Roster Building XXVI: Picking Our Teeth Off the Ice

Personally, I'm in favor of focusing more on getting better top 6 forward talent, and rolling with Morrow and Nikishin in our top 4 defensemen next season. Sign either Marner or Ehlers in the summer, and trade for a centerman for our 2C
… and then sign McDavid next summer
 
We really only have 1, maybe two, more years to play our games with having a ruthlessly efficient cap structure. More likely, we really only have this summer to really lay some groundwork and make some moves because change is a coming with the massive jump in the salary cap in the next 3 years and beyond…

The salary cap is going up so much that there is no way quite a few teams will be spending to the cap.. a lot of teams are going to willingly take on contract dumps just to make the cap floor. Big spending revenue teams are going to be able to get out of jail free on bad contracts even easier. They might even have teams pay them to take the bad deals if they have high cap hit and low actual cash left to pay…

The cap isn't always going to go up like crazy for eternity, especially with expansion on the near-horizon. There can always be another unforeseen event like COVID or a major recession that warps the marketplace again. Also, with Dundon at the helm and as long as our team is one of the best, they will spend to the cap. The teams that may not spend to the cap anymore are the teams who are on the bubble.

Also, when the cap is particularly high, the cap floor will become almost as important to league parity as the ceiling. It may end up being the case that a new inefficiency shows up when it comes to lower end teams needing to reach the cap floor while keeping the rosters bad enough to lose for draft picks.
 
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If the canes resign Hall that gives them 9 1 way forwards signed for next year. Blake and Stank are locks for roster spots. That brings them to 11 forwards. Nadeau will push for a roster spot, that is 12.

Assuming they add in the offseason which I think is a safe assumption who is out the door?
 
If the canes resign Hall that gives them 9 1 way forwards signed for next year. Blake and Stank are locks for roster spots. That brings them to 11 forwards. Nadeau will push for a roster spot, that is 12.

Assuming they add in the offseason which I think is a safe assumption who is out the door?
That's part of why this offseason is so intriguing.

A) We're a contending team already. If you transform Dundon into Peter Karmanos and the team loses Hall, Andersen, Roslovic, Robinson, Jost, Orlov, and Burns, we probably still are a contending team.

B) Our top 5 on D is completely set with Nikishin, and we may have our #6D in Morrow.

C) We have 10 forwards on lock for next year: Aho, Svech, Jarvis, Staal, Martinook, Carrier, Blake, Stankoven, Jankowski, Kotkaniemi. That leaves 2 open spots at F.

D) In goal, we need a #1A or #1B with Kochetkov.

E) We have $36 million dollars to spend on two forwards, a goalie, and depth.

Not only do we have the most capspace of any good team, we also have the fewest open roster spots. It's hard to fathom how we will spend $36M at this point. I'm hoping the Borg explores taking on other teams' mistakes for draft picks.
 
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If the canes resign Hall that gives them 9 1 way forwards signed for next year. Blake and Stank are locks for roster spots. That brings them to 11 forwards. Nadeau will push for a roster spot, that is 12.

Assuming they add in the offseason which I think is a safe assumption who is out the door?
I don’t expect all of Blake, Stankoven and Nadeau to ever be on the same roster. At least one of them I think are traded this summer for upgrades.
 
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I don’t expect all of Blake, Stankoven and Nadeau to ever be on the same roster. At least one of them I think are traded this summer for upgrades.
Nadeau shouldn't be considered for a move...he's the exact same kind of elusive, seam-finding, high-volume goal-scorer Guentzel is and we need to keep him long enough to see if he has the same kind of success here.
 
Nadeau shouldn't be considered for a move...he's the exact same kind of elusive, seam-finding, high-volume goal-scorer Guentzel is and we need to keep him long enough to see if he has the same kind of success here.

Okay, but he hasn't shown that in the NHL. And of those three, he's clearly the odd man out if we were going to trade any of them.
 
Okay, but he hasn't shown that in the NHL. And of those three, he's clearly the odd man out if we were going to trade any of them.
Right, if he’s the piece that moves the needle for a bonafide top 6C with term improves the team, you move him.

Same with Blake or Stankoven. Too many right handed smurfs either currently on roster or in the pipeline as is.
 

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