Confirmed Signing with Link: [SJS] G Yaroslav Askarov signs extension with San Jose (2 years, $2M AAV)
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You’re looking at everything year by year, trade by trade, signing by signing. You’re just simply unable to, or choose not to look at the big picture. You can nitpick specific things with a subjective perspective all you want but it’s absolutely impossible to deny that the shape of the team’s future now vs when he signed up for the job a little over two years ago is astronomically better. And for that, which is what his job has been the moment he was hired, he’s been as effective as anyone in his position. Now if in 3-4 years you want to revisit this and dissect where the team is in then I’ll be more than happy to. But if you wanna act like you’re the smartest man on the boards by dictating what YOU would have done like you’re playing Be A GM mode in a video game with the settings set to “easy” then you’re gonna get called out for it. You, like the rest of us, have absolutely no idea what the value of any player is. We make our guesses and make comparisons to other trades in other times, but that isn’t how the real hockey world works. You either know that and you’re being ignorant or you don’t and you think the voices at HF carry more weight than anyone else, which, frankly, is quite sad.
So then you're just judging him in a way to be contrarian and nothing that's really merit-based for the purposes of a rebuilding franchise. Creating cap space is still smart for a rebuilding team whether it gets fully used or not. In Burns' case, they wanted the flexibility to bring in some veterans to eat minutes that were going to be difficult because they sucked and give themselves the opportunity to take on a contract if the right deal came along for them. It also allowed them to run the team's offense through Karlsson to make him tradeable...and then they did so and got a future core piece out of it. I'm sorry but that type of trading vets for futures thing hasn't happened before under similar circumstances. Trading Hertl with six more years on his contract for a 1st also isn't something that's been done plenty before and done better under similar circumstances. Hertl's deal specifically was largely done to oblige his desire to compete but also because we already had Will Smith and were well in line to get the #1 pick in Celebrini so they had their centers of their future and then used those assets to get their goalie of the future.
The results to not be argued with has nothing to do with their placement in the league standings and you're insulting other people's intelligence when you try to make that point because that was never what was meant by that and you know that because it was explained multiple times. The results are about the prospects that they have accumulated in Grier's short time here. When Grier started, the only meaningful prospect he had was William Eklund and maybe Thomas Bordeleau since he was getting NHL time here and there.
Now their pool doesn't just have a single winger as basically their whole prospect pool. They have two top centers, two LHD's with real potential, a potential #1 goalie, three wingers with NHL potential, and a center with 3C potential. There's also more to their pool than that but the odds are significantly lower than what those specific prospects look like. Being able to get out of long term commitments and get futures in this day and age is not an easy task but I don't think you quite get that.
BREAKING NEWS: HFBOARDS IS AN ARMCHAIR GM SITE!
If you don't like it, stick to the Sharks board. Oh wait...fans on that board are going to praise and critique Grier's transactions too.
Tim Murray commanded a tank in Buffalo that rivaled the crapfest in San Jose last year. They didn't win the lottery, got Eichel instead of McDavid and two years later he was out of a job. He traded two mediocre players for Ryan O'Reilly, signed Okposo to a great UFA contract, drafted Reinhart and Eichel and didn't make any disastrous trades. He didn't improve the defense or goaltending, though, and the Sabres kept missing the playoffs and he got canned. Before they got 2nd in the lottery, I bet Sabres fans were delighted with his performance too.
You're right, no one knows what the league-wide value of any player is. We all have our own biases and sources of information that shape our opinion. We're all just here to discuss the NHL. That's what I'm doing. If you think Grier has done a great job, cool. But if the Sharks didn't win the draft lottery, would you think differently? If the Sharks are the worst team in the league again, did he still do a great job his first two years in the job?
They wanted the flexibility to bring in some veterans to eat minutes? And they did so by trading a veteran who eats minutes. THEY WERE TANKING! They sucked with Burns but not badly enough. Those veterans ate those minutes right up to the tune of playing one of the worst stretches of hockey in the history of the NHL capped off by losing back to back games by a total of 20-3. Who could argue with the veterans he brought in with those results. Give Grier a raise.
