Speculation: Roster Building Thread LIII: Free Agent Frenzy

[Miamipuck]

It takes an entire village to pretend to run an NHL team.

Armchair GMs
Armchair scouts
Armchair PR and marketing departments
Armchair legal experts
Armchair accountants and book keepers
Armchair PBP and color commentators
Armchair schedulers
Armchair psychiatrists
Armchair life coaches
Armchair agents
Armchair players

Together, we can faux-run this organization through hypothetical challenges and lead it to theoretical glory!

What if we slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night?

 

[Stasis]

Has that Czech twitter account been posted? Allegedly, Rangers and Panarin are closing on a deal. Guy has broken things before and has been accurate.

No idea what you're talking about but interested in seeing?

There's always a bunch of these each year, guys who have supposedly broken news before and either haven't, or it was very minor, who use this to get hits.

No idea how a random Czech account would begin to know this without many others before them.


edit: found it. So he called Talbot to Philly well in advance, and the Duchene and Hagelin trades. Which implies he does have contacts. But calling that Fletcher wants Talbot a month before it happens just means there was interest. He knew that. He knows there is mutual interest between us and Panarin. No idea how he'd know it's close to a deal and nothing says he isn't close to deals with the other teams in the mix, either. If he's right on this, coupled with the others, he'll be a pretty popular source soon.

 

[HFsNumber1Heel]

Getting Panarin for $12 million is going to lead to a lot of problems. Still have to find a dance partner for Kreider/Vesey/Namestnikov and have enough money to resign Trouba, new contracts for Buch/TDA/Lemiuex, and leave bonus incnentives for Kakko, Fox, Kravstov.

Too many parts.

 

[BB88]

This. Granlund is a very good player and his contract is fine.

He's a 27y 60-70 point 2way winger, he sure isn't a negative

Getting Panarin for $12 million is going to lead to a lot of problems. Still have to find a dance partner for Kreider/Vesey/Namestnikov and have enough money to resign Trouba, new contracts for Buch/TDA/Lemiuex, and leave bonus incnentives for Kakko, Fox, Kravstov.

Too many parts.

Bonuses are a real threat for the next 3 years.

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

Not sure I get what you're saying here--you can't trade cap space in and of itself. You can trade for players but you have to trade players, prospects or draft picks back. If we're picking up more expensive higher end players we're going to be accomplishing that with either higher end players of our own or with young players, prospects and draft picks. So if in the future we trade for a 29 year old Rantanen (just to use him as an example) we'll most likely be sending draft picks, prospects and younger players back to get him--either that or some stud of our own. But there's no money for player deals anymore--the NHL made them illegal.

You could include a conditional 7th that is never triggered

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

Vinny Viola (sidenote: an alumnus of my law school who grew up a huge Rangers fan) has a lot of money to burn. They are gonna break the bank for these two guys.

They don’t have the cap space for both

 

[RangerBoy]

I can understand Zuccarello signing with a better team than the Stars offering five years. However, Columbus isn't a better team than Dallas. If the Avalanche were offering Zuccarello a 5 year contract, he should go. Zuccarello says he wants to win. It appears Sakic doesn't want to give term to older free agents. Zuccarello has better opportunity to win in Dallas than Columbus. I read Buffalo likes Zuccarello too. Buffalo. All of the Stanley Cup contenders are after Zuccarello. Columbus. Buffalo.

Dallas is where Zuccarello can win and get his money. Four year contract.

 

[Ola]

No idea what you're talking about but interested in seeing?

There's always a bunch of these each year, guys who have supposedly broken news before and either haven't, or it was very minor, who use this to get hits.

No idea how a random Czech account would begin to know this without many others before them.


edit: found it. So he called Talbot to Philly well in advance, and the Duchene and Hagelin trades. Which implies he does have contacts. But calling that Fletcher wants Talbot a month before it happens just means there was interest. He knew that. He knows there is mutual interest between us and Panarin. No idea how he'd know it's close to a deal and nothing says he isn't close to deals with the other teams in the mix, either. If he's right on this, coupled with the others, he'll be a pretty popular source soon.

So what is the lowest common denominator between Talbot, Hags, Duchene and Panarin?

 

[dapowl]

Listen I was just thinking out loud and not sure how realistic that is as far as the Leafs would be concerned but if you don't think that Mitch Marner--arguably a top 10-15 forward in the league and in his very early 20's wouldn't be worth Chytil (who may one day be a 1st liner or not), Andersson (who will probably become a 2nd/3rd liner) and Hajek (whose upside is a top 4 D) I don't know what to say to you. They should all be good to very good players but Marner is a legit star and the Rangers would still be loaded with prospects.

But yeah I'd rather sign Panarin and still have them all without giving up anything. Just spitballing with the Marner idea is all.

Ah sorry got the wrong impression.. also I think it would start with those 3 and multiple picks and so on. So no in my opinion

 

[Ola]

A thing we all need to remember about Panarin is that the money might not be the be all end all for him. Apparently CBJ offered him over 11 per for 8 years. He would’ve gotten the most money from them than any team because of that 8th year. His reason for going to UFA all along was he wanted to pick where’s he’s going to live. If FLA offers 12x7 and the Rangers are at 11x7, if he really wants to live in NYC then I don’t think he’s going to sign with FLA because of that salary difference. He’s going to be the highest pair winger in the league. I think ultimately it comes down to where he wants to play as his priority number 1.

