Around the League 22: But how will it work next season?

[Lempo]

Did Sweden invade again?

No, we are perfectly capable of screwing ourselves over by ourselves.

 

[WreckingCrew]

Anybody know anything about Pavel Gogolev? Had a 45G season in the OHL last year and pretty good stats prior, but 20 y/o and undrafted, seems like SOMEONE would have either taken a swing drafting or signing him?

 

[hblueridgegal]

NHLPA weighing options if NHL cancels season

Informative article re: the arbitration process, the decisionmakers and how each side's case may be interpreted.

 

[cptjeff]

Anybody know anything about Pavel Gogolev? Had a 45G season in the OHL last year and pretty good stats prior, but 20 y/o and undrafted, seems like SOMEONE would have either taken a swing drafting or signing him?

Huh, looks like a good guy for a camp invite. Seems like he's perfect fodder for somebody to throw in the AHL and see what he can do.

 

[HisIceness]

25 years since Detroit lit up Patrick Roy. The Canadiens haven't been the same since.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

Could big spending teams and cap crunch teams be saved by the league? The league extending the cap to account for “taxi squads.” Canadian teams having American AHL squads would make it a hard to call up folks.

I saw the taxi squad concern in the Athletic. Maybe it would impact the cap and how much cap space is available.

 

[Svechhammer]

I will always believe that Aho absolutely used and abused Montreal to get what he wanted with the Offer Sheet. He had no real intention of ever playing there, which if why he went with a contract that was pretty much splitting the difference between what he was asking of us and we were asking of him. And all it took was finding the one GM stupid enough to think that a reasonable contract was outside of the realm of possibility for the Canes. Which, I'm not at all surprised ended up being Montreal, the one market whose media had become an echo chamber of how this team was one foot out the door to QC, constantly making every claim in the book to how poor we are. You'll never be able to convince me that the Habs management wasn't duped by their own local media into thinking the Canes were much worse off financially than they reality showed.

 

[bleedgreen]

You’d expect them to be smarter than be a management group that took their cues from local media. I struggle to buy the Aho playing everyone so he could be a Cane. I think it’s probably pretty straightforward. He didn’t like the negotiations with us for whatever reason, took the offer hoping the Canes would match but fully accepting that he could end up a Hab.

Which is fine. It’s over, he’s here and we move on.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

Agent: I can make this deal happen faster by getting an offer sheet from Montreal.

Aho (not looking up from Fortnite): ok

Agent: it's possible that the Canes won't match, which means they don't like you as much as they said, and you should probably move on anyway

Aho: ok

 

[Svechhammer]

You’d expect them to be smarter than be a management group that took their cues from local media.

Yes, you would.

But alas, it is Montreal and it is Bergy in charge

 

[Joe McGrath]

Agent: I can make this deal happen faster by getting an offer sheet from Montreal.

Aho (not looking up from Fortnite): ok

Agent: it's possible that the Canes won't match, which means they don't like you as much as they said, and you should probably move on anyway

Aho: ok

Did he look up after the 2nd ok?

 

[Svechhammer]

Did he look up after the 2nd ok?

depends on if he was about to snipe Turbo from across the map or not

 

[Lempo]

You’d expect them to be smarter than be a management group that took their cues from local media. I struggle to buy the Aho playing everyone so he could be a Cane. I think it’s probably pretty straightforward. He didn’t like the negotiations with us for whatever reason, took the offer hoping the Canes would match but fully accepting that he could end up a Hab.

Which is fine. It’s over, he’s here and we move on.

He didn't want to take it to the Fall and hamper his preparation for the season, because despite going throught the motions the long route, the dance was always going to end with ~this AAV for 6-7 years.

"This money, upfront, five years, let's enjoy summer, see you in September."

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

Dunno why people are hung up over this. You can be committed to a team and still not consider yourself a "lifer."

Even if I were drafted by them 5 years ago, I don't think I'd feel some excessive allegiance, to, say, Karpat. It doesn't really hurt my feelings that Aho would be willing to take the (miniscule) risk that he'd leave in order to get what ultimately amounts to a reasonable deal.

Hank's post above is right - if we preach "commitment" and "loyalty" to the team, and then the team doesn't match an $8m deal for a young star, they are simply proving they don't have the same levels of it. I think Aho wanted to be a Cane, probably doesn't care about remaining a Cane as much as the Canes care about it, and through all of it didn't really hold the Canes over a barrel here. I bet he could've gotten a $10m offer sheet if he really wanted to screw us.

