Speculation: Roster Building Thread: Part XX (WTF are we going to do this Off-Season edition)

[mrmovies779]

How dare these players have interests outside of hockey during the off-season...I'm appalled!!

 

[NickyFotiu]

A few days? You think he just strolled out of bed and tried to qualify for the US Open? He's probably spent months working on his game.

Probably years but not much during the hockey season. May have even started as a kid.

 

[mrmovies779]

What's next...Spending time with their family??When does the madness end??

 

[Machinehead]

He has an excellent shot. You know how I harp on us not having enough puck skills? This is a skill.

 

[haohmaru]

This guy was brought in because of his intense, fiery attitude. He was supposed to change the culture. He had issues with the young guys in Vancouver not training and preparing for the season seriously enough. Spending his offseason playing golf is not a good sign.

You’re reading waaaaay too much into this. He was very well prepared coming into last season - the rift was because other guys weren’t.

Nobody said he’s spending the “offseason playing golf”. Good grief.

 

[haohmaru]

A few days? You think he just strolled out of bed and tried to qualify for the US Open? He's probably spent months working on his game.

He’s probably a naturally gifted athlete living out a dream of trying to qualify for U.S. Open. I doubt he’s dedicated “months” to it and, even so, is all YOU do is your career 24 hours a day? That’s not healthy either. At least he’s not drinking Pina Colodas in Miami Beach.

 

[GoAwayPanarin]

That's a good point and I try not to get into the this player vs that player too much cause no 2 players are alike. But production wise Bennett had a "great" year and is gonna get 7+ while trocheck supposedly had a "bad" year and outscored him at 5v5. Better plus/minus (not a good stat but interesting). Was nearly equal in possession and chances but better in relative advanced stats. And was on a worse team with a lot more baggage flying around.

I'm not sold that Bennett really brings anything we need. We need more at the top. We need probably a bit more foot speed. We do need guys that know how to dump the puck into the right areas and properly forecheck which Bennett does, but we also have a good amount of young players that seem to play that kind of game. Cuylle, Berard, Laf (at times), Trocheck, Miller, even Othmann and maybe Sykora and Roobereck. We need someone like Perreault to really hit with talent and creativity with the puck. To make a play.

But I mean what do I know. Maybe they sign him and they win the cup. Sports are weird.

I think theres an easy comparison point for both of them as they're in similar situations (top 6 C and play with an "elite" winger.) Trocheck has been a demonstrably better point producer given that situation (even in a down year vs a career year for Bennett) and is used in every single game scenario possible. I don't think play style matters nearly as much as output.

I'm on the opposite side of the fence from you in that I do think that the Rangers could use someone with his skill set (and not just being a dirt bag, he does good hockey things too) but he won't be worth the price given his output even taking the other stuff into consideration.

 

[tlk]

That's a good point and I try not to get into the this player vs that player too much cause no 2 players are alike. But production wise Bennett had a "great" year and is gonna get 7+ while trocheck supposedly had a "bad" year and outscored him at 5v5. Better plus/minus (not a good stat but interesting). Was nearly equal in possession and chances but better in relative advanced stats. And was on a worse team with a lot more baggage flying around.

I'm not sold that Bennett really brings anything we need. We need more at the top. We need probably a bit more foot speed. We do need guys that know how to dump the puck into the right areas and properly forecheck which Bennett does, but we also have a good amount of young players that seem to play that kind of game. Cuylle, Berard, Laf (at times), Trocheck, Miller, even Othmann and maybe Sykora and Roobereck. We need someone like Perreault to really hit with talent and creativity with the puck. To make a play.

But I mean what do I know. Maybe they sign him and they win the cup. Sports are weird.

It's just that they fulfill pretty different roles despite both being 2/3C

 

[pld459666]

Sam Bennett is the 2025 Bobby Holik.

Very solid player, will get payed and played like a star and the team doing it will regret it almost immediately.

 

[Machinehead]

How dare these players have interests outside of hockey during the off-season...I'm appalled!!

I don't think the people going after Miller are being entirely serious about it. It's just because Zibanejad gets dragged for pooping in the offseason instead of skating 24/7. So does Lafreniere.

The people who say that don't say the same thing about Miller because he passes their vibe test.

 

[Tawnos]

One thing about the cap going up and up and up. It's at least somewhat dependent on our economy projecting upwards as well. If we go into a recession or even worse the owners are very likely to pull the rug out from under it all just because their main concern is their own end. FWIW the players/teams will all be in the same boat pretty much but even so.......

Well, sort of. The league would actually have to decline in revenue, at least in terms of the next 3 seasons. The 3rd year of their projection isn't very far off from where the cap would be this coming season if they were still following the old calculation formula which put the cap closer to a normal 50/50 split. In other words, the cap increases are still about 2 years behind.

And that doesn't even get into the weeds of things like how the national TV contracts aren't a flat number, but typically rise each year. So there's at least one recession-proof revenue increase baked into the current circumstances.

