GDT: Trade and Free Agency Thread - The Madness Continues

[acrobaticgoalie]

What is Tatar's asking price? Anyone know?

 

[diehardleafsfan9878]

I find this perplexing. Because the Avs paid so much. And I assume the Oilers would be swapping Koskinen (matches Kuemper's salary) since they have no cap space at the moment. I'm struggling to imagine what they could be offering that could've got them close.

A 2022 unprotected first and a prospect probably below timmins' level.

 

[Legion34]

Now calculate the interest earned by paying most of the contract up front in bonus money….

????? like tampa gives??? That’s even worse

 

[Dekes For Days]

We'd be getting Meier at 5M due to 1M retention and he'd be signed to that for 2 years + have another year of cost control left as he's a rfa when his current deal expires

A 10m qualifying offer is not "cost control".

 

[SprDaVE]

What is Tatar's asking price? Anyone know?

I would guess that he is or was looking for around 5M over 4-5 years. If guys like Schwartz and Hyman got 5.5M cap hits, I think he's asking for around that ball park to me.

He had back to back ~60 point seasons last 2 seasons prior and dipped a bit lower this past season to 50 points ish (over 82 games). I think he's probably the more intriguing free agent with a good amount of risk. His playoff woes probably aren't doing him any favours.

We've seen previous players wait out and accept 1 year deals with opportunity (Hoffman, Hall, etc). Tatar might be that player and I am hoping the Leafs can swoop in.

 

[Mad hatter]

Ok, I was right the first time. We’re blaming leaf failures on the taxes.

Rules changed last off-season because the leafs would pay plane tickets to Toronto for their prospects to train. The NHL did not feel it was fair for the leafs to do that because all teams couldn’t afford it. So why is it then fair that Tampa can I offer a lower contract because of income tax. They change the rules so the leafs didn’t have an advantage over anyone but it’s fine that Tampa does. Gary’s got a very weird idea of what’s fair imho

 

[Stigma]

Like I understand the attraction. He's still relatively young and certainly is physical... but giving him 3M seems completely excessive for someone that has shown zero growth in his game since entering the league. At least players like Tatar and Saad reached much higher levels of contributions and probably can do it again under the right circumstances.

Why not just give Galchenyuk another go instead of Ritchie and save about 2M in cap space?


Why not just keep Galchenyuk for probably a ton cheaper for relatively similar production and a much cheaper cap hit?

I'm with you on Galchenyuk.

I'm thinking that we but Bunting on the 2nd line, LW acquired in trade on the 1st line, and Galchenyuk on line 3. Put Galchenyuk with 2 very responsible defensive players in Kampf and Mikheyev. Mikheyev has the offensive drive and speed to set up Galchenyuk for the scoring.

 

[Dreakmur]

Rules changed last off-season because the leafs would pay plane tickets to Toronto for their prospects to train. The NHL did not feel it was fair for the leafs to do that because all teams couldn’t afford it. So why is it then fair that Tampa can I offer a lower contract because of income tax. They change the rules so the leafs didn’t have an advantage over anyone but it’s fine that Tampa does. Gary’s got a very weird idea of what’s fair imho

What’s the solution? You want the nhl to add ab artificial tax to even the field? No way the players go for that.

 

[CupcakeSprinkles]

Like I understand the attraction. He's still relatively young and certainly is physical... but giving him 3M seems completely excessive for someone that has shown zero growth in his game since entering the league. At least players like Tatar and Saad reached much higher levels of contributions and probably can do it again under the right circumstances.

Why not just give Galchenyuk another go instead of Ritchie and save about 2M in cap space?


Why not just keep Galchenyuk for probably a ton cheaper for relatively similar production and a much cheaper cap hit?

Ritchie has been one of the most hated players by their own fans.. on the Bruins this year. I wouldn't touch him personally.

 

[Contenderorpretender]

What’s the solution? You want the nhl to add ab artificial tax to even the field? No way the players go for that.

You could lower the max cap for those teams that have a tax advantage proportionate the savings players would get. If its 20% than Tampa's cap would be around 66mil

I should add. That I dont care about the tax advantages. But this would be an easy fix.

 

[Dreakmur]

You could lower the max cap for those teams that have a tax advantage proportionate the savings players would get. If its 20% than Tampa's cap would be around 66mil

Lower cap, players won’t go for it. Higher cap, owners won’t.

Also, those caps would change as the schedule changes, so would be a nightmare to calculate

 

[Contenderorpretender]

Lower cap, players won’t go for it. Higher cap, owners won’t.

Well than it stays the way it does and people need to stop bitching about it

 

[Mad hatter]

What’s the solution? You want the nhl to add ab artificial tax to even the field? No way the players go for that.

