Salary Cap: Salary Cap & Roster Building | Forget the whale ... We'll buy the place with beads

[Tom Hanks]

when someone counts the Dumo and Schultz signings as negatives, you are going to have a hell of a time convincing them of the good moves we made

Yeah, Schultz was not overpaid based on his season last year. It was more the risk could he be as good for the coming years but we really had no choice but to sign him. Our team identity has to have some D like him.

Dumoulin was overpaid slightly based on 1 year but he got term and has potential to improve still.

 

[Fordy]

Everyone can whine about our bottom 6 all day long until they are blue in their faces, but as long as our captain is on pace for 56 pts and -60 and our no. 1 "star" defenseman is also on pace for -60 it doesn't matter much what the bottom 6 plyayers are doing....

i promise you this has been said every year since i joined this forum and it has never been true

as soon as sid is in a position to succeed he will

 

[EliteGoaltending]

i promise you this has been said every year since i joined this forum and it has never been true

as soon as sid is in a position to succeed he will

Isn't Sid in a position to succeed already? What else Sullivan needs to do? He's been changing his linemates quite often to help the first line. He's starting this line in O zone more and even when they change on the fly it's often when the team have possesion, so they don't have to forecheck that much.

I think it's on Sid himself and his effort, especially in D zone. We need him to get out of this funk and of course he will. Just need a goal and/or an assist to build his confidence on.

 

[Pens x]

I’m not saying re-signing our RFA’s was wrong, but I don’t think we should throw a parade and celebrate Jimmy for doing something EVERY GM does every summer.

I think the fact that people continue to bring his RFA signings up to defend him shows how poor of a summer he had.

Well well well he uhhhh re-signed RFA’s, pissed away draft picks and assets and lost both trades that he made. And he signed Niemi, low risk, high reward! These moves were fine! What would you have done!!! We just won the cup, in Jimmy I trust.

So if you want to drink the kool aid and praise the guy for re-signing RFA’s then do what you need to do.

 

[Shady Machine]

nvm.

 

[Shady Machine]

It would be nice to have Barzal centering the third line right now, instead of 12 months of David Perron stinking up the joint two years ago. Once you start down this path, there's no end to it.

I agree with your larger point, but we JUST traded for Reaves. We haven't seen the end of the tunnel on that trade yet, but it was pretty clearly an overpayment from the start. The 1st for Perron deal didn't work out, but the logic behind it was sound.

 

[EightyOne]

I thought Perron was gonna be great, too.

Figured Sid would have a decent winger. That crash and burned by about game 3? Lol. Damn.

 

[Shady Machine]

Sheahan - who I'm far from impressed with - at least added some center depth at an opportune time (when Rowney went down). The jury's still out on Reaves, but I like the mindset that led to his acquisition. The most important thing is that neither of these players required a big commitment in terms of money, assets, or term, so we have the flexibility to do more as the season progresses.

You liked the mindset that lead to acquiring Reaves? That surprises me.

It's true that neither Reaves or Sheahan cost all that much in assets, but they do take up precious pro-rated cap space vs other options. That means that JR's options at the deadline are more limited OR with retention, will cost more in assets. Not the end of the world, but something to consider.

 

[Richard]

A centericeman is needed or this team is a first round out.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

We had good moves, both of those and Share-y are all solid signings. But year to date, without definitively addressing the one glaring hole this roster has that weve known about and had for half a year, JRs season has been a push at best. If JR gets his 3C at the deadline and we come together as a team, great, we can say he had a good season. If we dont fix our center depth then he had a bad season in the midst of an overall good tenure here. It must be hard, and you cant win every off season all the time, but it wouldnt change the fact that the team got worse on paper.

I dont tend to judge GMs based on players who dont perform to expectations, because except for glaring mismatches with style, theres so much that goes into it. What I do judge GMs on is attempting to rectify the problems. Which makes most of this discussion all really pointless, because we may never know if JR really pushed for a legit 3C but no one wanted to play with him, or if he sat back and waited/low balled too long until nothing was available.

Right. Most people recognize that, but it seems like there's a fair amount of definitive premature judgement around here because we have a glaring roster hole that hasn't been properly addressed - though the best solution any critic seems to be able to come up with for our 3C issue was Dominic f***ing Moore - and we're going through a rough patch. But so long as we're in playoff position and acquire a legit 3C before the deadline, we can't say he's had a bad season.

Not having a legit 3C is a major roster problem that JR has to fix. Let's give him some time to fix it.

 

[Shady Machine]

Oh, and for the record, I'm not even arguing Sheahan or McKegg are anything special. I just think it's hilarious that someone's thumping their chest about suggesting Dominic Moore as some sort of answer to the Pens' bottom six woes, as though he's noticeably more effective than either of those guys.

