Cap Crap

[The Drop]

I think Beagle, Sutter, and Baertschi (when healthy and in the lineup) are positive contributors to the team too, but that wasn't the point being made by OP.

Miller is being paid $5.25M AAV. Killorn $4.45M AAV. You're telling me that if those guys were on the Canucks producing the type of numbers they are producing you will merely be saying they are "mildly overpaid at worst?"

Girardi at $3M is about the same as he was when Lightning was paying him $5.5M.

There’s nothing positive about Sutter when Gaudette can come in and embarrass him.

Jay Beagle could be replaced by any minimum wage UFA and it would go unnoticed.

Enough of this nonsense of rationalizing crap contracts and players “F A N”

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

I'm not even sure what you do with Eriksson and Sutter's contracts, no one is trading for them as positive assets and buying them out would be pointless based on how much you'd still be on the hook for.

The scary thing is I think when we talk about adding bargain value adds in free agency for cheap, Schaller is their idea of that, just shows how awful their pro scouting is.

And Beagle's contract is unsurprisingly looking like a strong buyout candidate as soon as this upcoming summer, and yet he's buyout proof as well..lol, such a dumb move right from the get go, 6 or 7 guys in the scrap heap are available every year who are on his level making peanuts on 1-year deals, just awful cap management.

It's a rough situation. And it sounds like Benning will once again be active on July 1 if he's still around, and then there's the prospect of an Edler extension, love Edler and would be fine with keeping him but anything with a sizable cap hit over 2 years scares me. This team can't afford a 3-4 year Edler contract with another big money deal for a middling UFA, Benning needs to be shot out of a cannon shortly after the season to prevent this from happening. Then we'll see how the new GM attempts to sort all of this out.

 

[Fire Benning]

Lol

 

[mathonwy]

What’s odd is giving a player term (and NTC no less for Beagle), yet you’re not getting any kind of discount in return.

It's not odd if you don't really care about the assets you're in charge of managing.

 

[Bojack Horvatman]

Pettersson and Hughes won't need to be signed for another two years...Sutter,Spooner,Schaller,Tanev,Baertschi,Pearson will all be off the books...The cap is also going up....A lot of doomsaying around here for nothing.

Canucks also have $32.7M available cap space next season.

Its not about being able to resign Boeser, Pettersson and Hughes that people are worried about. Boeser will cost 7-8mil, Edler will cost 6, Hutton will cost around 4. I'd love to go after a guy like Panarin or Karlsson but, we wouldn't have the Monet to improve the rest of the roster thanks to having wasted 20 mil of cap space.

 

[Melvin]

Why should people care thst the men in charge of the team are not capable of targetting quality players or signing them to reasonable contracts? No reason that should be of concern to anyone.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Its not about being able to resign Boeser, Pettersson and Hughes that people are worried about. Boeser will cost 7-8mil, Edler will cost 6, Hutton will cost around 4. I'd love to go after a guy like Panarin or Karlsson but, we wouldn't have the Monet to improve the rest of the roster thanks to having wasted 20 mil of cap space.

Also factor in which other free agents Benning's going to sign in the offseason. Which of course he'll need to overpay for because all ufas get overpaid, and the Canucks are such a crap team you need to overpay for guys to sign here (right, Weisbrod?). It's always cute when certain people act like the current crop of bad, overpaid players aren't going to be added to on July 1 even though Benning does that every year.

 

[Cogburn]

All this dead cap and we still have 30-35 million in cap space this summer for Boeser, Demko, Hutton, Edler, Goldobin, Granlund, Pouliot, Motte and Leivo or their replacements.

I'm not worried, I don't think we will have this year's two biggest UFAs coordinate coming to Vancouver like Suter and Parise.

 

[opendoor]

All this dead cap and we still have 30-35 million in cap space this summer for Boeser, Demko, Hutton, Edler, Goldobin, Granlund, Pouliot, Motte and Leivo or their replacements.

