all right... here's my out to lunch attempt at the completely unrealistic starting lineup for the 24/25 Hurricanes:
dartboard guess of lineup:
How we get there:
- obviously Guentzel takes the 8 years at 8.25 as that makes it basically the equivalent of 7X$9.5M (yes I know its more like 9.4 rounded down but using nice round numbers here!)
- We give Stamkos 4 years @ $6M, going way outside our normal practice and front load the deal with signing bonus as much as possible under CBA so that when he falls off for the last year he already has his money and it wont cost us much on the buyout... there is our righty center good on faceoffs... and another weapon on the power play
- Laine is double retained in a futures deal to get him from Columbus and we offer KK to get the second retain to a team with retain spots and also wanting to add a cost controlled young center. Huge risk that Laine can find his game again here... he is damaged goods and we dont pay as much to Waddell to get CBus to dump him off their books as he wants out.... we are mostly paying KK to the second team to eat the $4.3M, which cost Toronto a first rounder (Jarvis) in a single year.. this is spreading it over a couple years for a rebuilding team near the floor with plenty of cap room to use one of their retain slots... they can then flip him or see if he develops
- basically picking Drury in the supposed competition between KK and Drury in terms of whom is long term 3rd line center... Drury can't seem to score at this level yet and seems snake bitten. I think he is more cost controlled for the next couple seasons on a bridge deal than paying KK more now in the plans that he outperforms the 8 year deal in a few more seasons...Drury doesnt have as much size overall and lacks the physical edge that KK can play with when motivated, like he did in this year's playoffs... but he has shown he can play wing on this team and be a backup faceoff guy on a line with someone like Kuzy for this upcoming season and then we see where things go depending on what happens with Kuzy in a full year after a full offseason to try to get in shape to this team's expectations...
- Kuzy on a line with Drury and Unger Sörum may be an interesting mesh of player types... both of Kuzy's linemates are very smart cerebral players that can be playmakers, and play sound defensively and positionally... they can cover for the Kuzy walk about adventures, as well as be self aware enough to get in position for passes or open shots if Kuzy finds them in prime spots they sneak into....Also, this roster of players have lots of chance to intermix and still have good combos when Rod inevitably swaps stuff around 50 times throughout the year... Aho and Stamkos swapping so Aho is between Laine and Svech...Stammer playing with heads up guys like Guentzel and Jarvis... Having Stammer play on the left wing with Kuzy and swap Drury betwen Laine and Svech... or even playing left wing with Staal line to put some offense on the line that isn't super fast as Stammer slows down.. kind of like how Jarvis helped prop up that Staal line and give chances for offense playing with different lower lines or quality of matchup...
Comtois plays the physical banging forecheck guy on the Staal Fast line... he's not Martinook, but he's a lot less expensive and maybe he has enough skill to pot some dirty stuff in front of the net or otherwise play more of the Nino role of power forward who can bang in some offense to balance that line out...
- Necas is traded for futures / high first round draft pick in this draft / cant miss prospects that may not play for us this season but are very close to ready to hit the ground running the following season... when we have a higher salary cap number to fit them in and also have some roster turnover for our guys to make spots for them... if Kuzy doesnt work and his deal is done, that means Drury slides back to center and now you have a winger spot open for Nadeau/Blake/Necas trade acquired high end prospect/draft pick ready to play full time in NHL.
- the bigger reach of all these crazy items on the above list I think is actually the defense UFA signings... mostly because I'm not sure we can get the level of skilled dmen we want to fill our holes this year without getting stuck with a bad contract of too much term or too much money to keep the term low that makes everything else not work... we can't assume its a 100% certainty that we will have all these prospects playing big minutes for us as soon as Nikishin comes across.... have to have a plan b, d, d, or e if they aren't fully ready on day 1 of their new contracts when they join us... same with Morrow this season... trying to get someone that can play this year and maybe next year if our prospects really aren't ready to immediately take over for expiring deals like Burns/Morrow, or depending on what happens with Orlov expiring and Nikishin joining us... if the return for Necas lands us a can't miss dman prospect then there might be room needed for them as well so it makes it even more important not to lock up all our dmen spot with long term deals... I think Dillon makes a good 3rd pair LD if Skjei isn't comign back on a shorter term deal... even if Nikishin hits and takes #1 or #3 between him and Slavin, I think Dillon is a good choice to play positive minutes on 3LD... so in order to keep the AAV down and not have him be an Orlov like AAV for super short term, I think we have to give him a 4 year deal to maybe hope we can get that AAV I am hoping for on the list above... He would still only be 37 at the end of the 4 years and that hopefully is in line with what we might expect to pay... he is a good physical player.