He's not. He's the definition of a 4C who looks like a fish out of water if you play him at 3C. Kind of like how folks see our current bottom six center options.

You aren't addressing me and some of this MIGHT be hindsight, but hey we get to do that here, but I would have liked to see JR pick a target on Vegas and pay the price. A lot of us wanted Karlsson this summer and people were throwing out 2nd+Wilson for him. I would like to think he'd have been a Penguin if he was available for that. I am hesitant to trade 1sts but we had a huge need at center and overpaying for a young guy with potential and RFA status would have been a pretty big coup.

Would a 1st+Simon (or something in that ballpark) have gotten it done this summer? No idea, but I would have preferred that deal over the Sheahan crap.

In theory, JR could have given Cullen a deadline, and then moved onto Moore (did Moore even want to come to Pittsburgh?). Just for fun, let's assume 1st+ Simon and Moore for 1.2MM.

Guentzel-Crosby-Rust
Hagelin-Malkin-Kessel
Sheary-Karlsson-Hornqvist
Wilson-Moore-Reaves
Kuhn-McKegg-Archi-Rowney

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

You liked the mindset that lead to acquiring Reaves? That surprises me.

I hate the targeted and malicious abuse that our superstars have taken over the years. I'm not talking about getting extra attention, or a couple more whacks with an opponents stick, or the odd borderline hit that every star has to get used to. I'm talking about the repeated, deliberate, potentially injurious shit that Dubinsky's been known for and Niskanen did in the playoffs last year...multiple cross-checks to the back, back of the head, face, etc...that were interpreted as "good defensive hockey" by NHL officiating from the top down.

We needed to take steps to get an answer for that. Reaves obviously won't stop everything but I expect that we'll see a sharp decline in the Dubinsky-esque shenanigans that Crosby's had to endure the last few years. He's the best at what he does and can play the game better than any player in his role to boot. For me Reaves was worth the cost as he provides some insurance against the amount of potential LTIR bumps our meal tickets take over the course of a year.

Now we can say that we've left absolutely no stone unturned when it comes to protecting our stars. We've lobbied the league, and when that didn't work we took matters into our own hands and acquired the best fighter/best playing fighter in the world.

It's true that neither Reaves of Sheahan cost all that much in assets, but they do take up precious pro-rated cap space vs other options. That means that JR's options at the deadline are more limited OR with retention, will cost more in assets. Not the end of the world, but something to consider.

Reaves is a relative drop in the bucket - really, the guy only makes 1.1 mil per for being the best in the league at what he does and he can take a regular shift - so I don't have a problem with him. Sheahan, to me, isn't playing above replacement level and makes 2 mil per besides, but he provides some depth that's proven useful while Rowney's out anyway...that said, he is absolutely the most disposable player on this roster for his cap-hit-to-on-ice-value ratio.

 

[Shady Machine]

I hate the targeted and malicious abuse that our superstars have taken over the years. I'm not talking about getting extra attention, or a couple more whacks with an opponents stick, or the odd borderline hit that every star has to get used to. I'm talking about the repeated, deliberate, potentially injurious **** that Dubinsky's been known for and Niskanen did in the playoffs last year...multiple cross-checks to the back, back of the head, face, etc...that were interpreted as "good defensive hockey" by NHL officiating from the top down.

We needed to take steps to get an answer for that. Reaves obviously won't stop everything but I expect that we'll see a sharp decline in the Dubinsky-esque shenanigans that Crosby's had to endure the last few years. He's the best at what he does and can play the game better than any player in his role to boot. For me Reaves was worth the cost as he provides some insurance against the amount of potential LTIR bumps our meal tickets take over the course of a year.

I don't think we will see a reduction in it, but I'm not sure how we will measure it anyway.

Reaves is a relative drop in the bucket - really, the guy only makes 1.1 mil per for being the best in the league at what he does and he can take a regular shift - so I don't have a problem with him. Sheahan, to me, isn't playing above replacement level and makes 2 mil per besides, but he provides some depth that's proven useful while Rowney's out anyway...that said, he is absolutely the most disposable player on this roster for his cap-hit-to-on-ice-value ratio.

1.1MM isn't a lot, but we have IMO an effective hockey player that makes 675K sitting in the press box every night. 425K becomes a million+ at the deadline. Like I said, not the end of the world, but it's still something.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

I don't think we will see a reduction in it, but I'm not sure how we will measure it anyway.