I'm not worried, I don't think we will have this year's two biggest UFAs coordinate coming to Vancouver like Suter and Parise.

Isn't the objective to improve on this sad sack roster? Having the cap space to come back next year with more or less the same group that's finishing at the bottom of the league is hardly an accomplishment.

 

[krutovsdonut]

Among other problems our present regime has managed to create is the real dead weight cap space we have moving ahead. Consider the following:

Eriksson - basically has become a shot blocking 4th liner. Figure you can get somewhat to fill that roll (ala Motte) for around 1 mill. Seeing Eriksson is making 6 have dead weight of ---- 5 mill.

Beagle - 4th line center who takes face offs. Not expected and doesn't provide any offense. Type of player you can pick up for 1.5 mill (or maybe even have with some one like Gaunce). Beagle is making 3 mill (and length will make this a lot worse as we move along ) so see dead weight of ......1.5 mill

Schaller - can't even playing on one of the worst team in the League. Shouldn't even be carried on the team and thus salary is total dead weight of ..... 1.9 mill

Spooner - replaced the dead weight of Gagner. As it is, heis likely not even NHL caliber. Even if you see him as possible extra press box offensive forward you good easily get that type for 1.5. Spooner makes 4 mill with 900,000 retained by Rangers so dead weight (and this is generous) of approx. 2.5

Sutter - increasing looks like a used up fringe player. Could bring in a decent young player and get the same production at no more than 2 mill. Sutter will be making 4.3 so dead weight of 2.3

Baertschi - another bit of damaged good with a bleak future. As it was, he was a fringe top 6 player with little value as a lower line checker. Team is not even used him for much of the season so can be seen as complete write off. (probably be best if they could get him on long term disabled list). Dead weight of 3.6 mill

Thus you have a total of arguably 17 million of dead weight on the roster heading into next season. And this does not include the potential re-signing of people like Granlund.

Probably some of the numbers are open to scrutiny but there is little doubt we have a lot of poor use of cap space. Really this just one more example of the incredibly poor management of the Dim One and his cronies.

this is a little over the top. i agree that the team has more dead cap space than it should but every team has cap dead weight and you are exagerating how bad it is for some of these players, or being ridiculous blaming injury on management. not like you, as you are generally a pretty sober judge of this team.

agree

spooner is a buy out candidate
schaller too, although i would say just bury him
you are in the ballpark for beagle, although i would say $1m

disagree

-eriksson is at most $4m dead weight -- nobody would complain at $2m and you could argue $2.5-$3 million
-one season of chronic injury does not make sutter dead weight or a fringe player. he most definitely had market value this time last year.
-calling baertschi bad cap management is a little weird. he's worth his salary if he is healthy.

my math gets us to around $8million in dead cap space before looking at buyouts or retention trades. not great, but not outrageous. it will get worse over the next two years though as the market value of eriksson and beagle drop off.

 

[Hit the post]

it will get worse over the next two years though as the market value of eriksson and beagle drop off.

Tough to determine what value of a contract with a cap hit of $6 million but actually "only" requiring $5 million in cash total (both years lefts combined) after July 1, 2020 (or whenever his $3 million bonus is due - it'll be before the start of the 20/21 season) will be for a team looking to just hit the cap floor (if there will be any such teams then). He's got a modified NTC (groan....) which complicates matters a bit.

 

[y2kcanucks]

this is a little over the top. i agree that the team has more dead cap space than it should but every team has cap dead weight and you are exagerating how bad it is for some of these players, or being ridiculous blaming injury on management. not like you, as you are generally a pretty sober judge of this team.

agree

spooner is a buy out candidate
schaller too, although i would say just bury him
you are in the ballpark for beagle, although i would say $1m

disagree

-eriksson is at most $4m dead weight -- nobody would complain at $2m and you could argue $2.5-$3 million
-one season of chronic injury does not make sutter dead weight or a fringe player. he most definitely had market value this time last year.
-calling baertschi bad cap management is a little weird. he's worth his salary if he is healthy.

my math gets us to around $8million in dead cap space before looking at buyouts or retention trades. not great, but not outrageous. it will get worse over the next two years though as the market value of eriksson and beagle drop off.

