Speculation: Winners and Losers now that the dust has settled

[threeVo]

Guess some people need a refresher on how term works. Murray’s contract is up right when Matthews and Nylander will need a payday.

If we paid Campbell that’s 5M tied up all through Matthews, Marner and Nylander’s pay raise years.

lol you guys are in win now mode. Why does Dubas care about those extensions hes getting canned if you guys dont AT MINIMUM win a playoff series this year.

 

[Price is Wright]

Even though they signed Gudbranson for four years the Blue Jackets are the big winner for me. They got everyone talking and asking how they got Johnny Hockey. I love it. People have been disrespecting the Blue Jackets for years calling them an irrelevant franchise and they just got the top free agent on the market over traditional markets and Canadian markets. This is going to create new fans for Columbus.

 

[Spilot23]

Didn’t Avs lose Bura or is he not considered a big loss? Just an outside perspective but if Kadri walks, the Avs look weaker on paper than they did when they won the cup.

Even without Kadri and Bura, they’re the best team in the west

I don't think he's a big of a loss. Yes, his goalscoring ability might hurt the Avs but after getting Lehkonen and being able to play through the lineup. I think he became expendable. He doesn't belong on a 3rd line without any playmaker. Most of the time when he doesn't produce he will hurt your team even more with mistakes and lazy defensive play (got better in the playoffs though).

Losing Kadri on the other hand will hurt alot. If the Avs can't find a #2C I wonder if they would try letting Rantanen play as a center and find a top 6 winger (Kane would be awesome). We still have our 1st this year and prospect like Newhook that might get sacrificed or even Girard. Maybe Sakic/MacFarland tries with Newhook until deadline. I find it odd that Sakic/MacFarland paid everyone and now 3,9M$ left without getting a #2C does it mean a trade? Does it mean Rantanen going center? Giving Newhook an opportunity as #2C?

 

[Atomos2]

lol you guys are in win now mode. Why does Dubas care about those extensions hes getting canned if you guys dont AT MINIMUM win a playoff series this year.

Lol win now mode. Maybe we should go get Clarkson or some high paid middle 6er on a 6 year deal. Dinosaur-like thinking.

Matthews and co are all still relatively young a lot younger than Stamkos and Mackinnon when they won their first cup. It’s the chess/checkers debate.

 

[Lays]

Biggest winner was CBJ. Also liked what the Sens did

Biggest loser was Tampa. The Cirelli and Sergachev contracts already look awful. They shipped out a locker room presence in McDonagh for peanuts only to make up his cap hit with Namestnikov, P. Myers, and Ian Cole. The 3 of them actually cost more than McDonagh. And they lost Palat

 

[MagicalRazor]

Leafs

Draft day D-
Free agency B+

 

[Amadeus]

Leafs lost due to losing their secondary scoring and not replacing it. Also got two question marks in net. I know the offseason is young but you can't say this team is better than last year. Nicolas-Aube Kubel, Adam Gaudette and Denis Malgin are extremely underwhelming signings.

 

[TommyDangles]

The AAV is nice which is most important to NYR. The term is long, but after 3 seasons, his NMC goes to a M-NTC and the real cost drops into the $4M range for the last couple of years.

Rangers likely won’t have any problems moving him after 4 years if his play drops off, even if they need to pay someone a little to take it.

Rangers view that their window is now. They’ll worry about the cap consequences his contract 5-7 years from now.

5.6M if just fair AAV. If it was for 3-4 years it would've been fine. 7 years is crazy overkill.

You just needed to pay a 2nd + 2nd/3rd to get rid of a guy with only a 2.5M cap hit for 2 years. Moving out a guy with a 5.6M hit for 4-5 more years would be very rough. JVR only has 1 year left at 7M and nobody wants anything to do with the guy. Teams want a 1st just to take on his contract and it's not like he's a terrible player either.

Signings like this usually hurt your window. When you're struggling to find room to pay your young guys because of the cap bloat. Teams like Colorado & Tampa were smart to stay away from big spending in free agency.

 

[CraigsList]

The Flames are in the top 3 loser group. Not even close.

Leafs lost due to losing their secondary scoring and not replacing it. Also got two question marks in net. I know the offseason is young but you can't say this team is better than last year. Nicolas-Aube Kubel, Adam Gaudette and Denis Malgin are extremely underwhelming signings.

I actually thought the Leafs did well with the goalie situation. Murray may not be the first option on anyone’s mind, but you got him with some retention. You also don’t have a goalie locked down long term. There’s also Samsonov who could bounce back too. You may not have a #1, but these two goalies play better when they have to earn the starting spot.

 

[Skinnyjimmy08]

Sens are the offseason Cup winners

 

[Jerkbait]

I am not agree for Tampa. For me Tampa
Cirelli extension ok
Sergachev too much
Cernak too muck
and overpay Cole
If Bogosian and cirelli are ready to start the season Tampa will have 400k over the cap for me is more looser than ok.

The reality is they didn't need to make major moves , just stay the course to be competitive and they did. The window is still wide open in tampa

 

[Hierso]

Right, Gaudreau who is 29 in a month. According to you is also going to be a flop. That's how FA works, you have to pay premium to get the prize.

FAF is a great example of the idiom "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch".

 

[HarrisonFord]

Leafs lost due to losing their secondary scoring and not replacing it. Also got two question marks in net. I know the offseason is young but you can't say this team is better than last year. Nicolas-Aube Kubel, Adam Gaudette and Denis Malgin are extremely underwhelming signings.