This obviously isn't scientific, but I think we know Dubinsky/Niskanen level of harassment when we see it. I haven't seen it yet this year, and I think I'm honest enough with myself that I'd admit if I had. Nashville was probably the closest, but nothing got out of hand despite playing a team that had a lot of reason to be fired up.

1.1MM isn't a lot, but we have IMO an effective hockey player that makes 675K sitting in the press box every night. 425K becomes a million+ at the deadline. Like I said, not the end of the world, but it's still something.

EDIT: I misread this and f***ed up haha.

In defense of Reaves over Archy: not everyone will agree, but I think the superstar insurance that Reaves can provide supercedes the difference between their cap hits and relative levels of play.

For me it's about whether I think we'd benefit more from healthier superstars or half a mil in cap space and a moderate upgrade to our 4th line. That health improvement is hard to quantify, but we'll obviously be keeping tabs on our best players throughout the year to see if they sustain any injuries from the sort of Dubinsky-esque antics I described earlier. That should be the litmus test.

 

[Shady Machine]

This obviously isn't scientific, but I think we know Dubinsky/Niskanen level of harassment when we see it. I haven't seen it yet this year, and I think I'm honest enough with myself that I'd admit if I had. Nashville was probably the closest, but nothing got out of hand despite playing a team that had a lot of reason to be fired up.

We may need to wait for the playoffs to truly tell. It's happened in the regular season in the past, but nearly all of the examples people refer to (Staal, Dubinsky, Niskanen) happened in heated playoffs series. Do you want Ryan Reaves as a playoff regular? I think the jury's still out on that.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

We may need to wait for the playoffs to truly tell. It's happened in the regular season in the past, but nearly all of the examples people refer to (Staal, Dubinsky, Niskanen) happened in heated playoffs series. Do you want Ryan Reaves as a playoff regular? I think the jury's still out on that.

I think Staal and Dubinsky took exception whenever we played haha. If Reaves is a playoff scratch but prevented our best guys from taking some unnecessary targeted bumps during the regular season, then I'll still think he was worth it.

 

[Shady Machine]

I think Staal and Dubinsky took exception whenever we played haha. If Reaves is a playoff scratch but prevented our best guys from taking some unnecessary targeted bumps during the regular season, then I'll still think he was worth it.

Fair enough. Agree to disagree. I've been encouraged lately that Reaves doesn't look like a total tire fire out there, but I still maintain we'd be better off with a 4 line attack of speed and tenacity. Reaves isn't the only impediment to that, but because he can't PK, it gives Sully an excuse to play Kuhn every night which together makes our 4th line ineffective.

 

[ColePens]

Fair enough. Agree to disagree. I've been encouraged lately that Reaves doesn't look like a total tire fire out there, but I still maintain we'd be better off with a 4 line attack of speed and tenacity. Reaves isn't the only impediment to that, but because he can't PK, it gives Sully an excuse to play Kuhn every night which together makes our 4th line ineffective.

Stop. Too many posts that I have to quote you and agree with you.

I cannot stress it enough. 4 lines of attack w/ speed/tenacity. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Fair enough. Agree to disagree. I've been encouraged lately that Reaves doesn't look like a total tire fire out there, but I still maintain we'd be better off with a 4 line attack of speed and tenacity. Reaves isn't the only impediment to that, but because he can't PK, it gives Sully an excuse to play Kuhn every night which together makes our 4th line ineffective.

That's a bad side effect, yeah. And a good argument for sometimes sitting Reaves against teams who don't have a disturber like Dubinsky.

With Reaves, the proof will be in the pudding. What matters most to me is that we get our stars through the regular season with as few dings as possible so they're healthy when the playoffs roll around, because Archy over Reaves won't make much difference if Crosby's eggs get scrambled by a cross-check to the face.

 

[cheesedanish87]

The fans that are anti Reaves aren't going to admit it, but their is a big difference in how teams have played the pens with Reaves in the lineup this year.

Teams aren't nearly as physical against the pens this year, i can't think of any dirty hits the pens have received this year.

Pens just got done playing Rinaldo and Tom Wilson, 2 players that would normally take runs at pens players, neither of them did anything this year.

 

[ColePens]

That's a bad side effect, yeah. And a good argument for sometimes sitting Reaves against teams who don't have a disturber like Dubinsky.

With Reaves, the proof will be in the pudding. What matters most to me is that we get our stars through the regular season with as few dings as possible so they're healthy when the playoffs roll around, because Archy over Reaves won't make much difference if Crosby's eggs get scrambled by a cross-check to the face.

I don't think anyone really struggles with the idea of Reaves in the regular season. I'm totally fine sacrificing 50 games of a 4th line having Reaves on it. He's not terrible in any way. He's actually decent. But what works for this team is not Ryan Reaves. And I bet you any amount of money he's playing in the playoffs. Now THAT is a problem I have (and i know yo have, too).

