Salary Cap: The Salary Cap Thread | Nope, Still Nothing ...

[PensandCaps]

Is letting a player of Hornqvist's caliber and consistency go because of preconceived chemistry issues worth it?

Even if he is simply a power play weapon he is worth 4-5 million.

What winger outside of Jake and Kessel would you rather have here?

Sheary, Rust, Hags, etc are the players you let walk. Hornqvist is Kunitz when Kunitz got here in 2009 today.

Going forward.....I'd rather have Rust over Kessel.

 

[Gurglesons]

Going forward.....I'd rather have Rust over Kessel.

Well, that is terrible.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Everyone was wrong about the Schultz contract. People should just stop guessing what a player is gonna get.

People were pretty correct about the Sheary contract, though.

 

[Gurglesons]

People were pretty correct about the Sheary contract, though.

But Rust and Sheary are completely different in terms of how and who they've produced with and their worth to the team when they are not scoring.

 

[Riptide]

My question to you Emp is this - who are we replacing Horny with? There is legit nobody on this team that can replace Hornqvist.

Not putting down any of Sheary, Rust, Hags, Sprong, etc... but those guys all at least have a replaceable player among one another. Hornqvist is a guy we just simply do not have a replacement for.

Zero disagreement about this - absolutely none. But that doesn't mean we can just blindly sign him with term if the deal doesn't make sense. And I really struggle to see whatever deal he gets as one that makes sense for us to sign. Especially when you take into account that he's solely a RW (our deepest position) and that for whatever reason he doesn't play with Crosby or Malkin regularly.

If we're going to sign someone to a 5m+ contract, with term when they're 31 yrs old... doing so when in most realistic scenario's see's them on the 3rd line... I want that someone to be a center, not a winger.

 

[Gurglesons]

Zero disagreement about this - absolutely none. But that doesn't mean we can just blindly sign him with term if the deal doesn't make sense. And I really struggle to see whatever deal he gets as one that makes sense for us to sign. Especially when you take into account that he's solely a RW (our deepest position) and that for whatever reason he doesn't play with Crosby or Malkin regularly.

If we're going to sign someone to a 5m+ contract, with term when they're 31 yrs old... doing so when in most realistic scenario's see's them on the 3rd line... I want that someone to be a center, not a winger.

If they are signing Hornqvist long term, Sprong is likely the trade chip for the 3C.

Let's be real, would you be surprised to see Sprong move regardless?

 

[PensandCaps]

Well, that is terrible.

I view Rust as a Core piece. Not some role player we can easily replace.

 

[Empoleon8771]

But Rust and Sheary are completely different in terms of how and who they've produced with and their worth to the team when they are not scoring.

That's neither true or relevant. How can you imply that Sheary produced because of who he played with and not extend the same ot Rust? Both are used the same ways, they get ridiculous minutes with Crosby and Malkin. Rust does more outside of producing, but Sheary produces a lot more.

That's also not related to this discussion, because I was using that to show that people here have gotten contracts right recently. People over the summer were pretty close when it came to both Dumoulin and Sheary (or at least I was), I personally had Sheary at $3.33 million AAV and Dumoulin at $3.75 million AAV.

 

[PensandCaps]

People were pretty correct about the Sheary contract, though.

True. Guess it's easier to gauge what a forward will get than a Defenseman.

 

[Empoleon8771]

True. Guess it's easier to gauge what a forward will get than a Defenseman.

I don't remember what people expected from Dumoulin, but at least I didn't end up far from him. I was like $350k low with Dumoulin and $350k high with Sheary. I think people were wrong with Schultz because:

A. They assumed that he didn't care as much about money and more cared about staying in a good situation where he played well in.
B. He was pretty awful not that long ago, so he might not have the track record to get a lot of money over a lot of years.
C. He did make a lot of money right off the bat, seeing how he made like $3.75-$4 million a year with Edmonton.

It was a thought of "Schultz doesn't want to leave and get into another awful siuation like Edmonton, so he'll sign for a little less to stay here". It just didn't end up going that way, because Rutherford paid him what he thought he might get in arbitration. People here just made logical assumptions that ended up being wrong, because JR didn't want to gamble on him getting to arbitration. Looking back on it in hindsight, how could you really expect anything different? What would Schultz's agent say to Rutherford when he said "we like Schultz, but he sucked ass before he came here, so we want him to take less"?

 

[PensandCaps]

I remember most people thinking Dumo was getting 3.3-3.5 mil.

 

[Ogrezilla]

Yeah, McKegg playing as well as he has gives us some breathing room. If he can keep it up and we can keep winning, we can deal from a position of relative strength when a deal for a legit 3C comes along.

Nice surprise. Failing to get a 3C before the season had the potential to be pretty brutal for us.

even if it just ends with McKegg at 4C, it may be a blessing. I think Rowney had that 4C spot pretty much locked down going in to camp. If we have Bones (or another lock at 3C) I don't know that we'd have even brought Kegger in.

 

[cygnus47]

Zero disagreement about this - absolutely none. But that doesn't mean we can just blindly sign him with term if the deal doesn't make sense. And I really struggle to see whatever deal he gets as one that makes sense for us to sign. Especially when you take into account that he's solely a RW (our deepest position) and that for whatever reason he doesn't play with Crosby or Malkin regularly.

If we're going to sign someone to a 5m+ contract, with term when they're 31 yrs old... doing so when in most realistic scenario's see's them on the 3rd line... I want that someone to be a center, not a winger.

