Hi Folks. Long-time reader/lurker diving in on a slow Friday afternoon! Been a Sharks fan since 91 and going into year 4 of being an STH. Hoping to have some fun and, no doubt, lively discussions in shared suffering with you fine people.
Built a roster in CapFriendly ($83M cap) based on the following assumptions:
-EK65 bails; DW lands Duchene as consolation
-Braun, Dell, Melker all traded for picks/prospects with no retention or salary coming back
-I did not consider/plan for the expansion draft
-Timo and Banker sign 2-yr bridge deals, a Ch-prospect makes the jump
-Heed and Ryan are brought back on affordable deals, PDB actually plays them, and they are replacement level
-Suomela brought back and is a replacement level 3rd liner (likely the biggest stretch here)
-Jumbo takes big discount and stays for $1.2M
Roster:
Meier (4.5M) – Duchene (9.2M) – Pavelski (5.0M)
Kane (7.0M) – Hertl (5.625M) – Ch-something (0.8M)
Labanc (3.25M) – Couture (8.0M) – Suomela (1.2M)
Radil (0.7M) – Thornton (1.2M) – Sorensen (1.5M)
Goodrow (0.925M) – True (0.8M)
Simek (0.675M) – Burns (8.0M)
Vlasic (7.0M) – Heed (1.2M)F
Dillon (3.25M) – Ryan (1.0M)
Middleton (0.735M)
Jones (5.75M) - McElhinney (1.8M)
Cap Used: $80,486,667
Cap Space: $2,513,333
Some thoughts/concerns:
-The Defense. Don’t love it. Can someone decent be had in FA for ~3M to replace Ryan or Heed? Or trade Dillon+ for a marginal upgrade that someone else might be moving due to a logjam/cap crunch? Can trade Dillon instead of Braun depending on preference.
-Goaltending. I know McElhenney had a good season in CAR, but he is 35. Could he be had that cheap on a 1-2 yr deal to be backup or 1B if none of our prospects are ready? I’m, for some reason, optimistic that last season was the worst Jones we’ll get for a couple seasons.
-Pavs. I don’t love the idea of giving him term, but I assumed someone offered him a Marleau contract (18.75M over 3yrs) and DW countered with a frontloaded/signing bonus-ed 20M over 4yrs and Pavs says yes because he’s awesome. Brings down cap hit, still under 35 so if he retires it’s fine. If not him, do we try to keep Nyquist? Go after someone like Ferland? I know those aren't equal to Pavs but are options in the same price range.
-Wishful thinking on contracts (likely)? If these players are good enough the $2.5 in cap space can be sprinkled around to be more realistic.
-Suomela. Even if he can be a replacement level 4th liner, he and Sorensen can swap depending on who is hot. Doubt this would/should happen. Could take a flyer on someone in FA for ~2M as a 3rd line winger. Could bring back Donskoi here @ ~3.2M? Might we just keep Melker and ride that straight to hell? Looking at it now I think that whole RW side is a problem.
-I feel that in general there’s not enough upgrade over last year’s roster to move the needle. It would take that forward group being as dominant as I can imagine them being and Boughner having a marked positive effect on the D play to really get there. Also better goaltending, but I can’t imagine it getting worse than last year…
aDSAnyway, thought I’d give it a go. I promise not to have walls of text in the future. Cheers!