Speculation: What to do with Forsberg?

[Bringer of Jollity]

It's not a non-starter and was always possible. Just because you and Poile wouldn't have the guts to do it doesn't mean it's not possible. Yall worry about how the other guys feel too much. Worrying about how the players feel is how we ended up with this team and coach to start with.

I agree it's not a non-starter. I think there is a reasonable position to take on either side of the "do we trade Forsberg at the deadline" argument and both are convincing. I wish we had moved him because I'd be very surprised to see him re-sign at this point regardless of what anyone has said (or not said) and what we can afford versus what others can. This is going to be one of those that the signing is announced and we all stand around dumbly saying "what the hell? we could have offered him a way better contract than that!"

 

[Scoresberg]

Edit: Something I don't see mentioned at all, maybe the issue isn't contract at all, maybe the issue is Hynes. It is just as possible that Forsberg doesn't care for playing for him and he was waiting to see what Poile would do. Once Poile kept him around he made his decision. I get he had his best season under him, but it was also a contract year, so yeah.

After seeing Avs have their way with us, can you blame him?

 

[Predsanddead24]

Ultimately if we lose Forsberg for nothing after a season where we narrowly made the playoffs and then got swept would be a major failure on Poile's part. At every step of the way I think you can justify Poile's decision (i.e. not trading him at the deadline last year, or in the offseason, or at this year's deadline), but holding on to a high value piece and then losing him when all you have to show for it as a team is a mediocre regular season is an objectively poor choice. Given that he is part of the negotiations Poile should have had a handle on what potential scenarios could play out moreso than we do here and made sure he made a choice that didn't end with Forsberg walking as a free agent

 

[Bringer of Jollity]

Ultimately if we lose Forsberg for nothing after a season where we narrowly made the playoffs and then got swept would be a major failure on Poile's part. At every step of the way I think you can justify Poile's decision (i.e. not trading him at the deadline last year, or in the offseason, or at this year's deadline), but holding on to a high value piece and then losing him when all you have to show for it as a team is a mediocre regular season is an objectively poor choice. Given that he is part of the negotiations Poile should have had a handle on what potential scenarios could play out moreso than we do here and made sure he made a choice that didn't end with Forsberg walking as a free agent

Within the context the decision was made we didn't look like a team that was going to be swept, we rather looked like a team that could give even a top seed a rough time in the first round (and at that point were still in the race for a 2-3 seed). While I was in favor of trading him then, I can't really fault Poile additionally because the team took a nosedive after the deadline. I think "failure" is too harsh an assessment. Had we traded Forsberg and then missed the playoffs entirely (as were close to a "lock" at that stage to make it) most of us would have been equally pissed at that outcome.

 

[Olderfan]

Forsberg is good for Preds. And some teams will want him. But he’s probably not as highly regarded as we might think. Certainly not $9.5 or $10.0M worth long term.

 

[weeze]

Forsberg is good for Preds. And some teams will want him. But he’s probably not as highly regarded as we might think. Certainly not $9.5 or $10.0M worth long term.

I think most fans don't believe he worth that much, however I think he thinks he is. Therein lies the problem/challenge GMDP will have.

If he resigns at say 8x9.5 then the Preds will have 2 $9M players to go along with 2 $8M players for a team that barely made the playoffs. That's a lot of chedda for 4 players. Throw in Jusse or Granlund and that becomes (almost) HALF of your salary cap with FIVE players. I am not saying don't do it but spending that kind of $$ on 5 players better get you more than just making the playoffs and getting swept in the first round.

 

[Olderfan]

I think most fans don't believe he worth that much, however I think he thinks he is. Therein lies the problem/challenge GMDP will have.

If he resigns at say 8x9.5 then the Preds will have 2 $9M players to go along with 2 $8M players for a team that barely made the playoffs. That's a lot of chedda for 4 players. Throw in Jusse or Granlund and that becomes (almost) HALF of your salary cap with FIVE players. I am not saying don't do it but spending that kind of $$ on 5 players better get you more than just making the playoffs and getting swept in the first round.

True. I think signing Forsberg for $9.5x8 is a worse failure than letting him go for nothing in return.

 

[Armourboy]

I agree it's not a non-starter. I think there is a reasonable position to take on either side of the "do we trade Forsberg at the deadline" argument and both are convincing. I wish we had moved him because I'd be very surprised to see him re-sign at this point regardless of what anyone has said (or not said) and what we can afford versus what others can. This is going to be one of those that the signing is announced and we all stand around dumbly saying "what the hell? we could have offered him a way better contract than that!"

I'm not sold that we are going to feel like that simply because I think the number is probably going to look dumb. Now where it gets interesting is when you fo the math and find out he left money on the table to leave. I really don't think this is gonna be a case where we find out Poile is only offering 8 x 8.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

It's not a non-starter and was always possible. Just because you and Poile wouldn't have the guts to do it doesn't mean it's not possible. Yall worry about how the other guys feel too much. Worrying about how the players feel is how we ended up with this team and coach to start with.