Maybe on every July 1 teams that have to pay higher income tax can go over the cap by the amount of income tax paid there. It would have to be adjusted every July 1 to stay up with the taxes but I think that’s an option.

 

[Gallagbi]

Ok, I was right the first time. We’re blaming leaf failures on the taxes.

This feels like such a petty response to something that's not directly even linked to Toronto.

It's been discussed around the league for some time about the advantage in take-home pay you can get playing on nonstate tax teams. Montreal was frustrated with it when they lost Radulov to Dallas.

I'm not enough of a tax expert to say the true impact, since I'm sure the players are likely licensed and dealing with different write-offs than a guy like me, but the tax advantage goes well beyond just a few comparable situations

 

[The Podium]

Lets give up the tax argument already. Tampa's players didnt sign low for the tax advantage, they signed low to keep a competitive team together.

Unfortunately our guys did not, but lets hope they do the next time around like Sidney Crosby did

 

[Sypher04]

To be clear, I never expect the tax thing to change, though the massive signing bonus structure I think might, but I'd abolish both

As for how taxes could be mitigated for. I get it's a complex issue, and I'm sure they have capologists way smarter than me who could work it out, but a basis for the idea I'd think could look something like this:

Take all the tax rates of each market. Find the average. Multiply that rate by the cap figure for the Net Cap

Make player cap hits their AAV - the average rate. Essentially their net cap hit.

 

[Leafs1991]

Ok, I was right the first time. We’re blaming leaf failures on the taxes.

So what you're telling me is you can't accept the fact that taxes give the American teams an advantage when signing players and its the GMS fault when teams like Montreal and Toronto have to pay more to sign their players? Got it.

Thats some great logical thinking there.

I'm not saying thats why Marner got 11 or Matthew's as I think it was crazy they got those contracts right off the bat but its clear the tax system makes it harder for certain teams to sign players for less.

 

[SprDaVE]

Sounds like the Leafs were offering a cap hit of around 3.5M to Foligno, or at least were around the same ballpark as Boston. No idea what that means, maybe Plan B was Kampf, but I do think the Leafs want to use that cap space for the obvious winger upgrade.

Tatar and Saad look like the only 2 viable left over options from free agency. Maybe they settle for Johansson or Ritchie if they are much cheaper.

 

[Rob Brown]

Sounds like the Leafs were offering a cap hit of around 3.5M to Foligno, or at least were around the same ballpark as Boston. No idea what that means, maybe Plan B was Kampf, but I do think the Leafs want to use that cap space for the obvious winger upgrade.

Tatar and Saad look like the only 2 viable left over options from free agency.

Saad would definitely be the preferable option between those two, but I feel like he'll come in for too much.

Ritchie is an option but obviously doesn't have as much offense as Saad.

 

[Sypher04]

Lets give up the tax argument already. Tampa's players didnt sign low for the tax advantage, they signed low to keep a competitive team together.

Unfortunately our guys did not, but lets hope they do the next time around like Sidney Crosby did

I disagree. I think the two go hand in hand

 

[Mad hatter]

Well than it stays the way it does and people need to stop bitching about it

I didn’t care at all until last summer when they changed the rules so the leafs couldn’t have an advantage with their prospect training.

 

[613Leafer]

Lets give up the tax argument already. Tampa's players didnt sign low for the tax advantage, they signed low to keep a competitive team together.

Unfortunately our guys did not, but lets hope they do the next time around like Sidney Crosby did

Tampa also isn't the only team to sign their RFAs to good contracts.

What's the tax argument for Makar, Gaudreau, Ehlers, Conor, Scheifele, Pastrnak, etc?

The Leafs big RFA contracts are outliers compared to the league as a whole, not just compared to Tampa.

 

[Gallagbi]

Sounds like the Leafs were offering a cap hit of around 3.5M to Foligno, or at least were around the same ballpark as Boston. No idea what that means, maybe Plan B was Kampf, but I do think the Leafs want to use that cap space for the obvious winger upgrade.

Tatar and Saad look like the only 2 viable left over options from free agency. Maybe they settle for Johansson or Ritchie if they are cheaper.

$3M would have been my personal max, but it's disappointing if he left for a little under $1M over 3 years.

 

[leaffaninvancouver]

Maybe on every July 1 teams that have to pay higher income tax can go over the cap by the amount of income tax paid there. It would have to be adjusted every July 1 to stay up with the taxes but I think that’s an option.

Use the amount a player makes after income taxes as the caphit. So Tampa and Toronto each can offer a player a 5 million dollar contract, just the income taxes are added on top of that. It wouldn't be perfect but it would help.

 

[Dreakmur]

Maybe on every July 1 teams that have to pay higher income tax can go over the cap by the amount of income tax paid there. It would have to be adjusted every July 1 to stay up with the taxes but I think that’s an option.

That’s increasing the cap. The owners won’t go for that.