Doubt Kulikov leaves Florida unless its for more of a raise than I'm showing here with a 2 year deal for 1.5M per... Kulikov can play both sides so the flexibility is nice if Smith in our minor team can't be our 7th dman or fit in our system when he shows up to training camp this year... I really wanted to figure out how to fit Roy on a long term deal as one more UFA signing and make the third pair an inexpensive league min like contract and Chatty as 3RD.... but we dont have the cap room this year to afford what Roy is likely going to get on a long term deal... might get lucky though... and in that situation both Dillon and Kulikov arent here and we still ahve to make other moves to make the Roy AAV work... most of these guys are going to get more money and term than I'm pointing out here... so even with me proposing that Stamkos even makes it to UFA and if he does, that we would be the ones to sign him, the most unrealistic part of my above stuff is likley what we could do with the dmen from UFA...
I think this would be a really interesting roster to put through a season... still likely missing some size and physicality of the players when the playoffs hit.. but an interesting mix of skill and lots of veteran leadership and experience... curious to see what others think the total roster will look like and how you got to that conclusion....
| FORWARDS | 2024-25 |
| Aho, Sebastian | $9,750,000.00 |
| Guentzel, Jake | $8,250,000.00 |
| Jarvis, Seth | $7,775,000.00 |
| Svechnikov, Andrei | $7,750,000.00 |
| Stamkos, Steven | $6,000,000.00 |
| Kuznetsov, Evegeny | $3,900,000.00 |
| Staal, Jordan "C" | $2,900,000.00 |
| Fast, Jesper | $2,400,000.00 |
| Laine, Patrik | $2,175,000.00 |
| Drury, Jack | $1,500,000.00 |
| Unger Sörum, Felix | $831,667.00 |
| Comtois, Maxime | $775,000.00 |
| Lemieux, Brendan | $775,000.00 |
| Total | $54,781,667 |
| DEFENSE | 2024-25 |
| Orlov, Dmitri | $7,750,000 |
| Slavin, Jaccob "A" | $5,300,000 |
| Burns, Brent | $5,280,000 |
| Chatfield, Jalen | $3,000,000 |
| Morrow, Scott | $916,667 |
| Kulikov, Dmitry | $1,500,000 |
| Dillon, Brendan | $3,250,000 |
| Total | $26,996,667 |
| GOALIES | 2024-25 |
| Andersen, Frederik | $3,400,000 |
| Kochetkov, Pyotr ** | $2,000,000 |
| Martin, Spencer | $775,000 |
| Total | $6,175,000 |
| Grand Total Salary Cap for all Players | $87,953,334 |
| Salary Cap for 2023 - 2024 Season | $88,000,000 |
| Current Salary Cap Space | $46,666 |
dartboard guess of lineup:
| Guentzel | Aho | Jarvis |
| Laine | Stamkos | Svech |
| Drury | Kuznetsov | Unger Sörum |
| Comtois | Staal | Fast |
| Lemieux | ||
| Slavin | Burns | |
| Orlov | Chatty | |
| Dillon | Kulikov | |
| Morrow |
How we get there:
- obviously Guentzel takes the 8 years at 8.25 as that makes it basically the equivalent of 7X$9.5M (yes I know its more like 9.4 rounded down but using nice round numbers here!)
- We give Stamkos 4 years @ $6M, going way outside our normal practice and front load the deal with signing bonus as much as possible under CBA so that when he falls off for the last year he already has his money and it wont cost us much on the buyout... there is our righty center good on faceoffs... and another weapon on the power play
- Laine is double retained in a futures deal to get him from Columbus and we offer KK to get the second retain to a team with retain spots and also wanting to add a cost controlled young center. Huge risk that Laine can find his game again here... he is damaged goods and we dont pay as much to Waddell to get CBus to dump him off their books as he wants out.... we are mostly paying KK to the second team to eat the $4.3M, which cost Toronto a first rounder (Jarvis) in a single year.. this is spreading it over a couple years for a rebuilding team near the floor with plenty of cap room to use one of their retain slots... they can then flip him or see if he develops
- basically picking Drury in the supposed competition between KK and Drury in terms of whom is long term 3rd line center... Drury can't seem to score at this level yet and seems snake bitten. I think he is more cost controlled for the next couple seasons on a bridge deal than paying KK more now in the plans that he outperforms the 8 year deal in a few more seasons...Drury doesnt have as much size overall and lacks the physical edge that KK can play with when motivated, like he did in this year's playoffs... but he has shown he can play wing on this team and be a backup faceoff guy on a line with someone like Kuzy for this upcoming season and then we see where things go depending on what happens with Kuzy in a full year after a full offseason to try to get in shape to this team's expectations...
