Well yeah, if you're ok with trading away major pieces then there's never really a reason to worry. I was hoping we'd be able to compete with the current core but it does not appear that it will be possible beyond this yr.
That 22 players includes 8 dmen, so that will change. After Stepan is re-signed we'll have 23 players for next season. I figure we'll go with tops 22, which would be an extra forward and an extra dman. So some dman has to go...it is a 100% lock. Could be as simple as Diaz down to the minors, which means no cap hit for us OR a trade of Klein or Yandle. But some move will happen. Lindberg and McIlrath will be with the big club game 1. Also means after Stepan is re-signed we are capped out period. Still don't get why Klein (or worst case Yandle) aren't being moved for a top 6 R shot winger...
Moving Klein would be stupid and really leave a hole in the D corps. There's really no need to do that, and doing so wouldn't even bring back a top 6 player, unless you throw in a Skjei/Buchnevich which won't happen. I'm not buying that McIlrath is definately ready for f/t action let alone being the spare. Diaz yes, he has experience though he won't knock anyone into next week. Losing Lindberg to waivers scares me alot more than McIlrath.
You are missing the point 71...we have EIGHT dmen right now...NO SHOT we start the season with EIGHT dmen on the roster. Did we sign Diaz to a one-way deal two weeks ago to send him down? Doubtful. Did we resign McIlrath to send him down and lose him? Not happening. Pointless to do that. Trade him don't just expose him to waivers to walk for nothing. Not happening. I think he will be on this team from day one. To me the only logical answer is deal Yandle or Klein, and I rather deal Klein, but at this point would move Yandle if we could get the forward we need. The math does not work right now. Send Diaz down or make a deal. Only two options really. We will not have 8 dmen on the opening night roster as we are right up against the cap. If we only have 6.75 mill left to spend that covers Step and leaves us with no room at all. A dmen is going somewhere.
I think you are right Prod, but off base on where you are placing blame IMO. This is the NHL reality with the tight restrictive cap. You simply cannot keep your core together for many years once you become a good team and have some vets that sign for good money. That's the reality in the NHL. I don't think it is bad decisions or bad management, I think it is simply cap reality in this league. I do think the one mistake we made was resigning Staal AND Girardi to long term deals, even though both of their AAV's on their own merit are good deals for us. The issue is we didn't need to resign both. Once we resigned G we should have moved Staal. That was a mistake given our team makeup. Outside of that I really don't think we have made mistakes, I simply think we are dealing with cap reality of a vet team in the NHL. Is what it is for every team that has been together for a while. As for Miller, the plus is he took the one year QO deal because he wanted to be up next year when he had arb rights. Okay well in order for that to be a big plus for him he must have a good year, otherwise we will hold all the cards. So maybe he will be sitting on a big season, which can only help us try to win a cup. Looking at the landscape and cap situation we need to win a cup in the next 2 seasons or else we will be stripped down due to the cap. This upcoming season is make or break IMO.
Chuck, if it has to happen then it has to happen. My frustration comes from how they are preparing for it. Today was qualifier deadline day and we still have the most expensive goalie, the most expensive D and an awful Glass contract, and we didnt have enough room to buy out another year for Miller. That leaves us at risk if, as you said, he breaks out. Likewise for Etem. If they both break out to the point that it brings us a cup then awesome. But if not and they both score 20, next year will be dicey because the front office didnt clear the necessary space in time to lock up a least one of those guys for an extra year. All I'm saying.
We know this team has been in a win now mode. Thinking about two seasons from now the summer before this season is like banging your head against a wall.
What frustrates me is how teams traded Pronger and Savard and this team can't find a way to get rid of freakin Glass. Mind boggling. The reality is that all teams get restructured. The BlackHawks do it every couple years. They lose major players. They just decide to keep the same 4 and 5 and build around them. This team has played with Lundqvist a long time and not won anything. It's not his fault. So to me, trading a Nash and going with some other wings is not the end of the world. It's who they want to build around the next 4-5 years. I'm assuming it's still Hank, McDonagh, Stepan, Brassard, Hayes and Kreider.
We are so over the top on Glass it is funny to me. YES he is awful, but for the love of god he makes 1.45 mill not 5 mill per. Send him to the minors and save 950 K if we want to. That would leave 500 K on the cap for him. That is an option, one that I just don't think they will take. They like Glass, and we need to deal with it. Much bigger things to focus on. As for the goalie, no point in mentioning him Prod. He is the best player on the team. He makes what he makes. Is what it is. It comes down to the D. We made our own bed by resigning Girardi AND Staal, clearly should have been one or the other. Now we are in a spot that we must move Yandle or Klein IMO. The honest issue is neither one of them has a big enough cap hit this season to be a game changer if dealt. 2.9 for Klein and 2.62 for Yandle is not huge money cleared for either. YES I do think we need to move one because we have 8 dmen, because we need another forwward, and because we are so tight against the cap. So I would deal one, but the truth is neither one of them gives us this major room since both have AAV's under 3 mill. The clear issue to me is having G and Staal both in the mid 5's cap hit wise. Truth is if we won't resign Yandle, and to have ANOTHER dman in the 5's cap hit wise is going to be very tough to do and have a balanced team, maybe we should move Yandle. It really is a balancing act right now. This season is huge for us, and maybe our last great chance to win a cup with this group, although maybe we can squeeze another year or two out of it with the right moves. Yandle here for a full camp and then season I think would be really good for us. Plus he would only clear 2.62 mill in cap space if moved. BUT the flip side is do we really want to resign him and have G AND Staal AND Yandle AND McD all making 4.7 mill or more against the cap? It really is a slippery slope. Do you stay on the course to go all in to win a cup, and if you do I think you keep Yandle this year. Or do you focus on the future a little and say are we really resigning Yandle next summer for a cap hit in the 5's when we have all these other dmen locked up already. It will be really hard to resign Yandle next summer, not because we won't have any money, we can find the money with expiring deals, but because do we really want all those bigger money dmen locked up AND have a goalie with an 8.5 mill cap hit? How are we going to have balance. We talk a lot about Klein, but the real truth is the smart play may be to deal Yandle because I just don't see how it makes sense team balance wise to resign him next summer unless we can move G or Staal. That's the reality of the situation if you are taking an honest look at the team right now. Dealing Yandle maybe means a little step back this season, but if you add a decent R shot forward by dealing Yandle maybe it isn't a step back at all because we are more balanced and would still have a top D. Plus our cap situation gets better for next season. No easy answer, but I have to think some dman deal is coming for sure based on the team makeup right this second. We'll see...