 

[haohmaru]

I don't think the people going after Miller are being entirely serious about it. It's just because Zibanejad gets dragged for pooping in the offseason instead of skating 24/7. So does Lafreniere.

The people who say that don't say the same thing about Miller because he passes their vibe test.

There's a difference in the benefit of the hand-eye coordination of practicing another major sport than there is in the hand-eye coordination of lifting an adult beverage to your lips in the Spanish Riviera

 

[pld459666]

You’re reading waaaaay too much into this. He was very well prepared coming into last season - the rift was because other guys weren’t.

Nobody said he’s spending the “offseason playing golf”. Good grief.

Not only that, but the season ended 30 days ago?

With what professional athletes put their bodies through day to day, taking May and June off to let their bodies fully heal is the smart play.

I'd go so far as to suggest not even attempting to qualify for the PGA tour, but it's his right

 

[Overcast]

There's a difference in the benefit of the hand-eye coordination of practicing another major sport than there is in the hand-eye coordination of lifting an adult beverage to your lips in the Spanish Riviera

Hey now, both have their place and benefits

 

[bernmeister]

Add me to the list I’d move all 3

Rempe is a circus
Brodz a good soldier but can use the roster spot on a Parsinnen
Soucy will give cap space for another LD

I see I have to remind:
- Rempe was effective bottom line, by measure we won more often w/him in lineup

- Brodz played really well in multiple situations and is great value

Soucy may be another story

 

[RangerBoy]

I am not sure if this has been posted here in the last few days.

Mike Russo was discussing Marco Rossi on his pod a few days ago. Russo is a big Rossi fan. Rossi is a hockey analytics darling. The Wild don't love Rossi which is kind of weird considering Bill Guerin selected Rossi in the first round 4-5 years ago. The Wild offered Rossi $25M over 5 years which he rejected. Mike mentioned the Rangers as one of the teams which could have interest in Rossi. He believes Liam Ohgren will be used a trade chip this summer.



The Rangers send Mika to Minnesota for Rossi and ship Rossi to a 3rd team.

 

[kovazub94]

This guy was brought in because of his intense, fiery attitude. He was supposed to change the culture. He had issues with the young guys in Vancouver not training and preparing for the season seriously enough. Spending his offseason playing golf is not a good sign.

Plus Drury again totally misjudged the character of the guy he brought in. Intense and fiery my ass. To play golf at this level he has to be Phil Jackson level zen... so it is another total front office fail.

 

[bleedblue94]

That is why I initially said FAs and not UFAs. More money, in terms of cap percent, will be going to the overall FA pool this year than it has in the previous years.

To give an example. Let's just say 25% of all salary comes off the book each year.

In 22-23 the cap was 82.5M. Removing 25% would leave ~62M cap used per team. In 23-24 the cap hit was 83.5M. Teams would have had 21.5M available (25.6% of remaining cap)

In 24-25 the cap was 88M. Removing 25% would leave ~66M cap user per team. In 25-26 the cap hit will be 95M. Teams would have 29M available (30.5%)

So a direct cap hit comparison between the years is not applicable.

I don't know that your bolded is going to actually be correct. You're making the assumption that every team is going to use all their cap space and spend to the cap. That's not going to be the case anymore like it has in the past. Your statement COULD come true in theory but it won't in actuality. The number of teams that are spending to the upper limit is going to drop. There's already long-term conversation starting around the league about concerns of certain teams to meet the cap FLOOR in 5 or so years based on internal league projections.

Further, players are always going to compare cap hits and compare real numbers. It won't ever happen but contracts should be signed based on X% of the cap for Y years. It won't happen bc the very nature of contracts in this sport is to pay players their value in prime years and then as the player fades their "cost" relative to other players starts to settle in line as salaries around them go up and their role goes down. COVID threw that all out of whack.

But the thing now is which orgs are smarter to understand the change in strategy that is coming and needed. Which players will cave for family financial certainty on a long term deal that will cost them more money on the term as the cap balloons? This isn't a black and white concept and no one knows how it's going to play out but people would be foolish to not look at the other leagues/pa's that have had continuing financial growth to kind of understand what's coming.

In the short term the big time players are really going to try to cash in to show the growth for the sport and for their profession. It's well reported that the stars in the NHL are essentially embarrassed about what they make annually right now compared to other leagues that's about to change. The middle range players and the lower range players are going to get squeezed again until the CBA changes to protect the little guys better by increasing minimum pay and introducing some mechanisms to spread more money around to the middle tier players (people forget now but prior to covid there were a lot of middle range players that were trying to hold out to get paid what they thought was fair value and teams just moved on from them because they could find players that would take less money and do essentially the same thing, that isn't going to suddenly change right now). That's where the highwire act is going to come from right now, do certain players just want to sign for term and financial certainty on a five 6 or 7-year deal that'll cost them money long-term.