 

[Big Daddy Cane]

I don’t get the Bergevin is incompetent narrative, at least in the context of Aho. The term and compensation fit right at the edge of the 1st+2nd+3rd compensation tier; extra money and/or extra term would have cost 1-3 additional 1sts. Perhaps more importantly, a contract like that wouldn’t have screwed up an internal RFA pay structure too much in future years. The approach is perfectly logical if the Habs weren’t 100% invested in actually acquiring him. Take a shot at it and if it doesn’t work out, there are little to no consequences.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

To add to that, I believe Montreal was expected to do very little in that off-season anyway, despite not being very successful the year before, so by making the offer sheet, Bergevin can point at that and say "Oh, we tried to improve the team, but it didn't work out."

It doesn't appease those who actually paid any attention, but it does appease those who casually follow the team. And based on the amount of Habs fans that expected the offer sheet to work out, it seemed to have done its job

 

[tarheelhockey]

You’d expect them to be smarter than be a management group that took their cues from local media. I struggle to buy the Aho playing everyone so he could be a Cane. I think it’s probably pretty straightforward. He didn’t like the negotiations with us for whatever reason, took the offer hoping the Canes would match but fully accepting that he could end up a Hab.

Which is fine. It’s over, he’s here and we move on.

I remember @Lempo saying something about Finns’ pragmatic, get-it-over-with approach to negotiations. That was when it clicked for me, the Canes were either going to pay Aho or they weren’t, and Aho left it up to them to decide and get back to him.

 

[raynman]

I remember @Lempo saying something about Finns’ pragmatic, get-it-over-with approach to negotiations. That was when it clicked for me, the Canes were either going to pay Aho or they weren’t, and Aho left it up to them to decide and get back to him.

I bet dating in Finland is pretty decent.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

Lebrun and them saying 56 games with a mid January start.

 

[WreckingCrew]

Dunno why people are hung up over this. You can be committed to a team and still not consider yourself a "lifer."

Even if I were drafted by them 5 years ago, I don't think I'd feel some excessive allegiance, to, say, Karpat. It doesn't really hurt my feelings that Aho would be willing to take the (miniscule) risk that he'd leave in order to get what ultimately amounts to a reasonable deal.

Hank's post above is right - if we preach "commitment" and "loyalty" to the team, and then the team doesn't match an $8m deal for a young star, they are simply proving they don't have the same levels of it. I think Aho wanted to be a Cane, probably doesn't care about remaining a Cane as much as the Canes care about it, and through all of it didn't really hold the Canes over a barrel here. I bet he could've gotten a $10m offer sheet if he really wanted to screw us.

I think people get too hung up on this idea that "we drafted you, you should be loyal to us" (more referring to fans than organizations). Players don't ASK to be in the draft or for a certain team to draft them, they have no control over it, there's no "opt out" option. The only control/leverage they have is to outright tell a team/organization they don't want to play for them and/or refuse to sign and become a UFA. Even then they could still be traded prior to another team they like even less. I think most players do have some loyalty due to the fact that their quickest way to a contract or the NHL is through the drafting team ("don't want to sign with us? fine...we're not trading your rights either so you can't make big $$ for a few more years"). That and players who wait it out or ask for a trade seem to get a reputation or labelled. I'm a little mad, for example, about Fox because he could have told us upfront, "I'll never sign with you" and we work out other pieces in a trade...but ultimately I also can't fault him for wanting to sign with a certain team and using his little leverage to do so. It also helps we got a few picks in return for trading him a year early to NYR, but we didn't get true full value.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

Let's be honest: all drafts are bullshit.

 

[vorbis]

Let's be honest: all drafts are bullshit.

definitely bullshit, but definitely really fun for fans as well

 

[AhosDatsyukian]

Take a shot at it and if it doesn’t work out, there are little to no consequences.

I generally agree and this should be the case, but there could be more consequences than you think. People can debate about whether these are legit or not or how significant they may be, but they had that money tied to Aho for like 2 weeks during FA and there's also the matter of a possible change in how Bergevin is perceived around the league. We read about how offer sheets are an "unwritten rule." How big of a deal is that really? I have no idea, but it could definitely be a consequence for MTL. My guess is at the end of the day other GMs don't give a crap about that and will make whatever decision is best for their team regardless, but in dealing with people you can never count out the possibility of it becoming personal and it affecting how other GMs negotiate with Bergevin going forward...

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

Let's be honest: all drafts are bullshit.

*mutters* "making me wear a jacket in my own damn house..."

 

[Lempo]

I bet dating in Finland is pretty decent.

"I told you once I love you. If there's a change to that I'll let you know."