Around the League 2019 offseason

[NJDevs26]

No, because however much I love John Madden (who might be in my top 5 players of alltime) - Guy C was 10x the player he was.

The necessity to quantify everything by points or some statisitic really hurts the basic premise of a Hall of Fame. The point is to put in the greatest players.

Don't you guys have people at your office who maybe don't produce the best numbers on paper but do just about frigging everything for the company? Are we going to say, 'yeah, well - the economy only grew so much during Lincoln's tenure - he wasn't that great'.

I understand as time goes on, that fewer people are going to have seen guys play in their prime - so the luster of a Barry Sanders or Larry Bird or Jack Morris fades over time and folks will just point at numbers and say 'they weren't that great'. But for anyone who saw them play - it's easy to value them far above their contemporaries with much better numbers.

I think of Guy Charbonneau as the anti-Gretzky from his work in the late 80s. That's a pretty big poison for which to be the antidote.

The HOF isn't a place you reward 'intangibles', you do that in Ring of Honors and jersey retirements even. The HOF is a place you honor the best players, period. Your examples are faulty, because Bird was clearly one of the best NBA players of all-time, Sanders one of the most explosive RB's of all time. Morris wasn't a HOF pitcher except for his October success and win total when wins weren't totally dictated by bullpen usage and pitch counts, and even his inclusion was controversial.

Still most of the truly aghast HOF inductions have been with small veterans committees as someone pointed out earlier, like Harold Baines with the sixteen-man committee and a few guys (LaRussa, Reinsdorf, etc) championing him. To me that isn't a great way to decide HOF'ers, or at least the panel should be a lot bigger and you should have to recuse yourself if you have a personal relationship with the guy otherwise it's just cronyism.

You can call him the anti-Gretzky defensively but to me three Selkes out of what, a 15-or so year career don't scream undisputed best shutdown guy of all-time and there's very little way to measure something like that anyway other than word of mouth, which again can carry the day in a small room. He's certainly in the discussion but you gotta have more than that if you're going to put someone in based on a non-stats intangible and he played in an era where you didn't really shut down the best guys a lot anyway. Offensively his 55-60 points then might be closer to 35-40 points now.

 

[JrFischer54]

it’s going to cost them $3M+ for 3 years, no? and who on the canucks is due a new contract in that time frame? literally everyone currently under contract today. they need to give raises and they need to improve the roster, this will absolutely hinder them

they are not in a compete now mode or win now mode. if anything this happened at the perfect time for them. imagine if they were a contending team and then get slapped with this? then it would hurt.

 

[NJDevs26]

I'm shocked he is retiring with years remaining on his contract. The only players I can think of doing that are Kovalchuk and Rafalski. Has anyone else done that?

I don't actually doubt Luongo's hurt given his age and position but this timing is also convenient for him, considering he wasn't even going to get paid $4 million combined in real money over the last three years of his contract. Last year started the diveback portion of his deal but he still got $3+ million, this year it was going down to $1.6 then $1 the last two years.

 

[BenedictGomez]

I cant believe I had to waste 4 minutes of my life on this for a few of you people, but here goes:

Hockey Hall of Fame Selection Committee (by voter nationality)
Sweden 1
Finland 1
Russia 1
America 1.5 (1 person is a dual-citizen)
Canada 14.5 (1 person is a dual-citizen)


It's not complicated.

 

[None Shall Pass]

Luongo's wife is also pretty loaded from what I heard. Like from a billionaire family. I think the money is not one of his worries.

 

[Devils731]

Luongo is retiring, and it’s going to mean that Vancouver and Florida become the first two teams to get hit with cap recapture penalties.

Aren’t the Devils the first team to be hit with cap recapture penalty?

 

[Bleedred]

I'm shocked he is retiring with years remaining on his contract. The only players I can think of doing that are Kovalchuk and Rafalski. Has anyone else done that?

I'm sure quite a few have done it at the age Luongo is now.

One of the more recent cases, although it didn't happen was that Daniel Alfredsson was expected to retire after the 11-12 season because I think he hinted about it, on top of the actual dollar salary on the last year of his deal being something ridiculous. Like a million or less for that year, which became even less than that due to the lockout.

But he not only came back for that year, he even continued for one more year after going to UFA and signing that one year deal with Detroit.

I clearly remember Bryan Murray going public with saying they gave Alfredsson small dollars in the last year of his deal because he expected to retire anyway before that season, right from the start of that deal. And this angered a lot of people here when the league didn't ding Ottawa with cap circumvention penalties after coming out publicly and admitting that they did this.