Your math is wrong, though I wouldn't think someone who considers signing a 33 year old 4th line forward long-term would see how Eriksson, Sutter, et al are dead weight.

Brandon Sutter, Jay Beagle, Loui Eriksson, Tim Schaller, Markus Granlund, Ryan Spooner are all replacement level players. Therefore, you can replace them with a player making minimum wage.

For the purposes of this exercise, I'll bump that up a bit to $900k.

$900k x 6 players = $5.4M that we would need to spend to replace those players in the lineup.

Those 6 players earn a combined $19.85M.

The difference between what we're paying these players, and what they are worth, is about $14.45M. That's your dead cap space.

You can probably throw Tanner Pearson into that too, if this season isn't merely a bad season that he'll rebound from.

 

[Cogburn]

Isn't the objective to improve on this sad sack roster? Having the cap space to come back next year with more or less the same group that's finishing at the bottom of the league is hardly an accomplishment.

My thinking was more that we would have plenty of money left over after signing Boeser, Edler, Hutton and Demko, and we use the remainder to correct the deficiencies in our roster.

And who knows, Baertschi could be LTIR or he could be healthier next year. Sutter had value last year, I'm not holding my breath, but even this management group can see Gaudette has usurped his role. Luongo is still playing alright, he might keep going. Eriksson is the only other massive piece I can't justify or at least see he will be off the roster. Schaller and Spooner are expiring next season, Pearsons looked alright so far, and Roussel and Beagle get a lot of flack for their contracts but I'm honestly not seeing a problem if it's just those two.

If there is a news report that comes out and says both Panarin and Karlsson wanted to play here, but we couldn't get the money lined up, I'll eat my hat. At worst these crap contracts prevent more, worse contracts from being handed out, at best a few of them might work out.

The four UFAs I mentioned I think We will have for between 15 and 20 million in cap hits. We need 2 top six wingers and 2 top four D. If we can't do that with 15-20, and at least one hopeful on an ELC in Hughes, then panic.

 

[opendoor]

this is a little over the top. i agree that the team has more dead cap space than it should but every team has cap dead weight and you are exagerating how bad it is for some of these players, or being ridiculous blaming injury on management. not like you, as you are generally a pretty sober judge of this team.

agree

spooner is a buy out candidate
schaller too, although i would say just bury him
you are in the ballpark for beagle, although i would say $1m

disagree

-eriksson is at most $4m dead weight -- nobody would complain at $2m and you could argue $2.5-$3 million
-one season of chronic injury does not make sutter dead weight or a fringe player. he most definitely had market value this time last year.
-calling baertschi bad cap management is a little weird. he's worth his salary if he is healthy.

my math gets us to around $8million in dead cap space before looking at buyouts or retention trades. not great, but not outrageous. it will get worse over the next two years though as the market value of eriksson and beagle drop off.

Take Eriksson's name away and what's he worth? He's an almost 34 year old 4th liner who has 10 points in his last 48 games.

And Sutter's contract was ugly when it was signed and it looks horrific now. If Benning hadn't been so jacked up to extend his contract by half a decade with a retroactive NTC, he might've actually seen Sutter miss 62 games that season and suffer a sports hernia which can have career long implications before offering him that ridiculous deal. Instead he tripped over himself to sign a 3rd liner to an inflated long term deal and the team is suffering for it now.

As for Baertschi, his certainly isn't as bad, but we're talking about a player who has had a long history of concussions, who has missed an average of almost 20 games a season as a Canuck, and who has never topped 35 points in a season. His contract was suspect the day it was signed and it looks worse now.