They needed to trade Burns to showcase Karlsson, one of the greatest defensemen to ever play the game? They couldn't do that with Burns there and only Grier could pull of the masterstroke of retaining 33% of Burns salary and trading it for a 3rd round pick? Ok, if you say so. If they didn't get a core piece for trading Karlsson coming off one of the greatest scoring seasons in the history of the league, I would be saying negative things about Grier instead of just saying the jury is still out.
This is next level delusion right here. You can't seriously believe this. In the past 20 years, no team has been in similar circumstances as the Sharks and traded a veteran with term? Come on, man.
Hertl is my favorite player. I'm glad they traded him to a contender. Hated that it was Vegas, but oh well. No team is well in line to get the #1 pick. The Sharks had a 25.5% chance of getting the #1 pick. They had a 74.5% chance of not getting it. They got lucky. I have no problem with trading the Hertl return for Askarov. No way to tell if it was a shrewd move or not at this point.
Well that's fortunate for you that you get to ignore on-ice results and just focus on prospects who we all know will definitely pan out. There are 4-5 teams that do this every single year. Mike Grier did not invent a new approach to rebuilding a franchise no matter how much you insist otherwise.
That's great. Grier has replenished the prospect pool by trading away veterans for futures and by putting an awful team on the ice that will lose games. He has fulfilled expectations. He got lucky and won the draft lottery. When you have players the caliber of Brent Burns and Erik Karlsson, it should be an easy task to trade them for futures. So you're right, I don't get the bouquets being throw at Grier for trading player coming off one of the greatest seasons in NHL history for at the time what was assumed to be a late first and cap filler. And I don't think I ever will.
weastern bias
worst team in the league
Basically nothing you have said in this thread has demonstrated an understanding of the Sharks' actual situation prior to Grier taking over, but this exemplifies your ignorance
In 2023 teams didn't view Erik Karlsson as "one of the greatest defensemen to ever play the game", THIS is what the perception was:
This 32 year old just had a massive outlier year far outpacing any level of production he's ever had before while playing 82 games, surpassing the 70 game mark for the first time in 5 years
Over the previous 4 seasons he played 142 games and scored 211 points which is a pace of 55 points over an 82 game season
In those 4 seasons he missed 148 of his team's 290 possible games due to injury, illness and suspension
All the while he has 4 years remaining as the highest paid defenseman in the league by cap hit with a full no movement clause
He is also born out as the single most destructive defensive liability to his own team in the entire league by advanced metrics which largely negates the value of his offensive production
No, Erik Karlsson was not an attractive asset league wide, he was a highly distressed asset to the point that people looked at his Norris Trophy with a side-eye after being the first Dman to score 100+ points in a season in 30 years, he was seen as a MASSIVE risk to aquire and had a very limited trade market that came down to 2 suitors in the end between Pittsburgh and Carolina
Getting a 1st round pick and short term cap dumps in return with very limited retention ($1.5M per year) in exchange for the most toxic contract in the league was incredible work, you don't understand what you're talking about
This is a pretty good response, except for the most toxic contract in the league part. That's just insane to say and I could give you 10 contracts that are worse. But I would like to add that Karlsson was playing with an awful team around him and that surrounding him with complementary players could reduce his defensive impact. So it's not like GMs just looked at advanced stats and said, we can't bring this guy in because he's too much of a defensive liability. If that was the case a team like the Penguins wouldn't have traded for him
weastern bias
worst team in the league
List 10 contracts that were seen as a more negative asset than Erik Karlsson's was on August 6th, 2023
The 2019 San Jose Sharks were a very, very good team that made the conference finals, in that year a 28 year old Karlsson played 53 out of 82 games and scored 45 points, a 69 point pace, while being a defensive liability, his struggles did not begin by playing on bad teams, in fact his 100 point season occurred playing on the worst team he ever played for in his entire career
Yes because they had a want to add vets at different positions to go through their tanking. That's why they signed Sturm, Lindblom, and Benning after they had traded Burns. Because it was better for them to go through the wear and tear that losing that much does than any of their young prospects that were still needing to develop. The worst stretch you reference was this past season after they had already accomplished what they set out to do when they traded Burns which was to get Karlsson to produce enough to get a team to pay something they'd want to move him. The results they were going for with the veterans they were adding was to act as a buffer because they knew they were going to lose and lose badly in spots. Veterans suffering that fate is better than kids doing that.