- Kuzy on a line with Drury and Unger Sörum may be an interesting mesh of player types... both of Kuzy's linemates are very smart cerebral players that can be playmakers, and play sound defensively and positionally... they can cover for the Kuzy walk about adventures, as well as be self aware enough to get in position for passes or open shots if Kuzy finds them in prime spots they sneak into....Also, this roster of players have lots of chance to intermix and still have good combos when Rod inevitably swaps stuff around 50 times throughout the year... Aho and Stamkos swapping so Aho is between Laine and Svech...Stammer playing with heads up guys like Guentzel and Jarvis... Having Stammer play on the left wing with Kuzy and swap Drury betwen Laine and Svech... or even playing left wing with Staal line to put some offense on the line that isn't super fast as Stammer slows down.. kind of like how Jarvis helped prop up that Staal line and give chances for offense playing with different lower lines or quality of matchup...
Comtois plays the physical banging forecheck guy on the Staal Fast line... he's not Martinook, but he's a lot less expensive and maybe he has enough skill to pot some dirty stuff in front of the net or otherwise play more of the Nino role of power forward who can bang in some offense to balance that line out...
- Necas is traded for futures / high first round draft pick in this draft / cant miss prospects that may not play for us this season but are very close to ready to hit the ground running the following season... when we have a higher salary cap number to fit them in and also have some roster turnover for our guys to make spots for them... if Kuzy doesnt work and his deal is done, that means Drury slides back to center and now you have a winger spot open for Nadeau/Blake/Necas trade acquired high end prospect/draft pick ready to play full time in NHL.
- the bigger reach of all these crazy items on the above list I think is actually the defense UFA signings... mostly because I'm not sure we can get the level of skilled dmen we want to fill our holes this year without getting stuck with a bad contract of too much term or too much money to keep the term low that makes everything else not work... we can't assume its a 100% certainty that we will have all these prospects playing big minutes for us as soon as Nikishin comes across.... have to have a plan b, d, d, or e if they aren't fully ready on day 1 of their new contracts when they join us... same with Morrow this season... trying to get someone that can play this year and maybe next year if our prospects really aren't ready to immediately take over for expiring deals like Burns/Morrow, or depending on what happens with Orlov expiring and Nikishin joining us... if the return for Necas lands us a can't miss dman prospect then there might be room needed for them as well so it makes it even more important not to lock up all our dmen spot with long term deals... I think Dillon makes a good 3rd pair LD if Skjei isn't comign back on a shorter term deal... even if Nikishin hits and takes #1 or #3 between him and Slavin, I think Dillon is a good choice to play positive minutes on 3LD... so in order to keep the AAV down and not have him be an Orlov like AAV for super short term, I think we have to give him a 4 year deal to maybe hope we can get that AAV I am hoping for on the list above... He would still only be 37 at the end of the 4 years and that hopefully is in line with what we might expect to pay... he is a good physical player.
Doubt Kulikov leaves Florida unless its for more of a raise than I'm showing here with a 2 year deal for 1.5M per... Kulikov can play both sides so the flexibility is nice if Smith in our minor team can't be our 7th dman or fit in our system when he shows up to training camp this year... I really wanted to figure out how to fit Roy on a long term deal as one more UFA signing and make the third pair an inexpensive league min like contract and Chatty as 3RD.... but we dont have the cap room this year to afford what Roy is likely going to get on a long term deal... might get lucky though... and in that situation both Dillon and Kulikov arent here and we still ahve to make other moves to make the Roy AAV work... most of these guys are going to get more money and term than I'm pointing out here... so even with me proposing that Stamkos even makes it to UFA and if he does, that we would be the ones to sign him, the most unrealistic part of my above stuff is likley what we could do with the dmen from UFA...
I think this would be a really interesting roster to put through a season... still likely missing some size and physicality of the players when the playoffs hit.. but an interesting mix of skill and lots of veteran leadership and experience... curious to see what others think the total roster will look like and how you got to that conclusion....
