Around the League: 2019 Offseason || Part 2

[Fire Benning]

Minny took 1 year to fire their idiot GM, we’re still stuck with ours after 5 lol

 

[timw33]

Lots of parallels between Fenton and Early Benning:
- Plans to rebuild on the fly
- Obsessed with hockey trades instead of adding draft picks
- Veterans signed to long-term deals
- Hired his own son to work in the front office

If I remember correctly, the scuttlebutt from MIN fans was that Fenton wanted to make a move just to change things up, got a call on Niederrieter and essentially just took the first deal offered (Victor Rask aka a "hockey deal"). Where have we seen this before?

 

[tradervik]

Forgot about the Simmonds contract...that is a risk.

I don't know if you can call a one year contract risky in the grand scheme of things. It might be questionable to think Simmonds can conjure up one more season of good physical play but you aren't locked in for more years. Maybe the Devils will put Simmonds on a load management plan?

 

[MS]

Benning has made a lot of poor moves, but Fenton made a number of overt on their face franchise crippling moves. He probably should have been fired the day after the Niederetter for Rask trade, and certainly should have been fired after the Grandlund for Fiala trade.

There was nothing wrong with the Granlund-Fiala deal. Perfectly acceptable rebuilding move. Basically they trade 1 year of team control for an impending UFA in Granlund for several years of team control for a much younger player in Fiala who scored 23 goals the previous year. That would be, like, Jim Benning's best trade.

The Niederreiter deal was idiotic but not franchise crippling, or certainly not moreso than the Gudbranson deal here.

 

[hellstick]

Forgot about the Simmonds contract...that is a risk.

Is it though? They have a ton of cap space, no one really of note needed to sign in the interim, minus Hall who is up at the same time Simmonds is. If it works out, great, if it doesn't, then its not like he needs a buyout or anything.

 

[MS]

Is it though? They have a ton of cap space, no one really of note needed to sign in the interim, minus Hall who is up at the same time Simmonds is. If it works out, great, if it doesn't, then its not like he needs a buyout or anything.

The 'risk' comment was in the context of the Gusev move.

Paying $5 million for a guy who has been an unplayable sub-replacement value player for the last year or two and one of the worst players in the NHL is a much bigger risk than giving $9 million to a guy who mutilated the KHL last year and is one of the most skilled players on the planet.

 

[tantalum]

Reading in the Athletic on the Gusev trade

• McPhee put our feelers to see if he could takers on Reeves (2.8 M) and Holden (2.2 M) but no one wanted to help him out of the cap crunch by taking those guys
• McPhee also wasn't sure about changing that chemistry anymore than was necessary up front and giving Gusev $4 mil would necessitate further moves in that top 9. Essentially they would likely have had to move Pacioretty and his $7 mil but decided they'd rather have Patches. Especially if he stays healthy (his play in the playoffs was outstanding).
• If he didn't trade Gusev the player would have went back to Russia for a year and then become UFA.
• Only two teams made serious offers (second team is believed to be Columbus) so they basically pulled the trigger on the New Jersey deal to be done with it. They would have waited if a bunch of teams were giving serious offers.

 

[tantalum]

Is it though? They have a ton of cap space, no one really of note needed to sign in the interim, minus Hall who is up at the same time Simmonds is. If it works out, great, if it doesn't, then its not like he needs a buyout or anything.

I agree they have the cap space so it's similar risk wise in that regard. I was commenting on my thought that I think Simmonds is done (similar to what MS is saying). I think it was the signing of a guy who will be a healthy scratch by Thanskgiving and may even struggle to make the team on merit.

I don't think Gusev is in that situation. I think he's a player that has several good years left as a player even if he flops in the NHL. I don't think Simmonds has any years left. His decline has been precipitous the last 18-24 months.

 

[vancityluongo]

I don't know if you can call a one year contract risky in the grand scheme of things. It might be questionable to think Simmonds can conjure up one more season of good physical play but you aren't locked in for more years. Maybe the Devils will put Simmonds on a load management plan?

Load management should become commonplace in sports, especially with older players like Simmonds. Wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what their analytical driven front office led by Dellow was thinking with that signing.

 

[StreetHawk]

There was nothing wrong with the Granlund-Fiala deal. Perfectly acceptable rebuilding move. Basically they trade 1 year of team control for an impending UFA in Granlund for several years of team control for a much younger player in Fiala who scored 23 goals the previous year. That would be, like, Jim Benning's best trade.

The Niederreiter deal was idiotic but not franchise crippling, or certainly not moreso than the Gudbranson deal here.

Granlund for fiala made sense from a rebuild/retool POV.
Same with croyle for donato.
NN for Rask. Outside of 1 57 point season in 16-17 he’s been a 0.5 ppg player for Minnesota. Starting in 13-14 he put up 37,43,57,32 in 63 games, 23 in 46 games. Cap hit at $5.25
Rask cap hit at $4 mill and he’s a C.
His nhl numbers since 14-15 are 33,48,45,31 then 9 in 49 games last season coming off a sliced hand in the summer.

Main reason for the negativity is that NN scores 30 points in 36 games for Carolina.

See how each player performs this year.

Zuc contract is inconsistent with a rebuild or retool.

Wild still trying to recover from botching the ED.

 

[RandV]

So you are telling me that because of those three players you referenced that your point is made and that there is no risk in signing a player to a 4.5m contract when that player has not played a game in the nhl? Because that is all I was saying, there is risk. I don't know why you need a list of players who have not done well when crossing over. No one is saying Gusev is going to fail for sure. But there is nothing wrong with seeing the risk there.