"Guts", lol. Poile lives in the real world and doesn't run a fantasy league hockey pool team here. You're just fooling yourselves if you fall into the trap of thinking like that.

 

[Armourboy]

"Guts", lol. Poile lives in the real world and doesn't run a fantasy league hockey pool team here. You're just fooling yourselves if you fall into the trap of thinking like that.

Trap of what? Thinking your GM is about to lose another star player for absolutely nothing? Just who is the fool here?

 

[BigFatCat999]

If Forsberg is asking for 10.5 mil, walk away. For that money, Poile can make a trade for Taylor Hall (6 Mil, trading some cheap youth) and Vlad Namestikov (4.5 mil my guess) and maybe Poile gets a couple couple 100k in negotiations. and still have 11+mil to play with.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Trap of what? Thinking your GM is about to lose another star player for absolutely nothing? Just who is the fool here?

The trap of thinking a real NHL GM of a real NHL team with real money involved and real stakeholders to answer to is going to make moves like he's just some fanboy in a fantasy league. The way a lot of people around here seem to think.

a) He's almost certainly not going to lose Forsberg and all you guys are panicking needlessly on that front. But okay, it's the off-season, I get folks are getting bored with nothing else to talk about.

b) It's impossible to lose him for absolutely nothing. The team barely made the playoffs, and wouldn't have without Forsberg. They made it and got those gates. If he walks, they've also got an extra $9M worth of Cap space to spend on players who should be able to replace some large part of Forsberg's contribution.

 

[Armourboy]

The trap of thinking a real NHL GM of a real NHL team with real money involved and real stakeholders to answer to is going to make moves like he's just some fanboy in a fantasy league. The way a lot of people around here seem to think.

a) He's almost certainly not going to lose Forsberg and all you guys are panicking needlessly on that front. But okay, it's the off-season, I get folks are getting bored with nothing else to talk about.

b) It's impossible to lose him for absolutely nothing. The team barely made the playoffs, and wouldn't have without Forsberg. They made it and got those gates. If he walks, they've also got an extra $9M worth of Cap space to spend on players who should be able to replace some large part of Forsberg's contribution.

You sound alot like others when Suter walked but we shall see.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

You sound alot like others when Suter walked but we shall see.

The Suter and Vesey PTSD that some people carry around is another thing I can't understand. Just because those happened doesn't mean we need to run around in a panic every time a similar potential situation arises.

 

[101st_fan]

Obviously, we need to start preparing for the time after Forsberg. Losing him will essentially render us a lottery-pick team and probably forces Poile to do a more wide-scaled rebuild.

If that happens, I think you look to move Johansen as well. Lots of teams are looking for 2C this summer, and retaining some of Joey's money, you could get a decent package for him.

Either him or Granlund, but I would think other teams would covet Joey more than Granlund when addressing center needs.

I can't see anyone taking Duchene's contract still even after the year he just had.

Duchene - Granlund - Jeannot
Trenin - Sissons - Kunin?
Tolvanen - Glass - Tomasino
X - Novak/McCarron - Olivier

Why put the qualifier to mitigate any risk ? A lottery pick .. yes or no.

 

[Softball99]

So, the video of Fil at CMA... His agent sets this up to get the crowd to convince Poile to give him what he wants.. The crowd gives a response of... He ain't Josi or Pekka or Shea... The largest contracts of their time in the organization. Dutch has more points and Josi is flirting witch league records. I believe that Poile has attached dollar figures to levels of protection 8 full, 8.5 modified, 9 none, for example. While Fil's on his Honeymoon said agent is going to see how insane other teams are and the weekend before free agency starts Fil tells Poile what he's doing. I think everything but CMA has been agreed to before the playoffs.

 

[Flgatorguy87]

If Poile had an idea of what Forsberg was demanding long before the deadline, and he continued to hold to his guns then why can we not be frustrated that we didn't look at trade options? Some of us firmly believed we were a fringe playoff team that had very little to prove even if we squeaked in. That was proven correct, and still some say "at least we made the playoffs" as if there was some level of enjoyment of getting our heads caved in. The goal posts keep moving in all these arguments. I have no issues with Forsberg not resigning here, but I think Poile gave a poor assessment of our team if he thought making the playoffs was enough to let Forsberg walk for nothing. To me he needed to be traded or Poile had to feel confident he had a legit shot at resigning him for a price he could live with. Maybe that still happens, but it's looking less likely. At this point I'm not sure if I want Poile to overpay and we see probably several years of bad contract or we let him walk and deal with the 4 game parting gift he gave us of value for keeping him on the team.

