Around the League 20 - Well.... we're waiting

[bleedgreen]

At this point I just want next season to start as close to normal as possible, if it can. The thought that we’re going to jack it all up just to force this to happen really isn’t palatable to me.

Click to read more...

 

[cptjeff]

On the AJC.com comments section about the story when it was announced the Thrashers would relocate, there were a lot of dumb takes from Winnipeg fans but the one that really took the cake was the guy who said that Atlanta didn't deserve NHL Hockey because everyone living there was born with a lasso in their hands and knows nothing outside rodeo. Yep, Atlanta, that country/cowboy city .

The Jets as a team I'm fine with, I like their roster and do appreciate what Maurice did here even if it ended poorly both times. Their fans here at HF are cool too, most of them anyways. But yeah I know what you're talking about, those people on the AJC.com comment section and elsewhere can go f*** themselves.

In the years leading up to the Thrashers relocation, things were not nearly as rosy on HF as they might be now. They were very, very nasty, and the institutional powers at HF often played an active role in protecting that nastiness. I think that's as close to the line as I'm willing to toe.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

In the years leading up to the Thrashers relocation, things were not nearly as rosy on HF as they might be now. They were very, very nasty, and the institutional powers at HF often played an active role in protecting that nastiness. I think that's as close to the line as I'm willing to toe.

Someone could post, in complete sincerity, the opinion that Gary Bettman hated Canada, I mean held a deep personal hatred of Canada, and a not insignificant amount of posters would not bat an eye.

 

[bleedgreen]

To me, the Skjei trade is beneficial for the Expansion Draft, because it means that even if we lose one of our defensemen (probably one of Skjei/Gardiner/Fleury/Bean), they will have loads of other LH defensive talent to pick up the slack. As long as our club doesn't go full Florida, it's our FO that will be in the driver's seat when Seattle rolls by. Remember, Seattle can only pick one player off of our roster.

Giving up a first for Skjei and then losing him in the expansion draft would be a pretty colossal gaffe and poor asset management. We were probably going to lose one of Fleury or Bean anyways so I guess we have to accept that.

 

[Svechhammer]

If we do lose the first round, we have a 1 in 8 chance of getting a generational winger. 2 years after we just drafted another generational winger.

A core of Aho, Turbo, Svech, Laf, Dougie, Slavin, and Pesce would have us as one of, if not the best team in the Eastern Conference for a long period of time. That's a core that would win you multiple cups with even marginal goaltending backing it up. And that's before considering one of our many other assets, like Bean, Suzuki, Rees, Tieksola, etc could end up panning out as expected.

So... we have the chance of that happening going for us. Which is nice

 

[Svechhammer]

Also, over on the main board, someone was talking about how the last few years the draft has been rigged...and said that Carolina moved up 9 spots to get Svech to save us from relocation...

I have always thought that we got the #2 overall, not to save us from relocation, but because it was an under the table condition of the purchase agreement of the organization.

 

[A Star is Burns]

Giving up a first for Skjei and then losing him in the expansion draft would be a pretty colossal gaffe and poor asset management. We were probably going to lose one of Fleury or Bean anyways so I guess we have to accept that.

It wouldn't be great asset management, but this is the same issue we run into with some people doing the accounting on the Hamilton trade. With that trade, when we realized Ferland wouldn't likely be back midseason, people started removing him from the trade equation all together. But that neglects the fact that we got a season of value for him, including breaking a postseason drought.

If we end up getting two postseason (whatever that means this year) runs out of Skjei and then lose him, that would chip away at a large portion of the value of the first we gave up that was essentially a free first anyways (even if it's not the literal first that we ultimately ended up trading for him, it amounts to something we were able to do cause we had the extra).

Again, I agree it wouldn't be ideal, but we'd still be getting to protect the guys we care about most and have gotten a player for you hope a couple of runs. Also, it wouldn't be impossible to trade him for enough value to make up the difference of not getting the extra 3 years before the expansion draft.

If we do lose the first round, we have a 1 in 8 chance of getting a generational winger. 2 years after we just drafted another generational winger.

A core of Aho, Turbo, Svech, Laf, Dougie, Slavin, and Pesce would have us as one of, if not the best team in the Eastern Conference for a long period of time. That's a core that would win you multiple cups with even marginal goaltending backing it up. And that's before considering one of our many other assets, like Bean, Suzuki, Rees, Tieksola, etc could end up panning out as expected.