Yeah, but I also wonder how much that was about Tortorella.

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

So what is the lowest common denominator between Talbot, Hags, Duchene and Panarin?

The agencies of these players. Their agents have ties to the Czech Republic

 

[Ola]

I wonder if Nashville needs/has to move Granlund and he might be part of a Rangers fallback plan? If no Panarin, I’d consider taking his contract with a sweetener.

Yeah I was thinking about that too the other day. He checks some boxes. 1 year remaining on his contract. Very good playmaking ability. And so forth.

Mikael Granlund is a real wiz with the puck, that never taken that final step in NA. I think he is very generously listed at 5’11, and he isn’t the best skater. But very talented.

 

[dapowl]

Has anyone ever mathed out the perfect salary distribution plan taking into full account if contract lengths, contract growth/raises timed with ELCs, RFA no-arb, RFA w/arb, to UFA? I feel like if you have an ideal budgeting projection, you can easily avoid situations where you sign bad contracts or essentially under-budget your cap (i.e. overpay on some players) and then you will have wiggle room to make adjustments or update the budgeting model based on the cap increase projections. I feel like science could definitively calculate if $12M AAV is untenable or if $11M AAV in untenable or if even $10M AAV is just bad cap management.

Would be a great exercise and i guess the front offices do exactly that. With simple sheet i came up with one problematic season, 2022-2023 where Kakko and VK need contracts. Do we have to pay them 9-10 MM $ ? Who knows. Maybe someone is traded for picks or prospects beforehand so that we can insert ELC in that time span. Also its exactly the year Mikas contract is up, so we can use this cash elsewhere.
In my plan i also gave almost all youngsters a long term contract in there RFA years.
The Last two contract years of a 12 MM $ Panarin could be tricky but maybe we have a cup until then so we don't have to worry about that

 

[eco's bones]

You could include a conditional 7th that is never triggered

And the NHL could kill the deal for trying to subvert the CBA which I'm pretty sure it would--at least on anything obvious.

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

And the NHL could kill the deal for trying to subvert the CBA which I'm pretty sure it would.

It didn't stop the Marleau trade

 

[RGY]

The agencies of these players. Their agents have ties to the Czech Republic

Is this the case for Panarin?

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

Is this the case for Panarin?

Yes.

 

[pld459666]

Well, not paying NY taxes for a signing bonus because you signed your deal elsewhere and/or live elsewhere is just factually inaccurate.

It’s not that complicated. If you are employed in NY you pay NY taxes. If you reside elsewhere you pay that state’s taxes as well. If the state where you reside doesn’t have state income taxes, then hooray! You don’t have to pay taxes in 2 states. But the NY tax remains unavoidable.

Not one tax code in the United States differentiates income between that of salary, signing bonus, annual bonus, performance bonus, Christmas bonus, third Tuesday of the month bonus, or any other bonus. It is income.

I work in NY, live in CT and I most certainly do not pay both taxes.

I pay NY tax and file to get back a portion of the difference between the NY and CT tax rates.

 

[pld459666]

If I am a GM, I am closely watching the Rangers and how it shakes out with Panarin. Should the Rangers sign Panarin, I'd immediately offer sheet Buchnevich.

Butch would have to be willing to sign it.

What is this hypothetical number you are thinking of annually that would get him to bypass being part of what is shaping up to be something very special??

 

[pld459666]

That's the tricky part. If I had to guess, 6 years x 4.5 million per year. I don't know that the Rangers want to commit to him that long, you give up a 1st round pick if the Rangers don't match and based on what Miller just went for, that isn't a bad deal. If he continues to progress you could have a steal of a cap hit in a year or two.

Butch is NOT signing an Offersheet for JUST. 4.5 per

 

[pld459666]

Sorry, but that is absurd. You want to commit 6 years to him? Seriously?

Look, Im all for locking up the young talent when its become/is becoming clear that they'll be a sure thing in the NHL. Buchnevich is anything but.

Butch is not a sure thing in the NHL.??

Hes been posting 2nd line numbers for 2 years.

How much more of a sure thing are you wanting?

Rangers match 4.5 on this player every day

 

[Mac n Gs]

The agencies of these players. Their agents have ties to the Czech Republic

Do they really? Pat Brisson and JP Barry are obviously two of the mega agents in the NHL, but the other two (George Bazos and Paul Theofanous) have relatively small client lists and none are Czechs. This is only based on what's listed on puckpedia, but it does seem iffy on a surface level. Then again, you did say you were 50/50 on this whole thing.

 

[Mac n Gs]

Butch is NOT signing an Offersheet for JUST. 4.5 per

If he did, I’d thank the opposing team for negotiating his new contract for us and laugh my way to the bank after matching it

 

[pld459666]

Panarin has been available 3 times in the last 4 years, so yeah, there kinda is always a Panarin around

I think with 2nd contracts getting so big, we are going to see even more cap crunches in the future, and more players becoming UFA at ages 26/27 or becoming available in trade.

Not available for free

 

[pld459666]

But we also have kids coming off ELCs then, before then, after then. I don’t want to see Kravstov in a Red Wings jersey because we want to hold on to Kakko and are stuck with Panarin.

Never happen.