatively bad skater compared to his peers.

That's definitely possible. He does need to get a lot more consistent but when he is on he will produce very well and he's still decent defensively. His skating is definitely his biggest problem (along with IQ maybe) but a lot of them I do think can be covered up relatively easily by just putting him with guys who can do all the cycling and get him the puck and putting him on the point or halfboards on the PP.

 

[Kimota]

KK was a kid with good potential and he had character but his projection was around a second line center. Why would you offer sheet that kind of player?

 

[Blueline Bomber]

KK was a kid with good potential and he had character but his projection was around a second line center. Why would you offer sheet that kind of player?

Why would the Canes, who needed a 2nd line center at the time, offer sheet the 20-year-old, former 3rd overall pick who, by your own words, was "a kid with good potential and character"?

 

[Hoochi Papa]

That's definitely possible. He does need to get a lot more consistent but when he is on he will produce very well and he's still decent defensively. His skating is definitely his biggest problem (along with IQ maybe) but a lot of them I do think can be covered up relatively easily by just putting him with guys who can do all the cycling and get him the puck and putting him on the point or halfboards on the PP.

He's very rarely on. First 12 matches of this season and then season worth of nothing, if you include the playoffs. Another player, Joel Armia, used to play like prime Mario Lemieux with multiple Selke trophies every 10th game of a season but in the next few matches he couldn't get it together. Turning great stretches into consistency is harder than one might expect, especially when you're a player who has progressed very little while playing six years in the NHL. Kotkaniemi is relatively young but I believe it's far too late to turn him into a good skater. It's a major deficiency that will affect his upside. I don't know about Kotkaniemi's training but he has had different coaches and even best of them, Brind'Amour couldn't solve the puzzle.

You can turn absolute plugs into decent scorers with force-fed 1st line minutes with two best wingers. It happened with David Desharnais but I don't think it's worth it. With lots of power play and 1st line minutes Kotkaniemi's point totals would improve but is it really worth sink that much talent and effort that could really bloom with a better center, to salvage flawed player like Kotkaniemi?

Damn, we really used to wish someone would unleash him, that there'd be a coach who wouldn't be so stubborn with lower lines earn it attitude. But it happens with everyone who has ever coached him. They just can't get him going. And after all these years it's not a mystery, he wasn't and didn't become good enough to earn the spot.

 

[DitchMarner]

So many threads on this guy - when is the last time there was so much commotion over a sub 30 point scorer?

 

[Kimota]

Why would the Canes, who needed a 2nd line center at the time, offer sheet the 20-year-old, former 3rd overall pick who, by your own words, was "a kid with good potential and character"?

They were pretty stacked at center to me, they didn't need anybody.

 

[bleedgreen]

They were pretty stacked at center to me, they didn't need anybody.

They were a year away from losing Trocheck. They were being proactive.

 

[Artorius Horus T]

Another Kotkaniemi thread?.... these should be deleted right away, too many of them, nothing but trolling at this point.

 

[jackjohnson]

They were so caught up in getting revenge for the Montreal offer sheet to Aho, it's almost as if they completely ignored the player himself. What his strengths and weaknesses were.

They were just being jerks

 

[Clark Kellogg]

Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Don Waddell just wanted to punish Montreal.
Should have waited for the right opportunity, not the first one that was presented to him.

 

[bleedgreen]

The offer sheet was bad but it was for only 1 year. Nobody forced them to then sign him to an additional 8-year contract. That was just throwing good money after bad.

Why? They didn’t have a ton of room for him that first year and it was obvious going into his second year he was going to be given a much bigger chance. I didn’t love the contract but there was nothing in that first year that was really on him. He was being brought on to take Trocheck’s spot, but had to wait a year to get it.

 

[Bruce Granville]

Why? They didn’t have a ton of room for him that first year and it was obvious going into his second year he was going to be given a much bigger chance. I didn’t love the contract but there was nothing in that first year that was really on him. He was being brought on to take Trocheck’s spot, but had to wait a year to get it.

And they wanted to trade for him but got denied.
Hence the offer sheet.

You can only blame their scouting and development staff. The offer and deal were okay, even fine because they got him cheaper than in a trade and they still can buy him out if they need the cap space.

 

[Casper The Soy Ghost]

One thing is for certain.

There are no winners in this story.

I dunno man...

In reality when the check arrives to Kotkaniemi, I'd say he feels like a lottery winner.

 

[HolyGhost]

Kotakniemi's playoff stats: 10 GP 0 G 1 A and had 27 points in the regular season this year all for $4,8M cap hit. Provided basically 0 offense in the playoffs.

Carolina let Vincent Trocheck go and rolled with KK. Trocheck now has 14 points, with 8 against his former team and a few huge points in the clincher.

The move to offer sheet KK started a chain of events that might have closed the Canes' contention window shut, and it all started as a petty PR troll job. This may be one of the most franchise damaging offer sheets we have seen.

Discuss.

I think in the first 5 pages we have 3 or 4 discussions on it

 

[Dr Salt]

That Kotkaniemi money sure would have bought a good solid goalie for the playoffs...Enjoy paying him for the next 5 years. It was a childish revenge move against a GM who is now basking in the L.A sun. I sometimes wonder how these GMs get their job and then keep it with moves that a teenage hockey fan would make.

They are paying their goalie room a lot of money to begin with, stubbornness is a bigger issue than money in that regard.

 

[My3Sons]

The book isn’t closed on Kotkaniemi. He’s young enough he can still figure it out.