Yes, the team needed to do that because there are only so many opportunities to go around especially on a team lacking depth. Nobody said Grier was the only one to pull it off but you're fooling yourself if you think every GM would make that move. They often don't. Wilson didn't even though they had gone two seasons missing the playoffs. You're completely out to lunch if you think that Karlsson even coming off a Norris was expecting to get a core piece in return. They weren't. When that trade happened, Pittsburgh was expecting to make the playoffs. They weren't expecting a 14th overall pick in return. They were expecting it to be in the 20's given the makeup of that team going into last season. That sort of pick very easily could have been a drafted player not expected to be a core player. Go look at the trade thread. People were honestly surprised that they even got a 1st round pick with such little retention. Nothing at the time was expected to come close to a core piece. Yeah, Grier got a bit lucky but he still needed to make moves to secure that player. Again, you are grossly underestimating how difficult it was to move these contracts.
Go ahead and show me what you think is a team in a similar situation that you believe has occurred many times over and I'll gladly show you how incorrect you truly are with this.
It is shrewd regardless of how the specific pieces work out. Getting out of a large majority of an 8.1 mil contract over the next six years for someone in their 30's when you're rebuilding is the correct decision.
No there are not 4-5 teams every year that have veterans locked into expensive long term contracts that they dump as part of their rebuilding efforts. Nobody said Grier invented a new approach to rebuilding the franchise. That's just you making shit up to exaggerate on a point you disagree with.
And this here is exactly the problem. You have this incorrect belief about the caliber of players they were trading off as it relates to their trade values. Burns, Karlsson, and Hertl were all very good players. But you just gloss over that Burns was 37 when he was traded and signed until he was 40. Do you think that moving that sort of asset is normal or easy? It's not and it's stupid to think that it is. Karlsson also in his 30's with an 11.5 mil cap hit and a full NMC was practically untradeable one year prior to his trade. A management decision that doesn't normally occur along with the player making it happen with a new opportunity then is what changed that dynamic. You really don't grasp the difficulty of moving big, expensive contracts especially when they're bad as a team that tends to hurt player values.
Skinner
Seth Jones
Doughty
Vlasic
Huberdeau
Nurse
Kuznetsov
Kevin Hayes
Dubois
Josh Anderson
The only reason any of them would be seen as more toxic in August of 2023 is because Karlsson already put in the performance to recover a large amount of trade value. You go to a year prior than that, the only names that would survive this list of more toxic contracts than Karlsson would be Huberdeau and Nurse. Not even Vlasic was more toxic because they weren't being pushed by him to trade him anywhere and had/have buyout options that wouldn't force them to take back bad contracts for nothing at all and open up some control for the team to move him on their own. Hell, Dubois last year wasn't even on this list as the Kings just signed him to that contract and weren't even in the market to move him at that point so it makes no sense to call it a toxic deal.
Again, his job was never so suddenly turn this team from a barren bottom feeder into a contender in 3 years. The only way to adequately judge Grier's tenure is in 4-5 years. The moves he made this offseason show a clear indifference to how this upcoming season goes in terms of wins and losses and an emphasis on the development of the rookies being asked to lead the way. So if the sharks are the worst team in the league this upcoming season it has absolutely no bearing on my opinion of the job he's done.
You're right, getting the Macklins and Smiths are easy work for any GM, so by that reasoning you cannot judge the job Grier's done until the other players he brought in have been properly evaluated at the NHL level. Musty, Mukhmadulin, Jack Thompson, Hallttunen, Cagnoni, Bysted, Dickinson etc. You simply cannot have a rational opinion of the work he's done until we have a rational opinion on all of those players (and some). Bringing in the Wennbergs and Cecis and Goodrows are clearly moves not meant to move the needle for the team this upcoming season.
