- Dec 20, 2018
- 21,793
- 47,063
Pretty sure Rask outright said Boston or retirement and he’s having hip surgery so your hat is safe.
In my
Seattle has to draft at least nine defensemen, which is a lot, and Vegas had a big surplus of defensemen.
Vegas flipped four defensemen they got in the ED, Trevor van Riemsdyk, David Schlemko, Marc Mathot and Alexei Emelin, at or after the NHL Draft.
Both Jon Merrill and Griffin Reinhart were spare defensemen at the start of the year, sitting in the press box.
Reinhart went to the minors and then the KHL because he wasn’t a NHL player.* Edmonton continues the proud tradition of only having garbage on their Expansion Draft list this year.
Jon Merrill was the steal of the expansion draft and one of the biggest mistakes of Ray Shero’s professional career, or so I’ve been told. (And played 34 games in Vegas.)
*Fun Facts: 1) Trading a 2015 1st (#16) and 2015 (#53) for Reinhart, without any scouting on his AHL play, just the praise of his old Edm Oil Kings’s GM (“He’s a winner!”), was literally the first trade Peter Chiarelli made as the new Oilers GM. (See, he did address the defense, just not successfully.)
2) Boston got a 2017 2nd (EDM #53) for Chia, which they used to draft Jack Studnicka. (It was a conditional 2nd rounder from 2016 or 2017, it was Edmonton’s choice and Edmonton had the 2nd worst record in 2016 so it was an easy choice.) If a 2nd seems high it is, every other compensation pick was a 3rd except Canucks got a 2017 2nd (CBJ #55) for Torts from Jackets.
People seem to think the return of the compensation pick was a long time thing when it was only a dumb year long experiment that started on 1/1/15 and ended on 1/1/16, with eight total picks, three of which involved the Devils. It could have been four, but the Pens only got compensation for Hynes and waived it for Shero.
That’s right, if a team was hiring execs or coaches in 2015 it had a surcharge because the NHL was feeling creative. Hynes cost us 2016 3rd (NJD #72). We got a 2018 3rd (TOR #87), which we traded for Mojo, for Lou from the Leafs, and DeBoer got us a 2017 3rd (SJS #81 Walsh) from the Sharks.
There were only three other compensation picks: Toronto paid a 2017 3rd (TOR #79) to Detroit for Mike Babcock, who was hired on May 15, 2015, reportedly signed a 8 year deal worth 50m and was fired on Nov 20, 2019.
Edmonton paid a 2015 3rd (STL #84) to San Jose for Todd McLellan, who was hired on May 19, 2015, who reportedly signed a 5 year deal worth 15m and was fired on Nov 20, 2018.
Buffalo paid a 2016 3rd (VAN #64) to Pittsburgh for Dan Bylsma, who was hired on May 28, 2015, reportedly signed a five year (?) contract worth a certain amount of US dollars and was fired April 20, 2017.
The Dumb Rules
1)Only three positions warrant compensation: President of Hockey Operations, General Manager, and Head Coach.
2) If hired during the season, the compensation is a second-round draft pick.
3) If hired in the offseason, the compensation is a third-round draft pick.
4) For a General Manager of President of Hockey Operations, the offseason begins after the NHL Entry Draft.
5) For a Head Coach, the offseason begins after his team plays their final game of the season.
6) The hiring team has a three year window to give up the draft pick.
Chia was fired by Bruins on April 15, 2015 and hired by the Oilers on April 24, 2015. (Which was, amusingly, too early because it’s before the 2015 Draft because of the idiotic wording of the rule. We’re lucky the Pens didn’t demand a 2nd for Ray but my guess is that it was about $ and NJ wiped out their entire financial obligation to Shero. The Pens are cheap.)
Tortorella had been fired in Vancouver in May 2014, but Columbus fired Todd Richards early in 2015 and hired Torts on Oct 15, 2015. So both required 2nd round pick compensation.
I’m going on this weird random tangent because a) it’s what my brain does b) I forgot how much of a hilarious disaster this dumb “rule” was. It was far from new idea and it actually existed in some form until 2006 but, god damn, they f***ed it up big time in 2015 and everyone was super unhappy. (The Edmonton Press was particularly, let’s just say, a bit salty.)
The 2015 rule was supposed to protect executives and coaching talent that actually worked for teams from being poached. However when they wrote the rules they forgot to address the possibility of teams getting compensated for fired executives and coaches still under contract, even though those are who 1) mostly gets hired and 2) are the guys nobody wanted teams to get compensated for.
There were amusing articles about how Bill Daly said the rules “technically” allowed Boston to ask for compensation for Chai but that the Bruins probably wouldn’t because it would block him from getting hired, or because it wasn’t in the spirit of the rule or some shit. Surprise! They wanted their pick.
I had a pet theory that Bettman disliked the idea, but the GMs pushed for it, so the NHL gave the babies their bottles and Gary was content to see it quickly crash and burn. (You can watch Bettman announce that the rule is being cancelled but there’s no “amnesty” because it applied to all teams, so that makes it fair.)
I dug up this choice quote:
“What we were trying to do was provide an orderly way for young management people or coaches to be allowed to progress and move up the ladder,” Calgary Flames president of hockey operations Brian Burke said Tuesday after the board of governors meeting. “But a team that had skill at identifying young people would be compensated for it. It was never envisioned it would apply to terminated employees.”
Dude, how would it not be applied fired employees still under contract? How did that not come up when discussing this among the guys whose teams would be asking for those picks?(Jacobs is Mr NHL Board of Governors.) Good old Burkie.
NHL to eliminate executive compensation policy - Sportsnet.ca