 

[4Twenty]

this is a little over the top. i agree that the team has more dead cap space than it should but every team has cap dead weight and you are exagerating how bad it is for some of these players, or being ridiculous blaming injury on management. not like you, as you are generally a pretty sober judge of this team.

agree

spooner is a buy out candidate
schaller too, although i would say just bury him
you are in the ballpark for beagle, although i would say $1m

disagree

-eriksson is at most $4m dead weight -- nobody would complain at $2m and you could argue $2.5-$3 million
-one season of chronic injury does not make sutter dead weight or a fringe player. he most definitely had market value this time last year.
-calling baertschi bad cap management is a little weird. he's worth his salary if he is healthy.

my math gets us to around $8million in dead cap space before looking at buyouts or retention trades. not great, but not outrageous. it will get worse over the next two years though as the market value of eriksson and beagle drop off.

Baertschi has never been healthy, wasn't last year, has never bested 35 points and was able to get a higher salary and term than his numbers would have suggested. He's overpaid.

Sutter at this time last year was playing the most minutes on the team upfront and had 15 points in 50 games....a 25 point pace, teams don't value this anymore, not for the price.

I get you have a sunnier side of things viewpoint, but I think you're disagreeing for the sake of it. Good teams pay a fraction of the price for the output Benning's signings do, and it's not really debatable.

 

[4Twenty]

The four UFAs I mentioned I think We will have for between 15 and 20 million in cap hits. We need 2 top six wingers and 2 top four D. If we can't do that with 15-20, and at least one hopeful on an ELC in Hughes, then panic.

So you're just going to ignore 5 years of transaction history?

It's going to cost $20m as you say, to sign Edler, Boeser, Demko and Hutton. There goes 2/3 of your cap space, if they qualify half their RFA's, that's $24.....they would then have $6-8m to add as you say 2 top 6 winger and 2 top 6 forwards.

This "look at the cap space" is fools gold and exactly why they won't be able to upgrade the team without getting rid of A LOT of deadweight.

 

[krutovsdonut]

Take Eriksson's name away and what's he worth? He's an almost 34 year old 4th liner who has 10 points in his last 48 games.

And Sutter's contract was ugly when it was signed and it looks horrific now. If Benning hadn't been so jacked up to extend his contract by half a decade with a retroactive NTC, he might've actually seen Sutter miss 62 games that season and suffer a sports hernia which can have career long implications before offering him that ridiculous deal. Instead he tripped over himself to sign a 3rd liner to an inflated long term deal and the team is suffering for it now.

As for Baertschi, his certainly isn't as bad, but we're talking about a player who has had a long history of concussions, who has missed an average of almost 20 games a season as a Canuck, and who has never topped 35 points in a season. His contract was suspect the day it was signed and it looks worse now.

except that even if i accept your glass half empty take on everything, the team is not "suffering for it now". there is literally zero cap pressure on this team. we are nearly $9 million under the cap. this has been my point for several years. people immediately attacked these deals as bad cap deals as if we actually had cap problems right away. i hated and still hate the eriksson signing but i cannot pretend it has ever hurt the team.

there may well be cap pressure before the term of eriksson's and sutter's deals are up, but let's not exaggerate and pretend that is the case now. there has also never been a time when the team has had good reason to sit either of those guys. there has been zero adverse impact from those contracts to date other than to the acquilinni's pocket book. zero.

looking to next year, if the canucks were really cocky they'd want to move sutter in the offseason anticipating gaudette would be fine as a sophomore and they would not encounter any injuries. if it were me i'd play him on the wing if i had to and wait for the tdl to do that, and i'd still expect a decent return for that player.

as for eriksson, i truly look forward to the day we are actually good enough on the wing that he is blocking another player. until then, meh.

 

[Hit the post]

as for eriksson, i truly look forward to the day we are actually good enough on the wing that he is blocking another player. until then, meh.

Would help if Benning doesn’t give away what bottom six forwards he already had (Kassian and McCann).

 

[krutovsdonut]

Baertschi has never been healthy, wasn't last year, has never bested 35 points and was able to get a higher salary and term than his numbers would have suggested. He's overpaid.