 

[Brodeur]

Goalie musical chairs:

Anaheim: Gibson|Miller
Arizona: Kuemper|Raanta
Calgary: (UFA)|Rittich
Edmonton: Koskinen|(UFA/Starrett)
Los Angeles: Quick|Campbell
San Jose: Jones|Dell?
Vancouver: Markstrom|Demko
Vegas: Fleury|Subban

Chicago: Crawford|Delia
Colorado: Grubauer|(UFA/Francouz)
Dallas: Bishop|Khudobin
Minnesota: Dubnyk|Stalock?
Nashville: Rinne|Saros
St.Louis: Binnington|Allen
Winnipeg: Hellebuyck|Broissoit

Boston: Rask|Halak
Buffalo: Ullmark|Hutton
Detroit: Howard|Bernier
Florida: (UFA)|Reimer?
Montreal: Price|Lindgren?
Ottawa: Nilsson|Anderson
Tampa: Vasilevskiy|Domingue
Toronto: Andersen|(UFA/Sparks)

Carolina: (UFA)|(UFA)
Columbus: (UFA)|Korpisalo
New Jersey: Schneider|Blackwood
NY Islanders: (UFA)|Greiss
NY Rangers: Lundqvist|Georgiev
Philadelphia: Hart|Elliott
Pittsburgh: Murray|DeSmith
Washington: Holtby|Copley

UFA: Bobrovsky|Lehner|Varlamov|Mrazek|Smith|Talbot|Kinkaid|McElhinney|Neuvirth|Hutchinson|Ward

Personal predictions:
Blues trade Jake Allen to Columbus for pu pu platter. Jarmo Kekalainen drafted Allen when he was working for St. Louis in 2008.
Bobrovsky : Florida
Lehner : NYI
Varlamov : St. Louis
Mrazek : Edmonton - history with Ken Holland in Detroit
Smith : Carolina
Talbot : Calgary
Kinkaid : San Jose - hypothetical upgrade over Dell, some familiarity with DeBoer
McElhinney : Carolina
Neuvirth : Colorado
Hutchinson : Toronto

Kings eventually trade Jack Campbell if he continues to put up decent numbers and call up Cal Petersen who put up good numbers in a cameo last year.

Edit: Campbell seems like the typical Steve Yzerman cheap goalie acquisition. Howard is UFA in a year, Campbell is from Michigan.

 

[ScottyK]

Pierre LeBrun‏Verified account @PierreVLeBrun
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The intent is still very much to negotiate and sign a contract with Winnipeg but hearing that some teams reached out to the Kyle Connor camp today on the first day of the RFA speaking period

 

[Bleedred]

Goalie musical chairs:

Anaheim: Gibson|Miller
Arizona: Kuemper|Raanta
Calgary: (UFA)|Rittich
Edmonton: Koskinen|(UFA/Starrett)
Los Angeles: Quick|Campbell
San Jose: Jones|Dell?
Vancouver: Markstrom|Demko
Vegas: Fleury|Subban

Chicago: Crawford|Delia
Colorado: Grubauer|(UFA/Francouz)
Dallas: Bishop|Khudobin
Minnesota: Dubnyk|Stalock?
Nashville: Rinne|Saros
St.Louis: Binnington|Allen
Winnipeg: Hellebuyck|Broissoit

Boston: Rask|Halak
Buffalo: Ullmark|Hutton
Detroit: Howard|Bernier
Florida: (UFA)|Reimer?
Montreal: Price|Lindgren?
Ottawa: Nilsson|Anderson
Tampa: Vasilevskiy|Domingue
Toronto: Andersen|(UFA/Sparks)

Carolina: (UFA)|(UFA)
Columbus: (UFA)|Korpisalo
New Jersey: Schneider|Blackwood
NY Islanders: (UFA)|Greiss
NY Rangers: Lundqvist|Georgiev
Philadelphia: Hart|Elliott
Pittsburgh: Murray|DeSmith
Washington: Holtby|Copley

UFA: Bobrovsky|Lehner|Varlamov|Mrazek|Smith|Talbot|Kinkaid|McElhinney|Neuvirth|Hutchinson|Ward

Personal predictions:
Blues trade Jake Allen to Columbus for pu pu platter. Jarmo Kekalainen drafted Allen when he was working for St. Louis in 2008.
Bobrovsky : Florida
Lehner : NYI
Varlamov : St. Louis
Mrazek : Edmonton - history with Ken Holland in Detroit
Smith : Carolina
Talbot : Calgary
Kinkaid : San Jose - hypothetical upgrade over Dell, some familiarity with DeBoer
McElhinney : Carolina
Neuvirth : Colorado
Hutchinson : Toronto

Kings eventually trade Jack Campbell if he continues to put up decent numbers.