Secondary scoring will be Robertson, Engvall, Kampf, Abruzzese. They also don’t really need a ton of secondary scoring. They had the 2nd most goals scored last year. They lost 35 goals from Mikhayev and Kase and even if you subtract 35 goals from their total last year they’d be 9th. I would imagine 10g each from Robertson, Aube-Kubel and Abruzzese is fairly easy to attain

 

[Homesick]

Campbell is an upgrade over both Kosk and Smith--only other options would have had the oilers giving assets to get a goalie

No, they could have traded for Matt Murray and paid him a bargain 4.7m a year

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

Avs gotta feel like winners right now. Just won the cup and now they've almost brought every important guy from that cup run back to run it all again next year. The only question is goaltending but Kuemper didn't exactly set a high standard for Georgiev or Francouz to match in the playoffs.


Just waiting on Kadri but the longer this goes the more confident I get in the rumors Kadri really, really does want to come back to Denver and they'll figure something out to bring him back.

Kadri back to Denver would be amazing. The Nuke contract was also very strong.

Don't love the Geo contract, nor the Manson contract, but hard to doubt Sakic.

 

[Frank Drebin]

Canes, oilers had a great day.

Tampa, did not

 

[beowulf]

Oilers, Sens did well for sure. I am on the fence about the Wings, didn't see them at the point in their rebuild to sign some of the players they did, guess we shall see. Leafs might regret their goalie decision big time. On paper at least, the are weaker in that position that last season.

 

[Godzilla]

I think Ottawa wins . They gave themselves a chance to be one of the better teams in the East. Only question mark is on D.

 

[Fatass]

Winners:

* Columbus (landing the top UFA is huge for that market)
* Devils (Palat is a better fit for them than Gaudreau)
* Ottawa (that offense is looking nasty with Debrincat and Giroux)

Losers:

* Flyers (I mean do I have to explain?)
* Flames (sorry, Flames fans)
* Toronto (lots of question marks still)

Having questions in goal is definitely losing when fixing that problem was key.

 

[Unbiased Fan]

Yea Trocheck just had 115 points and is one of the best players in the league

Gaudreau isn't the type of player I'm talking about. It's the 28-31 year old average / slightly above average player that gets huge term. It's the Kyle Okposo, Andrew Ladd, Loui Eriksson, James Neal, Milan Lucic, Jaden Schwartz, and Ondrej Palat.

"That's how FA works, you have to pay premium to get the prize."

He's not the prize. These contracts always age terribly. Every year it's the same thing. Fans cope and say it's different with this guy and they're thinking of ways to get rid of the contract in 2-3 years.

Not giving out contracts like that is the smart move. Cap flexibility is always the most important thing.

Trochek is a centre the players you listed are all wingers.

 

[dkollidas]

Winners: teams who signed players to deals 3yrs or less in length.

Losers: teams who signed players to contracts 4+yrs

 

[tgoat]

Minnesota didn't do anything and their superstar might be long gone coz' he is stuck in CCCP.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

5.6M if just fair AAV. If it was for 3-4 years it would've been fine. 7 years is crazy overkill.

But they aren't going to get him at $5.6AAV if they only offered 3-4 years. Of course, they would have preferred that, but I highly doubt Trocheck is signing that deal (if he was, he'd likely still be in Carolina). It's either higher AAV for 3-4 years, or lower AAV for more years. They wanted the cap flexibility now vs. 5-7 years from now.

You just needed to pay a 2nd + 2nd/3rd to get rid of a guy with only a 2.5M cap hit for 2 years. Moving out a guy with a 5.6M hit for 4-5 more years would be very rough.

Well, I didn't need to pay anything as I'm a Canes fan, not a Ranger's fan, but:

1). I never suggested that the Ranger's would move him with "4-5" more years. Unless he suffers a string of injuries, I highly doubt they would want to move him after 2-3 years, which is what you just suggested (They can't move him with 5 years left anyhow as he has a full NMC in the first 3 years). My guess is that Ranger's are thinking that they may have to move him in year 6-7 of the deal and the contract is structured as such.

Year 1-3: Full NMC so they can't move him if they wanted to. Real dollars $6M-$6.5M
Year 4: 12 team NTC, Real dollars $6M
Year 5: 10 team NTC, Real dollars $6M
Year 6-7: 6 team NTC, Real dollars $4.5M and $4.0M

The contract is structured to make it easier to move him in years 6-7 should they need to. So clearly the Ranger's are looking at it that he's good for probably 5 years. As I said though, the risk is injuries. If Trocheck gets injured, this can go south in a hurry. That's the same for any player but Trocheck has more of an injury history.

2) The cap has been basically flat for a number of years and thus many teams have cap issues already so there are less teams able to take players on. That's not likely to be the case 5-6 years from now.

JVR only has 1 year left at 7M and nobody wants anything to do with the guy. Teams want a 1st just to take on his contract and it's not like he's a terrible player either.

See 2) above

Signings like this usually hurt your window. When you're struggling to find room to pay your young guys because of the cap bloat. Teams like Colorado & Tampa were smart to stay away from big spending in free agency.

To me, this AAV ISN'T "Big Spending" and certainly isn't out of line for a 2C of Trocheck's caliber. Yes, the term is probably 2-3 years too long, but as I showed above, I don't think it will be a big issue. If you disagree, that's fine. In fact, as a Canes fan, I HOPE it will be an issue.

 

[Crede777]

Biggest winner was Eric Gudbranson who will get ~$4 million for the next 4 years on a team that only a few hours later landed a major PPG player.

 

[Freedom]

Carolina, Detroit and Ottawa won first day. Really nice additions and team friendly contracts.

Columbus stole the largest golden piece was great too. 2 fights and another smiles