EK was 100% the most unmovable contract. He was 33, hadn't played more than 56 games in a season in 4 years in SJ and never topped 45 points. He was making 11.5 a year with a full NMC and 5 more years remaining.
weastern bias
worst team in the league
Not a single one of those players had the combined elements of being consistently unavailable and unproductive while being the highest paid player at their position in the league with term remaining that Karlsson presented
The only player on that list that is comparably detrimental is Vlasic as a sub NHL caliber player on a big money long term deal, which again points to what a disadvantageous position Grier inherited and navigated
All of this, of course, is an intentional obfuscation from the point, Mike Grier turned a contract of the same caliber as those dregs of the league into a positive asset in return with minimal retention, it was an impressive trade by a GM with less than a year of experience
I didn't put up the goalposts in the first place. That was a different user. I'm adding more context that you sorely lack.
Not really. He's saying a year can make a huge difference. Prior to that 101 point season EK's contract was atrocious. If Nurse suddenly has a Norris-caliber season or Huberdeau returns to 100 point form the opinion on their contracts change dramatically.
Go to the Karlsson trade thread and see what the reaction of Pens fans was when the trade was made. If what you say is true and his contract was so toxic, Pens fans must have been pissed. But they weren't, you're just talking out of your rear end.
Speaking of obfuscation, how many GMs wanted Granlund or Mike Hoffman on their deals? Zero. If you offered Karlsson on his deal straight up for Granlund, Rutta and Hoffman on theirs, GMs take Karlsson every time.
There was a lot of discussion between Sharks and Pens fan before the trade went down because both sides fans knew it was a reasonable possibility and they would not have accepted a high cap figure with a 1st round pick going the other way. They would've happily done the cap dump returns they wanted as part of it but were expecting a much heavier retention than what they got for the 1st round pick they're giving up in the process. Just because they may have rationalized it differently after the deal goes down doesn't change their thoughts beforehand.
The how many want those players in their deals doesn't matter. The trade isn't Karlsson for Granlund, Rutta, and Hoffman. The actual trade was Karlsson for the 1st round pick. The rest is making cap work to one degree or another. You know because trade protections come up. There was supposedly a deal thought to be struck on Free Agent day that seemingly got nixed because Jeff Petry didn't want to go to the Sharks. It's not easy even for a Norris winning defenseman to get moved when he's got a full no-move and lots of players that are significant cap dumps also have some level of trade protections.
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Holy moly, what an all-time shit fight you guys have going on. Ah well, against my better judgment, I'll wade in...
Your core argument is "Grier just tore down, that's easy, he shouldn't get credit." I think it's fair to say that Grier has done things that many other GM's have done in the past. He's not rewriting history. He is, however, executing a textbook teardown (edit). I don't see why you can't give him credit for that -- take a look instead at whatever it is Calgary, Ottawa, Columbus, etc. are doing. Grier's decisions have been consistent, and they have had a clear vision. Every move has rationale, even if people criticize him for not maximizing value of every transaction. The big thing is, he got them all done -- he moved a ton of aging, NMC/NTC contracts and got assets and cap space. No, he hasn't done much with the cap space yet, but we also have a horde of young guys who will need to get paid in 3 years so he also doesn't have to spend it all THIS YEAR to be setting the franchise up for a good future.
And no, it's not just about winning the draft. That was awesome. It helped accelerate our rebuild by let's say 3 years and gave it a much higher chance of success. However even if we picked 2-5 we'd still have a top 5 prospect pool and would at least be heading in the right direction on a rebuild and not stuck in the mud. Picking high helps a lot, but he has also picked pretty smartly with the picks after Celebrini and Smith.
I agree with you, by the way, that the Eichel outcome for Buffalo was unlucky and made their "rebuild" look worse. If you don't get lucky, your path is harder.
I hope we're the worst team in the league again this year, we aren't / shouldn't be done drafting high. But I hope we're at least more competitive.
Your core argument is "Grier just tore down, that's easy, he shouldn't get credit." I think it's fair to say that Grier has done things that many other GM's have done in the past. He's not rewriting history. He is, however, executing a textbook teardown (edit). I don't see why you can't give him credit for that -- take a look instead at whatever it is Calgary, Ottawa, Columbus, etc. are doing. Grier's decisions have been consistent, and they have had a clear vision. Every move has rationale, even if people criticize him for not maximizing value of every transaction. The big thing is, he got them all done -- he moved a ton of aging, NMC/NTC contracts and got assets and cap space. No, he hasn't done much with the cap space yet, but we also have a horde of young guys who will need to get paid in 3 years so he also doesn't have to spend it all THIS YEAR to be setting the franchise up for a good future.