Varlamov is an interesting one. I figured he might go to Columbus if Bob leaves. Any rumors on him? I haven't really heard any/paid attention much.

I feel like Neuvirth is probably done in the NHL, if not hockey. He gets injured all the time and finished last year injured, as well as spent most of it injured.

If Lou doesn't sign Lehner, I'm not sure WTF his problem is.

I hope to god Kinkaid isn't on San Jose, but he may be okay as a backup somewhere. A Martin Jones/Keith Kinkaid tandem could be really hateable for me.

I really hope Carolina does sign Mike Smith, because I love their continued inability to sign a good goalie and it makes them a worse team, as Smith was horrific last year. Smith might be an okay backup somewhere for one more year, but he might also be at his expiration date.

I think Ward should probably be done in the NHL, but why can I actually see there being a Ward reunion in Carolina?

 

[Brodeur]

Hadn't heard much on Varlamov, I vaguely recall reading that the door wasn't completely closed on him going back to Colorado. I wouldn't be shocked if Neuvirth was one of the guys left standing.

 

[Emperoreddy]

This is going to be funny when no one ends up offer sheeted.

 

[Missionhockey]

There was some speculation (I think from Friedman) that the Hurricanes are going to play hardball with Sebastian Aho. That seems pretty ridiculous to me. They're offense is shallow and they're going to beat around the bush with their best offensive player? Plus, if money was such an issue, why make the Marleau trade? You basically gave away money you could have used in a trade for a good player or free agency and you just reached the Eastern Conference Finals. They should be thinking about adding not futures.

 

[Bleedred]

There was some speculation (I think from Friedman) that the Hurricanes are going to play hardball with Sebastian Aho. That seems pretty ridiculous to me. They're offense is shallow and they're going to beat around the bush with their best offensive player? Plus, if money was such an issue, why make the Marleau trade? You basically gave away money you could have used in a trade for a good player or free agency and you just reached the Eastern Conference Finals. They should be thinking about adding not futures.

I figured the new owner wouldn't be as cheap as Karmanos was.

Maybe he won't be, but there's been a few rumblings the couple of days that make me wonder.

 

[Nico the Draft Riser]

Question

Can teams talk numbers with ‘free agents’ courting teams before July 1st? I thought they cant, right?

Isles buddy said theres a rumor of a contract for Panarin theyll offer and I said i dont believe that because I thought thats tampering

 

[Bcap88]

Question

Can teams talk numbers with ‘free agents’ courting teams before July 1st? I thought they cant, right?

Isles buddy said theres a rumor of a contract for Panarin theyll offer and I said i dont believe that because I thought thats tampering

Yea they can, they changed it with this last cba. There’s a week “interview” period with upcoming ufas

 

[ScottyK]

Yea they can, they changed it with this last cba. There’s a week “interview” period with upcoming ufas

Contract details are not to be discussed during the interview period, that's well known. It's also well known no one follows that rule.

 

[billingtons ghost]

The HOF isn't a place you reward 'intangibles', you do that in Ring of Honors and jersey retirements even.

So #1 - people like to throw around 'intangibles' as a dirty word around here. It doesn't necessarily pertain to Charbonneau as his induction is mostly on the very tangible aspect of his ability as someone who could impact a game defensively.

The HOF is a place you honor the best players, period.

Which is inherently subjective. You're using points to pretend that it objective, but by your measure, there are lots of folks who will get entry to the HOF that don't necessarily belong there - simply because they amassed points. What should be the metric then? If you held up two guys, and the majority of folks would start their team with one and not the other? Would that be objective enough? I'd assert that there are a decent amount of folks who would start with Guy Charbonneau over other guys that are in the HOF.

Your examples are faulty, because Bird was clearly one of the best NBA players of all-time, Sanders one of the most explosive RB's of all time. Morris wasn't a HOF pitcher except for his October success and win total when wins weren't totally dictated by bullpen usage and pitch counts, and even his inclusion was controversial.