 

[Bringer of Jollity]

If Poile had an idea of what Forsberg was demanding long before the deadline, and he continued to hold to his guns then why can we not be frustrated that we didn't look at trade options? Some of us firmly believed we were a fringe playoff team that had very little to prove even if we squeaked in. That was proven correct, and still some say "at least we made the playoffs" as if there was some level of enjoyment of getting our heads caved in. The goal posts keep moving in all these arguments. I have no issues with Forsberg not resigning here, but I think Poile gave a poor assessment of our team if he thought making the playoffs was enough to let Forsberg walk for nothing. To me he needed to be traded or Poile had to feel confident he had a legit shot at resigning him for a price he could live with. Maybe that still happens, but it's looking less likely. At this point I'm not sure if I want Poile to overpay and we see probably several years of bad contract or we let him walk and deal with the 4 game parting gift he gave us of value for keeping him on the team.

I don't think Poile thought just making the playoffs was enough to let Forsberg walk for nothing. I think one could have reasonably projected at that time that, while we may not have won a round, our chances of doing so based on our play up to that point gave us a reasonable enough chance. I also don't know he would have retained Forsberg if he knew there was a significant chance he couldn't re-sign him. A lot of the goalpost moving is because of hindsight at our playoff performance (and how we ended the season) and where the extension is right now (stalled? nowhere? taking a pause? who knows?). Like I said, I think there's a lot of reasonable discussion around the parameters we knew at the time, but going back and saying we definitely should have done X because we sucked from that point on or that it's a few weeks to free agency with no extension in sight is reactionary based on hindsight (and we're obviously all experts in hindsight).

 

[BigFatCat999]

OK, Forsberg at 10.5 mil or Taylor Hall at 6 mil + Namestinkov/FA who fits Hynes scheme at 4.5 mil

 

[Flgatorguy87]

Defensively we had literally fallen off a cliff. I'm still not sure what the hell happened but we were hemorrhaging goals in a category by ourselves, not just playoff teams.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Defensively we had literally fallen off a cliff. I'm still not sure what the hell happened but we were hemorrhaging goals in a category by ourselves, not just playoff teams.

But circa the trade deadline it should not have been expected that could continue. At that time we had come off a light Feb schedule and could think of it as a little slump that the team should surely be able to figure out how to get out of and return to the level of November to January play. That’s what you have to hope for/expect anyway.

That they didn’t figure things out subsequently is more why some of us were leery about extending Hynes than anything to do with Forsberg.

 

[Olderfan]

OK, Forsberg at 10.5 mil or Taylor Hall at 6 mil + Namestinkov/FA who fits Hynes scheme at 4.5 mil

Right. See, that’s one if my problems. Rather have Forsberg or $80M or so over 7-8 years? There is a point where letting him walk is the best option for the Preds now. $9M to $10M just sounds like too much committed for 8 years. Although I’m skeptical of Hall but like the theory.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

If Hall was a UFA and ready to sign 4x$6M, that'd be one thing. But I don't know that his 20 goals are any better than the actual UFAs on the market that we can pursue instead... without having to trade assets for a player who has a NMC.

Let's see what we can do on the UFA market first, then if we somehow strike out, ok, we could start thinking about trades as a last resort.

 

[Bringer of Jollity]

If Hall was a UFA and ready to sign 4x$6M, that'd be one thing. But I don't know that his 20 goals are any better than the actual UFAs on the market that we can pursue instead... without having to trade assets for a player who has a NMC.

Let's see what we can do on the UFA market first, then if we somehow strike out, ok, we could start thinking about trades as a last resort.

Likely more coincidence than anything meaningful, but this would be Hall's 6th team in 8 seasons. It feels like it says something that he keeps ending up on fringe competitive teams rather than true contenders and that (he's 30 now, so it's understandable at this point, but less so previously) several of those teams preferred getting draft assets for him to building around him.

 

[Predsanddead24]

Within the context the decision was made we didn't look like a team that was going to be swept, we rather looked like a team that could give even a top seed a rough time in the first round (and at that point were still in the race for a 2-3 seed). While I was in favor of trading him then, I can't really fault Poile additionally because the team took a nosedive after the deadline. I think "failure" is too harsh an assessment. Had we traded Forsberg and then missed the playoffs entirely (as were close to a "lock" at that stage to make it) most of us would have been equally pissed at that outcome.

I definitely agree that you can justify Poile's decision making at any individual point, but I think by holding on to Forsberg he was also committing him to paying whatever his market rate was. Since Poile has been in negotiations he knows what that number is far better than I do. End of the day even though we had some stretches where we looked quite good in each of the last two seasons it would have been a big surprise for us to make it past the first round of the playoffs and the results bore that out. We weren't true contenders and if you knew Forsberg leaving as a free agent was a good possibility based on early negotiations I think he should have made moves accordingly.