And no, it's not just about winning the draft. That was awesome. It helped accelerate our rebuild by let's say 3 years and gave it a much higher chance of success. However even if we picked 2-5 we'd still have a top 5 prospect pool and would at least be heading in the right direction on a rebuild and not stuck in the mud. Picking high helps a lot, but he has also picked pretty smartly with the picks after Celebrini and Smith.
I agree with you, by the way, that the Eichel outcome for Buffalo was unlucky and made their "rebuild" look worse. If you don't get lucky, your path is harder.
I have to say that while maybe he could have gotten more for Karlsson (I don't think so), I will respectfully disagree with you that his contract was viewed as positive value. Here are 3 years of "worst contract in the NHL":
- 2020, Honorable Mention
- 2022, #7
- EDIT: here's a diff one for 2021
- 2023, he's not mentioned, so the contract wasn't as bad, after his big year, but he was doing nothing for the Sharks and it was only going to look worse. Grier sold "high" and so what if he didn't get more out of the Pens? In retrospect, I wouldn't want a prospect and the pick eventually became Sam Dickinson, which I'm very happy with and also showed shrewd draft tactics by Grier and his scouting team.
- EDIT 2: hell, even this 2024 has him as PIT's honorable mention
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weastern bias
worst team in the league
Fan sentiment is generally a poor barometer of a player's value either on the ice or on the trade market, for instance, you seem to think Erik Karlsson had a lot of value around the league in 2023, those of us watching him closely for years leading up to the trade disagree, these two opinion points are irreconcilable, the reality of his trade market more closely reflects my opinion than yours
You can't justify the statement that "GMs take Karlsson every time" because literally only Pittsburgh, Carolina, Toronto and Seattle were interested in trading for him, Karlsson wouldn't waive him NMC for Seattle and Toronto couldn't make a deal work under the salary cap so there was a 2 team market for him the summer he was traded, if we was such a hot commodity then more than 4 teams would have expressed interest in him
Ironically your non-sequitor questions are literally a further obfuscation, but players like Granlund and Hoffman were the kind of roster players that made total sense to take on in return for a Karlsson trade, veteran players who were returned as cap dumps to facilitate acquiring Karlsson's contract with minimal retention but who were also on much shorter term deals than Karlsson himself (Hoffman 1 year, Granlund 2 years VS Karlsson 4 years), this allows the Sharks to open up as much flexibility as is possible which was one of the major reasons to make this move
You seem to keep harping on the idea he didn't use his cap space like it's a bad thing, it's actually the smartest thing he could do right now, it's part of the plan, it would be a huge mistake to overcommit big dollars for many years to players right now before we really understand what we have in our high end prospects, that sounds like a great way to put a ceiling on the potential of your roster once your prospects reach their prime years
Mike Grier flipped an unappealing contract with a limited market for a 1st round pick that was used to draft the best D prospect in our system and he maximized his future flexibility in the process, as a result of his moves we have one roster player signed the year Smith and Celebrini's ELCs expire which affords the organization the opportunity to craft the team in whatever direction they desire
If EK can have a historical season where he did something not done in over 30 years and still all the return is is a first, some cap dumps and that’s still with retention, imagine how low his value was BEFORE that season?
What a ridiculous discussion. The players that Grier has drafted or traded for still need to prove their worth, but to pick the fly $#!+ out of the pepper over Grier getting a potential franchise 1C, high end 2C, potential 1D, and the best goalie prospect outside the NHL (not to mention Musty and Chernyshov) as quickly as he has and then to diminish that on luck and unproven potential is ridiculous. Sure, some or all could underperform as players, but far more certainly the entire team would have had he not made those or similar moves.
Patty Ice
Mighty Luca
So that Askarov signed a pretty sweet bridge deal...
Nth Turtle Reborn
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