He was not an option for the canucks because of the salary cap, and that is because of the bad contracts they carry.

That's kind of irrelevant here, as Gusev is a 27 year old KHL superstar. You're not going to get him over here on a minimal 'show me' contract, you have to pay him an equivalent to his KHL salary or it's not worth his time. The Canucks will be facing a similar situation if they want to bring Tryamkin back.

There's always a risk in any contract, and here it's whether he can't adjust to the NHL/North American game. This risk is minimized by the fact that it's only a two year contract and if it isn't immediately working out - like the first Russian Vegas signed, Gusev will probably go back to the KHL early anyways. The upside on the other hand is that you just signed the next Artem Panarin and get him for 2 years at a 4.5M cap hit. I'd say the rewards greatly outweigh the risks here.

You can question whether Vegas would have traded him to Vancouver, but this is a guy who's rights have been kicking around for a long time just waiting for someone to snatch him up and give him a respectable contract. Some different circumstances but in many ways very similar to Jonathan Marchessault. So Benning doesn't get a pass simply because at the time Gusev was traded we had no cap space, as there's been ample opportunity to acquire Gusev going back a season or two.

 

[StreetHawk]

Doesn’t make a lot of sense to trade someone with that upside within the division unless you’re getting something that helps you now or unless you’re headed toward a rebuild where the success of the division foe doesn’t impact what you are doing.

 

[krutovsdonut]

Benning has made a lot of poor moves, but Fenton made a number of overt on their face franchise crippling moves. He probably should have been fired the day after the Niederetter for Rask trade, and certainly should have been fired after the Grandlund for Fiala trade.

fenton was all alone in second to chiarelli this year for highly questionable moves, but i don't know about franchise crippling. that said, niederetter / rask might be the single most clueless trade of the season though.

 

[krutovsdonut]

So you're telling me Tampa got out of that contract by downgrading from a 5th to a 6th. Nice.

basically, although, for whatever reason, sens fans have been looking to unload condon and his modest one year deal. he got mentioned multiple times in the eriksson trade discussions as someone we had to take back.

 

[Billy Kvcmu]

They won’t even pay Condon 3m for one year.
No way Loui gets traded to Ottawa

 

[StreetHawk]

They won’t even pay Condon 3m for one year.
No way Loui gets traded to Ottawa

They are paying Anderson and Nilsson. So don’t want to pay a third goalie. They have young guys to develop in the A. So they save money for someone they were not going to use.

 

[StreetHawk]

fenton was all alone in second to chiarelli this year for highly questionable moves, but i don't know about franchise crippling. that said, niederetter / rask might be the single most clueless trade of the season though.

NN ppg in Minnesota was 0.5 for all but 1 season when he put up 57. In the 1.5 years since 16-17 he dropped back down to 0.5 ppg. Fenton didn’t think he could get back there so he shipped him out for Rask. Rask ppg in Carolina was around 0.45 and he had $1.25 mill less in cap hit.

NN blew up in Carolina with 30 points in 36 games. Now have to see if he can maintain that 60 plus point pace or whether he goes back to his career ppg pace. Same goes for Rask. Sliced his hand in the summer so no camp for him. If he ends up within 10 points of NN production it’s pretty much as wash trade wise.

Same term.

 

[Melvin]

Crazy stuff.

People will claim this is a **** show but kudos to Minnesota ownership for taking the hit and embarrassment on the timing of this to make a change when they realized they'd hired a raging idiot. Wish our ownership was this proactive in 2015 or 2016.

10000%

 

[Jyrki21]

Lots of parallels between Fenton and Early Benning:
- Plans to rebuild on the fly
- Obsessed with hockey trades instead of adding draft picks
- Veterans signed to long-term deals
- Hired his own son to work in the front office

In short,

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Wasn't Fenton on the short list to be the Canucks GM in 2014?

With Hextall and Futa.

 

[MS]

In short,

Every one of these reports out of Minnesota is like a kick to the balls.

 

[deckercky]

There was nothing wrong with the Granlund-Fiala deal. Perfectly acceptable rebuilding move. Basically they trade 1 year of team control for an impending UFA in Granlund for several years of team control for a much younger player in Fiala who scored 23 goals the previous year. That would be, like, Jim Benning's best trade.

The Niederreiter deal was idiotic but not franchise crippling, or certainly not moreso than the Gudbranson deal here.

Fiala for Granlund is like if the Canucks got Bonino and nothing else in the Kesler trade.

 

[StreetHawk]

Fiala for Granlund is like if the Canucks got Bonino and nothing else in the Kesler trade.

Not even remotely close as a comparison.

 

[StreetHawk]

Didn’t Leipold know Fenton from his days owning Nashville? Or at the very least could have had a heart to heart reference call with David Poile on Fenton?

In the end sometimes an assistant isn’t cut out to be the top dog. Happens plenty of time in the nfl coaching circles when a DC or OC gets a HC job and they don’t have the success they did as a coordinator, ala the BB coaching tree.

 

[deckercky]

Not even remotely close as a comparison.

Both trades were for a first line quality forward on a value contract for two playoff runs, and returned an inferior, but young and cost controlled player. Bonino and Kesler were a bit older, than Fiala and Granlund respectively. Fiala's production over the past two years was nearly identical to Bonino's production in the two years before he was traded (Bonino's was in lower scoring years).