Keep our stars safe in the regular season as best as we can. Check. Reaves is doing his best for what he actually can do. Nobody can doubt that. But he's playing every single night and I just know this will go through to the playoffs. I don't get that. At all.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

I don't think anyone really struggles with the idea of Reaves in the regular season. I'm totally fine sacrificing 50 games of a 4th line having Reaves on it. He's not terrible in any way. He's actually decent. But what works for this team is not Ryan Reaves. And I bet you any amount of money he's playing in the playoffs. Now THAT is a problem I have (and i know yo have, too).

Keep our stars safe in the regular season as best as we can. Check. Reaves is doing his best for what he actually can do. Nobody can doubt that. But he's playing every single night and I just know this will go through to the playoffs. I don't get that. At all.

If/when that becomes an issue, I'll be on the same boat. We should all agree that Archy is a better player than Reaves and gives us more roster flexibility, but I think preserving Sid and Geno is important enough to deal with that drop-off for at least the regular season.

What compounds our problem is that we also have a 3rd line that can't score so our entire bottom 6 is a non-factor at ES. If/when we get a 3C that can do more than try not to get scored on, Reaves presence in the line-up might not be as big an issue.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

Fair enough. Agree to disagree. I've been encouraged lately that Reaves doesn't look like a total tire fire out there, but I still maintain we'd be better off with a 4 line attack of speed and tenacity. Reaves isn't the only impediment to that, but because he can't PK, it gives Sully an excuse to play Kuhn every night which together makes our 4th line ineffective.

Sullivan doesn't have that excuse because Archibald is a very good PKer and generated a bunch of shorthanded chances in WBS.

So the Pens can still have a fast tenacious fourth line, but Kuhn is Sullivan's pet project, try-hard coal miner and he won't bench him. He hasn't had a point in his last 11 games, and this is a stretch where he got to ride shotgun with Malkin for a couple of games.

 

[SEALBound]

The only move I wish we did was convince Marchand to sign here.

We all knew that was a pipe dream. Just add him to another long list of wishful wingers for Sid. If he thought about leaving Boston for Pittsburgh, I truly think Boston would have really up'ed their offer to retain him. Not so much so that they can still have him but more so - so that Pittsburgh couldn't.

It's why free prospects and drafting well is super important, it's why I envy the Bolts so much, a lot of that team is from drafting well. It's funny, I remember a thread about Namestnikov and so many, so ****ing many Pens fans were like "Nah, we can do way better for a 3rd line C than Namestnikov!" and I never saw it that way, seeing a lot of Bolts games, the guy had talent for sure. Now everyone wants Karlsson, another kid in that same mold of a future talent.

This team is going to be hard pressed to trade for guys like that right now. Everyone speaks so matter of fact about being able to acquire Karlsson for a 1st, it won't happen. They have almost 26m in cap space next year with a boat load of players coming off the books as UFA's, their most notable RFA's are Karlsson and Theodore. They're beyond fine, unless we gave up Sprong for Karlsson (stupid imo), no chance.

But it sure is fun seeing Namestnikov do well, just for my own personal enjoyment as proof that some of the stat watchers here know jack ****.

I don't know who watched 2016 ECF and still says no to Namestnikov. He wasn't Kucherov but he was still a solid player for them. I see him as their Rust. Great depth player that'a worth more to them than the assets you'd get in return.

I really admire Tampa's willingness to take chances on the Russian players. Kuch, Name, Vasi are all important parts of their team that went later than they probably should have. Lots of other Europeans on there as well that are having an important impact like Palat and Hedman. It always seemed like Steve Y always took who he genuinely thought was BPA based on ability and nothing else. Certainly no North American bias there. Course he's always had a lot of picks and has been willing to move players...so there's that too. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND...he doesn't have two back to back Cups...so there's that angle as well, lol.

i promise you this has been said every year since i joined this forum and it has never been true

as soon as sid is in a position to succeed he will

Sid always is. This is a Sid-First organization. If Sid ain't happy, nobody is happy. I think 99/100 Sid will get the wingers he asks for. Case in point, I thought the best Sid has looked all year was with Sheary and Horny. Last game, back to Jake and Rust. What Sid wants, he gets. So I don't think Sid's woes are on anyone but Sid himself. He's not immune to criticism.