So... we have the chance of that happening going for us. Which is nice

Yeah, I mentioned this in the draft thread when people were playing around with trades. If you get this type of player, added to what we already have, for 3 years on ELC, you are poised to kill it even with average goaltending. If we somehow use all the assets we have at that point to get a good goalie, look out.

 

[bleedgreen]

It wouldn't be great asset management, but this is the same issue we run into with some people doing the accounting on the Hamilton trade. With that trade, when we realized Ferland wouldn't likely be back midseason, people started removing him from the trade equation all together. But that neglects the fact that we got a season of value for him, including breaking a postseason drought.

If we end up getting two postseason (whatever that means this year) runs out of Skjei and then lose him, that would chip away at a large portion of the value of the first we gave up that was essentially a free first anyways (even if it's not the literal first that we ultimately ended up trading for him, it amounts to something we were able to do cause we had the extra).

Again, I agree it wouldn't be ideal, but we'd still be getting to protect the guys we care about most and have gotten a player for you hope a couple of runs. Also, it wouldn't be impossible to trade him for enough value to make up the difference of not getting the extra 3 years before the expansion draft.



Yeah, I mentioned this in the draft thread when people were playing around with trades. If you get this type of player, added to what we already have, for 3 years on ELC, you are poised to kill it even with average goaltending. If we somehow use all the assets we have at that point to get a good goalie, look out.

The Hamilton trade is difficult because we gave up two top five picks (whether you liked them or not) who were cost controlled and in their early 20’s. Those are gold these days. That’s what you build around and expect overpayment to move even if you have some doubts about them long term. It’s ok to trade them, but what comes back is important obviously. To trade such valuable pieces for maybe’s and hopes is definitely questionable. We knew we were getting Dougie and that goes a long way for value, and your point about the time served makes a lot of sense with him. We get him for a period of time and he may be gone after that but we got value there. I don’t argue that. Ferland provided some brief value but it doesn’t close the gap enough, and they did the best they could with Fox but they clearly didn’t know something that seemingly everyone else knew. There’s also the whole change for the sake of change, the way we kicked those two out the door....blah blah blah. There were a lot of ins and out and what have you’s in that trade. In the end tying it to the Skjei trade is muddying the waters.

The value of the Hamilton trade is Hamilton and the rest is “we did the best we could”. I’ll always have a raised eyebrow at that introduction to the new team, but that’s irrelevant to the Skjei trade in the end. The Skjei trade seems to be equal parts of a) injuries and b) we could use someone long term to do the job we hired Jake for. That only really works if we keep him to do that job for awhile and that having him there doesn’t hurt us with the draft more than it should’ve. We won’t know that until it happens so not need to get into arguments about it. All hypothetical till then, and by then maybe we’ll know if there was a plan for that when they acquired Skjei.

 

[Lempo]

I have always thought that we got the #2 overall, not to save us from relocation, but because it was an under the table condition of the purchase agreement of the organization.

"And now, good audience, us with a stake in this $5 Billion business go perform this lottery with a serious effect on our product to that another room over there, and will soon return to tell you the result."

 

[HisIceness]

In the years leading up to the Thrashers relocation, things were not nearly as rosy on HF as they might be now. They were very, very nasty, and the institutional powers at HF often played an active role in protecting that nastiness. I think that's as close to the line as I'm willing to toe.

Yeah I remember that. When I first joined this site, the Phoenix threads were all the rage at BoH. Then came the news that the Thrashers were in trouble and like vultures, they all flew over to the new topic.

Then about 4 years later it was our "turn" to get picked at.

 

[DaveG]

But a cable guy is a valid and completely impeccable source guys.

Damn did I ever hate the completely biased cesspool that was BoH from basically a year after the 05 lockout. First the Nashville rumors and damn near sale to the BlackBerry jackass, then Phoenix, then the Atlanta situation. Sad thing is a lot of the supposed insiders there when any of those rumors or the rumors around either us or the Panthers would pop up were never held to any kind of real scrutiny.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

I remember the cycle of relocation rumors.

'Canes play Montreal.

Montreal journalists can't be bothered to do their job and follow a team as uninteresting as the Hurricanes enough to have an opinion actually worthy of a paycheck

I know! Text contact in 'Canes org: "Hey, what do things look like for the teams future in Raleigh?"

"I don't know, I'm just the color guy, they won't even give me the players' phone numbers"

HURRICANES FUTURE IN RALEIGH UNCERTAIN!!!!!1

 

[Svechhammer]

I remember the cycle of relocation rumors.

'Canes play Montreal.