Sutter at this time last year was playing the most minutes on the team upfront and had 15 points in 50 games....a 25 point pace, teams don't value this anymore, not for the price.

I get you have a sunnier side of things viewpoint, but I think you're disagreeing for the sake of it. Good teams pay a fraction of the price for the output Benning's signings do, and it's not really debatable.

i am disagreeing here because i disagree with orcatown's original post. he is a guy whose opinion i generally respect and often agree with. i thought he was way off here.

as for baertschi and sutter being overpaid, if that is so it is by a small amount, not the ridiculous numbers being thrown out here. the idea we should not have signed either of these players and let them walk is just dumb. you could maybe argue we should have seen the future for baertschi and moved him before the concussions caught up with him, but other than that we are talking about a combined annual overpayment of $1m maximum against market at the time of signing and that is based on a degree of second-guessing and shading that i personally think is very artificial.

 

[FroshaugFan2]

except that even if i accept your glass half empty take on everything, the team is not "suffering for it now". there is literally zero cap pressure on this team. we are nearly $9 million under the cap. this has been my point for several years. people immediately attacked these deals as bad cap deals as if we actually had cap problems right away. i hated and still hate the eriksson signing but i cannot pretend it has ever hurt the team.

there may well be cap pressure before the term of eriksson's and sutter's deals are up, but let's not exaggerate and pretend that is the case now. there has also never been a time when the team has had good reason to sit either of those guys. there has been zero adverse impact from those contracts to date other than to the acquilinni's pocket book. zero.

looking to next year, if the canucks were really cocky they'd want to move sutter in the offseason anticipating gaudette would be fine as a sophomore and they would not encounter any injuries. if it were me i'd play him on the wing if i had to and wait for the tdl to do that, and i'd still expect a decent return for that player.

as for eriksson, i truly look forward to the day we are actually good enough on the wing that he is blocking another player. until then, meh.

The Canucks were near the cap limit for the first two seasons of the Sutter and Eriksson contracts.

That cap space could have instead been utilized to acquire future as Vegas, Arizona, Carolina, Toronto, etc. have done.

This point has been made for several years, but people still ignore that that cap space could have been used to assist in the rebuild.

 

[Cogburn]

So you're just going to ignore 5 years of transaction history?

It's going to cost $20m as you say, to sign Edler, Boeser, Demko and Hutton. There goes 2/3 of your cap space, if they qualify half their RFA's, that's $24.....they would then have $6-8m to add as you say 2 top 6 winger and 2 top 6 forwards.

This "look at the cap space" is fools gold and exactly why they won't be able to upgrade the team without getting rid of A LOT of deadweight.

I'm not ignoring anything. Benning screwed up. I'm replying to the general sense that the sky is falling because of these contracts.

We have about 50 million in cap hits to begin the off season. Boeser hasn't been able to consistently carry offense and he is between unnoticeable and a train wreck defensively. Hutton is probably going to want a "show me" contract to bridge him until he is UFA in...I want to say 2 years? He hasn't performed above expectations until this year on his present contract. Edler is aging and while I would love to give him a Burrows-esque back pay style contract I really don't see him earning a raise for more then a 2 year contract. Demko has played 3 games. I honestly don't see that collection getting the full 20. I also said between 15 and 20. I'm reading that as about half of our cap space if we hit 85 million like some analysts are expecting.

I am hoping we cut a few contracts loose either way. Buyouts. Buried in the AHL. Traded for a pittance. Not all of the pieces are unmovable.

Hysterically telling everyone that the world ends at the draft because of these contracts is just exhausting. If you want to see a GM in way over his head and being forced to move bad contracts then our two most recent on ice foes have to give you pause. Chiarelli was worse then Benning and left a duce for the next guy and Dubas showed his team he can be manhandled by a complimentary scorer throwing a hissy fit. Look at Dorion in Ottawa. They have the opposite problem in that they will have to take on bad contracts or hand them out in order to hit the floor. Winnipeg has a few assets that will almost certainly have to be moved. Tampa Bay and San Jose are well run organizations but even they won't be able to maintain their teams with out top top top level asset management.