You aren't addressing me and some of this MIGHT be hindsight, but hey we get to do that here, but I would have liked to see JR pick a target on Vegas and pay the price. A lot of us wanted Karlsson this summer and people were throwing out 2nd+Wilson for him. I would like to think he'd have been a Penguin if he was available for that. I am hesitant to trade 1sts but we had a huge need at center and overpaying for a young guy with potential and RFA status would have been a pretty big coup.

Would a 1st+Simon (or something in that ballpark) have gotten it done this summer? No idea, but I would have preferred that deal over the Sheahan crap.

In theory, JR could have given Cullen a deadline, and then moved onto Moore (did Moore even want to come to Pittsburgh?). Just for fun, let's assume 1st+ Simon and Moore for 1.2MM.

Guentzel-Crosby-Rust
Hagelin-Malkin-Kessel
Sheary-Karlsson-Hornqvist
Wilson-Moore-Reaves
Kuhn-McKegg-Archi-Rowney

I think most people had their 3C list littered with Vegas centers. I wanted Karlsson bad. That's because I remember his play in the playoffs. I also wanted Lindberg. Haula seemed like more of a pipe dream. As did Faska. We all knew about Sheahan and had similar thoughts. When the reality of the situation began to set in, feelings changed. I remember jones'ing pretty bad for Schmidt. But then reality set in. Hunwick was actually 2nd on my list and I was happy we got him.

Point of this yammering is though, is that we don't always have "access" to the players we want. How many times has JR said in his tenure here "wait to see who becomes available"? I mean, if you were GMGM, you have to ice a line up...why move guys like Karlsson, Lindberg, or Haula? If I was able to get them, I wouldn't trade them right away either. And now that VGK are doing decent, I really wouldn't trade them. A lot of other teams operate the same way. So it's not just about value for value trades. Availability and long term roster building is important to 31 teams, not just 1 team. We know so little about what goes on behind closed doors. Who knows if they would have even given Moore a second thought if he was available? To criticize JR for the roster we currently have by saying "but we could have signed Moore and done these trades or signed this person" is incredibly short-sighted and in most cases, a bad argument because you (we) have so little access to the facts of the matter.

Now if someone on the inside spells out what the options were at the time and releases audio of phone calls between GMs...then there could be an objective debate of whether or not JR and Co did the right thing or not. That would even be tossing the fact that performance from year to year with players in the 1-2mil region tends to be a crap shoot.

I hate the targeted and malicious abuse that our superstars have taken over the years. I'm not talking about getting extra attention, or a couple more whacks with an opponents stick, or the odd borderline hit that every star has to get used to. I'm talking about the repeated, deliberate, potentially injurious **** that Dubinsky's been known for and Niskanen did in the playoffs last year...multiple cross-checks to the back, back of the head, face, etc...that were interpreted as "good defensive hockey" by NHL officiating from the top down.

We needed to take steps to get an answer for that. Reaves obviously won't stop everything but I expect that we'll see a sharp decline in the Dubinsky-esque shenanigans that Crosby's had to endure the last few years. He's the best at what he does and can play the game better than any player in his role to boot. For me Reaves was worth the cost as he provides some insurance against the amount of potential LTIR bumps our meal tickets take over the course of a year.

Now we can say that we've left absolutely no stone unturned when it comes to protecting our stars. We've lobbied the league, and when that didn't work we took matters into our own hands and acquired the best fighter/best playing fighter in the world.

Agreed. I don't know how people can watch the 2016 and 2017 playoffs, watch the abuse Sid and Geno (and everyone else) took, listened to the complaints of JR and Co, and then be shocked that they went out and got Reaves. That has little to do with building a lethal 4th line and everything to do with having a guy that will smash someone's face if they do something cheap. Won't prevent everything but at the very least, someone will have to answer for it unlike the last couple years. Sestito could have been that guy but he loses his head every now and then.

My issue with Reaves was more of the cost than the player. I just wish it hadn't been Sundqvist. Not saying he's the center that would solve all of our issues but I would have liked to have at least explored that option. Reaves+2nd for Kuhnhackl+1st would have been acceptable and made a lot more sense.

My other issue is that I don't believe Reaves needs to be a regular player for us. I think a 4th line of Kuhn-McKegg-Archi could be tried in several games. Run Reaves against CBJ, Philly, Jets, etc. There was no reason to put Reaves in against a team like the Canes, Hawks, etc.

 

[Tom Hanks]

Reaves is an eye for an eye type of move not a deterrent. I understand it, I just disagree with it. As Shady said it’s the playoffs when the opposition will take more liberties. If Crosby is in a vulnerable position in the playoffs his opponent won’t be thinking about Reaves at all, he’ll be thinking this could bring us closer to a cup.

Our chances for a threepeat would be better to stick with what we are good at. More offense. Reaves is the opposite of that.