Montreal journalists can't be bothered to do their job and follow a team as uninteresting as the Hurricanes enough to have an opinion actually worthy of a paycheck

I know! Text contact in 'Canes org: "Hey, what do things look like for the teams future in Raleigh?"

"I don't know, I'm just the color guy, they won't even give me the players' phone numbers"

HURRICANES FUTURE IN RALEIGH UNCERTAIN!!!!!1

Every damn year. Every. Damn. Year.

And like f***ing clockwork, those same media hacks came out of the woodwork to try and trash this region again when the offer sheet happened, only for Dundon to very publicly dunk on them all in a press conference. I hope QC never gets a team again.

 

[TheReelChuckFletcher]

Giving up a first for Skjei and then losing him in the expansion draft would be a pretty colossal gaffe and poor asset management. We were probably going to lose one of Fleury or Bean anyways so I guess we have to accept that.

It depends. If we make it to the Cup Finals in one of these two seasons and win it all, I would say that was a first round pick well-spent, just like Doug Weight in 2006. Otherwise, sure, I can agree that it's not the best asset-management in the world. I stand by my original theory, though, that Skjei was acquired for this postseason to replace Pesce and to give Gards some competition to get him out of his slump. No one outside of crazy tinfoil nuts thought that COVID would delay the postseason enough that Pesce could potentially be back before Game 1. Again, my thoughts is that if Skjei and Gardiner both perform well this postseason and we go deep once again, that the FO will pick the one with less trade value as the one to keep (likely Gardiner) and deal the other in the off-season.

 

[tarheelhockey]

To be fair, in retrospect we really were close to a crisis moment with Karmanos.

Imagine a timeline where Tom Dundon is too busy scamming car buyers to consider buying this franchise. I'm really not sure what the next step would have been after that, but it would have been an ugly chapter even in the best case scenario. Maybe we cobble together a local ownership group which keeps us alive on a shoestring budget. Maybe not. Either way, by 2020 we'd be staring down the barrel of relocation.

This doesn't justify all the B.S. that was thrown around back then, by people who couldn't possibly have known the inside of Karmanos' finances. But they weren't entirely wrong about us being on the knife's edge for a few years. They were just dumb enough to buy into speculative reasoning about it.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

To be fair, in retrospect we really were close to a crisis moment with Karmanos.

Imagine a timeline where Tom Dundon is too busy scamming car buyers to consider buying this franchise. I'm really not sure what the next step would have been after that, but it would have been an ugly chapter even in the best case scenario. Maybe we cobble together a local ownership group which keeps us alive on a shoestring budget. Maybe not. Either way, by 2020 we'd be staring down the barrel of relocation.

This doesn't justify all the B.S. that was thrown around back then, by people who couldn't possibly have known the inside of Karmanos' finances. But they weren't entirely wrong about us being on the knife's edge for a few years. They were just dumb enough to buy into speculative reasoning about it.

It's not that they were right about it. It's that they were gleeful about it.

Which makes it all the sweeter as the franchise continues its ascent.

 

[tarheelhockey]

It's not that they were right about it. It's that they were gleeful about it.

Which makes it all the sweeter as the franchise continues its ascent.

Absolutely.

 

[A Star is Burns]

To be fair, in retrospect we really were close to a crisis moment with Karmanos.

Imagine a timeline where Tom Dundon is too busy scamming car buyers to consider buying this franchise. I'm really not sure what the next step would have been after that, but it would have been an ugly chapter even in the best case scenario. Maybe we cobble together a local ownership group which keeps us alive on a shoestring budget. Maybe not. Either way, by 2020 we'd be staring down the barrel of relocation.

This doesn't justify all the B.S. that was thrown around back then, by people who couldn't possibly have known the inside of Karmanos' finances. But they weren't entirely wrong about us being on the knife's edge for a few years. They were just dumb enough to buy into speculative reasoning about it.

Wasn't there another failed bid right before that? The lazy river guy? It certainly could have gone any number of directions, but not impossible they could have found another crazy rich Texan.

 

[Svechhammer]

It's not that they were right about it. It's that they were gleeful about it.

Which makes it all the sweeter as the franchise continues its ascent.

Bingo.

We all knew things were in dire straits for us. There was very real possibility that the team was gone from NC and there was literally nothing we could do about it. Where everyone across the hockey media circles showed their collective asses was the sheer joy they took in the possibility that the Canes were going to end up in Quebec "where they belonged". And this was after seeing comments on literally every. f***ing. article. about the Canes for 20 years where multiple top voted comments were "move back to Hartford" or "bring back the Whale", it just has always rubbed me the wrong way that the hockey community has so much vitriol and hatred for teams in non-traditional markets.