Breathe. As much as I agree with the majority on the board about Bennings future with the team (not being a part of it) I have to say he isn't as bad as the Lindenning era. Is that at an acceptable level? Hell no. But he has gone through moving out bad contracts or bad players. Even for middling assets or players at a similar junction on other teams even the biggest Benning hater has to admit that is a miniscule move in the right direction. It doesn't fix the other trouble he's been a part of but it's like moving from breaking and entering and arson to vandalism and jaywalking to me. Both are crimes but illegal street art is much easier to put up with than setting a building on fire.

 

[4Twenty]

i am disagreeing here because i disagree with orcatown's original post. he is a guy whose opinion i generally respect and often agree with. i thought he was way off here.

as for baertschi and sutter being overpaid, if that is so it is by a small amount, not the ridiculous numbers being thrown out here. the idea we should not have signed either of these players and let them walk is just dumb. you could maybe argue we should have seen the future for baertschi and moved him before the concussions caught up with him, but other than that we are talking about a combined annual overpayment of $1m maximum against market at the time of signing and that is based on a degree of second-guessing and shading that i personally think is very artificial.

I don't like appealing to the market value. Bonino is better than Sutter today, was so when acquired and even after his extension is still cheaper. That's just one example. What the market pays vs the value received is two different things. Sure, 4 years later the salary doesn't look so bad because the cap has risen, but the bang for buck you get out of either player doesn't line up. Teams seem to get way better utility for similar % of the cap.

That combine $1m maximum is an opinion I just don't share. I think they're paying the high end of the spectrum for middle to bottom of the spectrum utility. I think the gap is much much larger than $1m combined.

 

[krutovsdonut]

The Canucks were near the cap limit for the first two seasons of the Sutter and Eriksson contracts.

That cap space could have instead been utilized to acquire future as Vegas, Arizona, Carolina, Toronto, etc. have done.

This point has been made for several years, but people still ignore that that cap space could have been used to assist in the rebuild.

people disagree on the value of those moves. for example, the coyotes moved up just 4 places in the draft to 16th in return for a 20th round pick, a 2nd ( 53rd) round pick and a $7.5m cap hit ($5.5m cash). that puts the value of $5.5 million in cash plus one year of that cap hit as being maybe a late third round draft pick. that is a pretty steep market.

as against that kind of (rare) return, the canucks signed a 30 goal scorer they hoped would revitalize the twins for a couple of years. i didn't like the move, but i certainly understand it weighed against the alternative.

 

[Bertuzzzi44]

Its not about being able to resign Boeser, Pettersson and Hughes that people are worried about. Boeser will cost 7-8mil, Edler will cost 6, Hutton will cost around 4. I'd love to go after a guy like Panarin or Karlsson but, we wouldn't have the Monet to improve the rest of the roster thanks to having wasted 20 mil of cap space.

Exactly. You need an excellent Top 9 & 4 D and a good goalie to be a contending team. The way we’re trending we’ll be like the Oilers with 3 great players but not enough cap space for the rest of the roster because of overpaid plugs on long term contracts.

 

[krutovsdonut]

I don't like appealing to the market value. Bonino is better than Sutter today, was so when acquired and even after his extension is still cheaper. That's just one example. What the market pays vs the value received is two different things. Sure, 4 years later the salary doesn't look so bad because the cap has risen, but the bang for buck you get out of either player doesn't line up. Teams seem to get way better utility for similar % of the cap.

That combine $1m maximum is an opinion I just don't share. I think they're paying the high end of the spectrum for middle to bottom of the spectrum utility. I think the gap is much much larger than $1m combined.

i am valuing the contracts when they were signed, not 4 years later, and sutter's current contract cap hit and the sutter trade are two different things. this thread is about dead cap space. you are straying off into the unified everything benning ever did sucks theory. i really don't have time to debate that one.