Interesting! I don't think I hate it.
Get him some NHL time.
EDIT: My guess at the pairings.
McNabb-Schmidt
Theodore-Whitecloud
Holden Engelland
Merrill
I think if he's up it's to replace Engo who was awful last game.
Engelland wasn't as bad as Merrill.
Engelland had his player covered on both goals that went in, if anyone was to blame it was Merrill.
It's either to showcase him because he is on the trading block or he needs to fill Hague's spot because Hague is being traded.
Doubt that, probably they want to get Hague's confidence and game back in Chicago. Said it before, no point in keeping a rookie in the NHL and having him sit games out unless its a short stint for the coaches to see him and work with him. Keeping him as the 6.5 D-man makes no sense, better to be #1 in Chicago.
Trying to save cap $$
Would anyone be so kind to explain to me how this Cap/ AHL send down thing works? Like how much more Cap do we get when we send say Hague down and how much Cap are we expected to have by deadline?
Pretty simple, every player salary is calculated to a daily amount and those amounts don't count tomorrow. These two aren't making much, but you can only send down a handful of players so they do what they can. They only have "saved" a little over $100k of cap and probably wont get to much over $150k come deadline time. Since there is only about a quarter of the season left then that equates to having about $600k in extra space to use. It's not really much, requires almost any trade to have some salary go back the other way, so can't pick up an NHL player for just picks or a prospect and that's why you hear about some higher priced players being mentioned as part of a potential deal
Thanks. This makes me think Whitecloud was being showcased even more now.
I don't know if that's totally correct because Granger on the Athletic listed Vegas as having the equivalent of over 2M right now and about 4M at the deadline.
I am happy too that Whitecloud finally got his chance in the big club. I felt in love to his play in Calder Cup playoffs and he definitely did not disappointed me against Nashville. When it comes to penalty killing it was in fact his only weak part yesterday. He got a little bit PK time when Merrill was in the penalty box in the second period but in the short time he was not able to block shots and one-timers from his side so he needs to develop his positioning in the next games if he wants to get more PK time.I'm glad they finally gave him a shot. They should have done this last year with him & Coghlan, maybe they would have been less stressed in camp.
As far as trades go, he played well, and this decreases the desperation for a RD that can kill penalties. At least a little bit.
There is more value in seeing how he looks with the team than there is in showcasing him.
If he looks good enough that his value increases when showcasing him, then why not keep him?
Some of the trade ideas I’ve seen could turn out really badly and will cost us. At least with Whitecloud we can try him out, see how he looks and we don’t need to ship out any drafts picks or players.