I'm mentioning the goalie because if we want to have the highest paid goalie, which is fine by me and he deserves, then we shouldn't also have the highest paid d core while getting shut out in home game 7s. Everything is connected and we missed a big opportunity to improve our situation on qualifier deadline day. But this discussion is going in circles at this point so I'll let this go.
I don't disagree. Is what it is. Not sure Miller would have signed for longer anyway unless we really bumped it up. So it may be a moot point, but who knows. All I know is the NHL cap is too restrictive AND we need to move a dman since we won't play with 8. Should be Klein I think, but if we don't think we'll be able to resign Yandle (or if we don't want another bigger cap hit dman locked up long term) I would move him now. NHL cap...love it...hail Canada....
The increases in the cap the past two years have been far less than expected due to the very weak Canadian dollar. Not sure that anyone saw that coming, or should have seen that coming. I think most GM's and capologists would have had the cap at around 76-79M for this season if you had asked them two years back. Think they would have said 75M if you asked them 10 months ago. Signing G and Staal to those contracts at that time wasn't such a bad thought process IMO, but its very easy for us to say that it wasn't the right thing now, in hindsight, with the cap at this low number. We do still have the overall best D in the league though, with Hank behind them, most teams would gladly trade our cap issues for our D/Goalie. With the constraints we are working with, NYR have done a great job so far. Step is going to get his 6.75-7.25 and we will be all set. Think we will carry all eight D-men for a little bit, and see what happens, and hope that another team is desperate for a D-man after training camp when someone gets injured or doesn't pan out, then we will move one of them, freeing up enough injury cap room for us to get through the season. Not sure if it would be a move of one of our established D or one of the 7-8 guys, but as other posters have said, we wont carry all of them through the season, and I don't think any of them would make it through waivers... I like what Gorton did, this is pretty much the best we could expect at this point. Miller and Etem on one year contracts should definitely have something to prove, looking for pretty big numbers from them this year.
Personally, I don't think it takes hindsight to say signing G AND Staal to long deals with cap hits in the 5's was going to put us in a tough spot cap wise. G was resigned 16 months ago +/-. Staal was resigned 4 months ago +/-. I think the trends were in place at that time and we all knew the cap wasn't going to jump way up. I also went back and forth on Staal. I was against resigning him big time. Then I flipped and thought it was a solid move. Now I realize I was right the first time and we never should have resigned him given the fact that G, McD, and Klein are all signed long term. And adding Yandle made it even that much worse. Now having Yandle makes the Staal resigning look bad IMO. That is why as much as I think Yandle can add, dealing him now might be the right play. Either that or play the season out, hopefully win a cup, and then he walks because I don't see how we can lock up another dman for 5 mill + per...that would be crazy. I also don't see anyway we start the season with 8 dmen on the opening night roster. We have 13 forwards also. I don't see us carrying 23 players.
A trade almost has to happen to alleviate the D problem. I don't see klein bringing back a top 6 rw unless packaged with something else. Yandle, however would bring that type of player back and more. Can't see how they possibly sign Yandle next year with the other contract situations coming up which is why I think he goes. Still hoping slats to gorton can talk boyle into a trade somewhere he'd like to go as klein is a better fit for us especially from a cap perspective. I can see both big mac and skjei in the starting lineup in that scenario as the 5th and 6th D and we would be fine. Come playoff time they will both have the experience and be ready. This team has too much talent plus what they get back in the aforementioned trade(s) to not make the playoffs
I don't think we would be fine with two totally unproven kids as our 5th and 6th dmen this year. Most reports say Skjei needs some time in Hartford this year and then we'll see as the season progresses. And McIlrath is a question mark still for sure. I want him here to start, but not as the 5th dman. So I don't think having those two as the 5th and 6th dmen to start is even a small discussion point, and thankfully so right now.
Quoted for truth. The cap isn't restrictive because it's the same rules for everyone in the league, so it doesn't "restrict" us any more or less than it "restricts" another team. At least with a Cap a GM has to earn his money instead of just signing free agents every year to make up for mistakes.
Everyone understand the premise of why the cap is in the place. That has nothing to do with the restrictive nature of the current cap number which for various reasons hasn't risen as high as some would've thought. It's not a matter of wanting to run out and sign every free agent available or the big market teams severely outspending so many other teams. It's a matter of being able to keep the team you have together.
Nailed it Mess. That's what it is all about. You can manage your cap pretty much perfectly and still not be able to keep your team together for any great length of time outside of 4 or 5 main players. It is too restrictive IMO for the whole NHL not just us. That is why every year the better teams have to deal off core players. It isn't good for the sport in the long run. 100% there should be a cap in the NHL, I fully support it, but it's way too restrictive and low. They need to tweak the rules to allow some flexibility to resign your own core players. Just my opinion.