Players in their late 20s or early 30s will probably be doing that, but more and more the younger players are probably going to go to Matthews route of shorter term contracts during their RFA years so that their annual pay can continue to climb and grow while the cap does. We're going to be entering a world here where there's not going to be much risk for younger players with high-level talent. Somebody's always going to pay them even if they have a down year with how big the league is going to be getting soon. It's inevitable they're going to get to 36 teams, that's a lot of teams looking for high-level talent. This is all part of why I think no matter what player people are talking about this summer people are going to complain. People are going to complain about Bennett's contract even though it's not going to really be a big deal wherever he signs, he'll get paid well to be a 2C while he's a 2C and once his game degrades and he becomes a 3C his pay will basically align with the going rate for a 3C at that point as the cap grows/evolves. A player like kam is going to be crazy to sign a long-term contract unless he's getting paid very well for his tools. With his size and skating there's always going to be a team that's going to be willing to throw money at him and he would be foolish to shoot himself in a foot because of the season that he just had. If I were him I wouldn't sign for anything more than 3 or 4 years. Even if he has a couple of rough seasons he's still going to end up with a significant raise by that point just because of how much the cap goes up. With his skill set he will always be a top four d-man in this league as more and more teams are going to be looking for defenseman while the league inevitably balloons to 36 teams.

The past few years teams signed contract with some level of cap hit certainty assigned to the deals bc the teams knew the cap was only moving 1m per year for quite awhile. I don't think anyone is signing contracts based on single summer available cap, that's too short sited and would get agents fired and cost players money. I don't think people really are contextualizing and conceptializing what is going to happen to the NHL with the cap over the next 3, 5, 7, 10 years. Everyone is stoked for the next couple of years of breathing space with the cap finally moving but it's going to balloon. All the manners that the league developed to generate more revenue to combat covid now have the reigns of debt off of them. All these things like jersey ads, helmet ads, digital rink boards, and more are all now hugely added revenue streams compared to pre COVID growth and even before COVID the needle was moving tremendously on the cap.

Some teams are going to get sold off as the cap floor balloons unless there are some different mechanisms created in future cbas (not this one, but the next one) that allow the mega teams to spend more real dollars and take on more of the 50 50 split between the league and the players.

 

[MrAlmost]

I really think there is something around Rossi for Mika and Kreider. They have the cap, a great team and the exact need and fit for both. But why would we send rossi to another team? He is something we could really use. A quick puck mover with creativity, young and a center. It seems like the 2 teams could just solve a lot of each other problems in 1 trade. I really like Minnesotas team. I think they could be really good with Kreider and Z. And I would like to see them win a cup if the Rangers can't next season, especially if they have all 3 of Kreider, Z and Zucc.

Cue that guy telling us they want Boeser. The worst contract waiting to happen in my opinion.

 

[Overcast]

Plus Drury again totally misjudged the character of the guy he brought in. Intense and fiery my ass. To play golf at this level he has to be Phil Jackson level zen... so it is another total front office fail.

This team could have brought in Mario Lemieux and he wouldn't have been able to fix this team in 40 games. No singular player was ever going to fix this mess. They were already well into their masterplan of destroying themselves for 40+ games. But you have to start somewhere if you're trying to change the shit-stained fabric of the current locker room. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but maybe we give it more than half of one of the worst seasons this organization has ever played.

 

[NYR Viper]

I am not sure if this has been posted here in the last few days.

Mike Russo was discussing Marco Rossi on his pod a few days ago. Russo is a big Rossi fan. Rossi is a hockey analytics darling. The Wild don't love Rossi which is kind of weird considering Bill Guerin selected Rossi in the first round 4-5 years ago. The Wild offered Rossi $25M over 5 years which he rejected. Mike mentioned the Rangers as one of the teams which could have interest in Rossi. He believes Liam Ohgren will be used a trade chip this summer.



The Rangers send Mika to Minnesota for Rossi and ship Rossi to a 3rd team.

I like Rossi but why acquire him to ship him off? Wouldn’t the Rangers rather sign him and develop him?

 

[IDvsEGO]

I like Rossi but why acquire him to ship him off? Wouldn’t the Rangers rather sign him and develop him?

Because he’s 5’9

 

[kovazub94]

You’re reading waaaaay too much into this. He was very well prepared coming into last season - the rift was because other guys weren’t.

Nobody said he’s spending the “offseason playing golf”. Good grief.

You know why JTM had his career years in Vancouver? Because unlike NY and especially Tampa he couldn’t play golf there.

 

[haohmaru]

You know why JTM had his career years in Vancouver? Because unlike NY and especially Tampa he couldn’t play golf there.

Vancouver is very temperate and has 70 golf courses within 20 miles of the city. I doubt that lines up with your theory.

 

[IDvsEGO]

Vancouver is very temperate and has 70 golf courses within 20 miles of the city. I doubt that lines up with your theory.

I assumed he was just trolling