Agreed. We have RW depth and Horny is on the downturn of his career. Even if he has an element we can't replace, that doesn't mean he's necessary. He's going to fall off hard sooner than later.

 

[Shaffer]

Posted the Wilson+1st for Haula deal on trade board. Let’s see how this goes.

 

[Riptide]

Having PH as 3rd line RW is a great problem to have. You know he can slide up next to Sid any time we need that tenacity to close out a game, like we did the other day against the Caps. Sheary and Guentzel should both be on LW, and Rust can be there too. That makes room for both Kessel and Sprong in the top 9.

As much as I love Hags, there's no question between him and PH who we need to keep, IMO.

Until you have to give Guentzel his 4-5m raise into the 6m range. And until your #1 goalie goes from making 3.75m to 6m+. And until Rust goes from making 650k to 3m. Re-signing Schultz (or a replacement) will probably not be too much of a raise. And then there's still the fact that we do not have a cheap effective #3C (as damn near everyone on this board universally agree's that McKegg isn't likely a long term solution).

Yes having the talent that forces Hornqvist to the 3rd line is a nice problem to have. Until we're cap crunched and he's making 5m+. And then it becomes a question of whether he's really worth the cap hit when he's playing on the 3rd line.

And no, don't give me any BS about Kessel being there. Kessel on the 3rd line is an option to spread out scoring, not something done out of necessity because he doesn't fit anywhere else / no one wants to play with him.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

haha not you of course.

Just more speaking to the general tone around re-signing him. The majority (and this is me making **** up) seemed to be in the "give him 3 years or let him walk" category in the summer.

I've been guilty of painting Horny as the most expendable guy moving forward because he doesn't fit comfortably with Geno, the org is allergic to playing him with Sid for some reason, and the cap implications aren't pretty. But he's a really important cog.

It seems like it's going to come down to he and Kessel as to who we keep when Guentzel needs a new deal.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

even if it just ends with McKegg at 4C, it may be a blessing. I think Rowney had that 4C spot pretty much locked down going in to camp. If we have Bones (or another lock at 3C) I don't know that we'd have even brought Kegger in.

True. If McKegg can keep playing anything like this, we lucked out.

 

[Riptide]

I have been thinking about this: Why not put Sheary on fourth line and help create offense? Creates depth and a Sheary-McKeeg/Rowney-Reaves line could actually be good. And it allows Sprong to be called up once/if we trade Wilson+1st for Haula.

Because you're A) not going to be giving him enough support to really take advantage of it, and B) because you're not going to be giving him enough minutes to take advantage of it.

It's fine to do that when he's seen as a middle 6 winger making 600k... significantly less fine when he's seen as a top 6 winger making 3m.

 

[Riptide]

Whatever. Schultz was going to get around 4 according to most here. I don't see Rust taking a penny under 3.5 on a short term deal and likely getting exactly what Hags got 4x4 with a modified NTC.

Yeah I remember how absurd that was at the time (Schultz). One of the things playing against Rust (just like with Sheary) is that not only will the sample size be fairly small, so has been his past compensation. Rust's total career earnings - including the ~500k in playoff bonuses is by the end of this season is going to be between 2.1-2.4m. So just like we saw with Sheary (and many others)... he will want to sign something that gives him some long term security that will not max him out. If he bets on himself, takes a 1 yr deal (his final RFA year) and bombs it, he's screwed. Sure he'll still have a job and all that, but he won't be getting offers for 2m+ as a free agent. This is why as a 26 yr old RFA this summer he'll likely sign a 3-5 yr deal worth 2.75-3.5m. Not because that's going to guarantee him the most money... but because it guarantee's him his long term financial security. It's the same reason why Sheary, Brown and Hyman all signed the deal's they did - not because it's the best deal for them... but because doing so gave the financial security they did not currently have, and likely would not have for another few years. If things don't pan out in the future... sucks, but they have a few million in the bank, and life overall is significantly easier for them long term.

It's the same reason why Maatta and all those other young kids signed the long term deals they did after their ELCs. Could they have made more? Yes. But is that little gain potentially worth not getting anything at all if shit goes down hill? Most would say no.

 

[Riptide]

Going forward.....I'd rather have Rust over Kessel.

Kessel? No. But given ages and what their respective contracts will be, if I can only keep one of Rust or Hornqvist, I'd go with Rust.

 

[Ogrezilla]

I don't remember people thinking Schultz would be around 4. I remember thinking he'd be somewhere in the 4s. Still off, but I figured the tip half of 4s.

 

[Riptide]

I remember most people thinking Dumo was getting 3.3-3.5 mil.

Only some of us. I had created a thread on back in June on what we thought these guys were going to get.
http://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/predict-our-contracts-and-maf.2356497/

Looking at those who posted ~25 or so, I see a bunch that had Dumoulin around 4m. And guys who had Sheary around 3m. Most however were off on Schultz. I was the closest with my high end at 5.3m.

 

[Andy99]

I remember thinking that Dumo and Schultz got about $500k more than people thought. But what was surprising about Schultz I think was the term, as I think most of us expected it would be 5 years

As far as Hornqvist IMO it will come down to him or Kessel once it comes time for Jake's and Murray's contracts. In fact, I think the team will sign Jake this summer if he doesn't regress. Once they have a better idea what they'll be pay ing out, I think a decision will be made on Hornqvist. I don't see him being traded during the season. If they decide to re-sign Horny, they'll look to trade Kessel. Just my guess

 

[ColePens]

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