So when people wonder why I find so, so, so much pleasure in watching many of these same people lose their f***ing minds every year when we break out the Whalers jerseys for a home game or two because of how much it disrespects the Whale... Yeah, f*** 'em all. 25 years of dealing with that constant barrage of bullshit from the hockey community has left me with zero f***s to give about preserving their precious hockey heritage.

And you know what, let the Avs wear the Nordique throwbacks as well. Maybe floss their asscracks with it during intermission. I'd be totally fine with that.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

So in the aftermath, what would y'all on how close we were to becoming Nordiques 2.0 on a 1-10 scale (1 being no chance, 10 being relocation imminent)?

I'd put it at an 8. I have no inside sources on this.

 

[Svechhammer]

So in the aftermath, what would y'all on how close we were to becoming Nordiques 2.0 on a 1-10 scale (1 being no chance, 10 being relocation imminent)?

I'd put it at an 8. I have no inside sources on this.

5

I think there was growing momentum, but I believe Bettman when he said the league was not going to allow a purchase and relocation, and as long as there were still buyers willing to talk under that premise, it was not going to happen. And I say that in the 24 months before sale that went from a 2 to 5 as it looked like some of those potential buyers were bowing out. The fact that Dundon's purchase price was called "fake news" by Forbes for how high it was showed they weren't exactly hurting for suitors.

Thankfully, we never needed to dip into negotiations with anyone whose intent it was to buy and move.

 

[tarheelhockey]

So in the aftermath, what would y'all on how close we were to becoming Nordiques 2.0 on a 1-10 scale (1 being no chance, 10 being relocation imminent)?

I'd put it at an 8. I have no inside sources on this.

6-8 range, depending on the timing. Karmanos was in a worse financial situation than he was letting on at the time. If Dundon and Greenberg fell through, we'd have been at the mercy of how many other billionaires are looking to buy a small-market hockey team.

In 2018 or 2019, maybe some angel swoops in to save the day. More likely, we're looking at a desperate attempt to build a consortium of investors, and that's just difficult to pull off in a market like Raleigh. If that fails, we're probably looking at having the NHL take over and becoming Arizona 2.0, which may or may not have been acceptable to the Board of Governors. IMO, most of those roads end in relocation sometime in the early/mid 2020s.

But let's say Sneaky Pete holds on for another year or two before the red ink becomes too much. Finally throws up his hands and walks away from the organization... in 2020. We'd be out there trying to sell a franchise in this climate, at the same time Seattle just paid $650M for a new one. Yikes.

In any case, we weren't literally going to become Nordiques 2.0 because the NHL has no serious interest in QC. That's where a lot of the rabble-rousers were completely off-base. They were cheerleading for us to fail so they could have their hearts broken all over again when the team relocated to Kansas City or whatever.

 

[MinJaBen]

1. The league doesn’t want a team there. We’d have had more chance at Atlanta 3.0 then QC at 2.0.

 

[DaveG]

So in the aftermath, what would y'all on how close we were to becoming Nordiques 2.0 on a 1-10 scale (1 being no chance, 10 being relocation imminent)?

I'd put it at an 8. I have no inside sources on this.

3

Bettman was going to use every avenue to find a buyer that would not relocate the team.

Honestly that's what pissed me off the most, that the Atlanta situation was beyond not just a sale of a team but outright malfeasance toward the team and anyone that wanted to buy and keep the team in town. There was no parallel to the two situations, there never could be. Here, Florida, Nashville, or Arizona. And yet the "well they were right about Atlanta" line would be brought up any time I pushed back. And aside from one legit insider they weren't even right then, they were still focused on Phoenix.


I wouldn't put it beyond PK to have wanted to sell to someone that would have moved the team. But the league would have come down on him so hard that even NKVD interrogators would be squeamish. Of course that's assuming he didn't try to sell locally first, but I wouldn't trust PK to do his due diligence when he thinks he might make more selling the team with the intent to move it.

 

[Chrispy]

Agree with tarheel and MinJaBen, I think if things ever reached the point of a relocation they would have opened things up to more than just QC.

Who knows what happens with KC or Houston if a relocation truly becomes available?

Also, Dundon bought the team early in 2018. Seattle wasn't officially voted on until the end of 2018. I think Seattle would have jumped on purchasing a relocation first.