I think that is mostly fair - I could have gone with Earl Campbell, who was outgained by 37 other players (many who aren't in HOF and don't deserve to be) or Bernard King, who's numbers don't necessarily pop but who is unforgettable to a generation of hoops fans. I disagree about Morris who was every bit as dominant a pitcher as say Pedro Martinez, for several full seasons at a time, but whose #s won't live up.

Still most of the truly aghast HOF inductions have been with small veterans committees as someone pointed out earlier, like Harold Baines with the sixteen-man committee and a few guys (LaRussa, Reinsdorf, etc) championing him. To me that isn't a great way to decide HOF'ers, or at least the panel should be a lot bigger and you should have to recuse yourself if you have a personal relationship with the guy otherwise it's just cronyism.

You can call him the anti-Gretzky defensively but to me three Selkes out of what, a 15-or so year career don't scream undisputed best shutdown guy of all-time and there's very little way to measure something like that anyway other than word of mouth, which again can carry the day in a small room. He's certainly in the discussion but you gotta have more than that if you're going to put someone in based on a non-stats intangible and he played in an era where you didn't really shut down the best guys a lot anyway. Offensively his 55-60 points then might be closer to 35-40 points now.

All of your points here are fair - but I'd also argue that the sole purpose of veterans committees is to correct omissions of those who can't get in based upon hard data alone. Sure- cronyism and just plain admiration/dislike can get guys in or keep them out but at some point our humanity has to play a role, otherwise we should just let machines pick everything - and if you are for that - then I think we'll just fundamentally disagree...

'Points' for a defensemen is going to potentially put alot of guys like 'Mike Green' and 'Sergei Gonchar' into the HOF that probably don't belong there.

 

[NJDevs26]

Intangibles I take as something that can't be measured with a stat and is subjective...and no I don't think it's a dirty word when it pertains to someone's attributes in general, I just don't think it should be the sole factor in a HOF vote, there should be some tangible apart from 'the guy was good defensively and won a couple of Selkes'. But I've always been of the mindset you should be graded primarily on what your role entails. For forwards, it's scoring, for defensemen it's defending. If you're a forward that can backcheck or a defender that can put up points, that's nice but secondary for me. I'd put a one-dimensional defensive d-man in the HOF in a second over a one-dimensional defensive forward. And I'd put a one-dimensional offensive forward in the HOF in a second over a one-dimensional scoring defenseman. Ideally you'd be a great two-way player or some combination of the two but is there any real evidence someone that scored 600 goals was such a minus defensively compared to run of the mill forwards to nullify that effect? Or a forward that put up around .5 points per game prevented a point per game and was thus that much of a net positive compared to the guy who scored 600 goals?

Ultimately though I just can't take the HOF voting seriously when it's decided by eighteen people, like fifteen of whom are Canadian. If three Selkes are enough to get in the HOF with modest offensive contribution then let's see them put Jere Lehtinen in there, yes he was a wing but also won three Selkes and was clearly better offensively. When he doesn't get in we'll know why. You posted yourself the vets' commitees were intended to be a failsafe in baseball to correct oversights from the writers (though more often it just creates controversy), but in the end nobody's overseeing the vets' committee in hockey which is the only word on elections.

BTW the cross-sport example you should be using is Ozzie Smith - a guy who arguably got in the HOF largely on defense with no controversy. Of course having thirteen gold gloves is a pretty good indicator the guy was clearly the best in baseball at his position for a long period and one of, if not the best of all time. And he did add some things offensively like SB, and wasn't a total negative as a hitter though he had no pop.

 

[Nubmer6]

@akaRCN: Frank Seravalli said on Friday on TSN 1260 that the Edmonton Oilers are getting a lot of calls on defenseman Darnell Nurse, but adds that Edmonton “isn’t wild about that.”

 

[Cheddabombs]

just give it some time, Holland will come around to Shero's offer of a 3rd round pick

 

[The 29th Pick]

so he's not going to the Wild, maybe he's coming here? !!!!

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Tampa gonna replace JT Miller with a better player and they got a 1st round pick out of it

 

[RangerDoggo]

they are not in a compete now mode or win now mode. if anything this happened at the perfect time for them. imagine if they were a contending team and then get slapped with this? then it would hurt.

They’re not in contender mode to you, me, or anyone with half a brain. Jim Benning and the Aquilinis don’t even have that. Trading a first round pick for Miller shows that they want to go for bigger things now.

It’s amazing how many idiot GMs there are in this league.

 

[Davegarri]

Tampa gonna replace JT Miller with a better player and they got a 1st round pick out of it

Eh idc if they win anymore, Rags don't get a first round pick if they do