Confirmed with Link: Coyotes sign Michael Stone to 1 year, $4M deal

[_Del_]

Even if he wants to stay, I don't like the 1 yr for the same reason I didn't like the Gologoski trade. He has no incentive to not at least see what's out there unless you give him what he wants.

 

[Jakey53]

My one concern is how Tippett and Chayka handle this if three days before the trade deadline Stone doesn't have an extension and the team is only six points out of the last playoff spot.

Really? Your worried about that now?
I think your putting the cart before the horse.

Even if he wants to stay, I don't like the 1 yr for the same reason I didn't like the Gologoski trade. He has no incentive to not at least see what's out there unless you give him what he wants.

The Coyotes have to protect themselves. This is a gamble for both parties.

 

[lanky]

My gut reaction was that Stone wants to test UFA and Chayka will be forced to trade him. Now that I've thought about Tip's motivations, I think Stone will be extended.

 

[Murf]

Here's why I don't think that's likely.
1. Stone returns from injury, plays amazeballs and by the time contract talks are allowed to begin he's now an insanely hot commodity and will see huge dollars at UFA. Even if we ultimately want to sign him in the summer, Stone skipping out on his first chance to test the market strikes me as unlikely in the scenario where he's playing well. If nothing else he loses the chance to get other teams to bid up the Coyotes offer.

2. Stone returns from injury and is mediocre through January. Now do you even want to sign him to a long term contract? Remember we already have Murphy and GoGo on term already and OEL will need to be paid here at some point. Even if you did a lot of teams would still throw big dollars/term at him thinking he's still recovering. Stone's best option in this scenario is to wait and see if his performance improves as the year goes on looking at the payday. If he doesn't improve it won't be any problem to get a 1-2 year prove it deal from the Coyotes or somebody else. There is still not a great incentive for him to sign early.

3. Stone returns and is just outright awful, looks like he's lost a step despite claiming to be 100%. Yay, we can extend a possibly broken defenseman to a short term deal!

This isn't even getting into the issues of expansion protection and the opportunity cost of not trading him for assets.

Scenarios 2 and 3 don't result in a trade deadline deal, either. Playoff bound teams are not adding under-performing rental players. So there's three ways he is not traded at the deadline (to your original point). Re-injuring himself is a fourth.

 

[SniperHF]

Playoff bound teams are not adding under-performing rental players.

Sure they do, a lot of the examples are right on the Coyotes. Michalek, Vermette (both times), Boedker, Staal, Russell.

 

[mouser]

Completely understandable one year deal to UFA given Stone's injury. If that doesn't happen we'd likely see a very different longer contract.

 

[Mosby]

I like Michael Stone and I like this contract. I'm just confused how they plan to upgrade the RD (this keeps getting mentioned) even though we've signed Stone, Murphy, and Schenn in the last few days. We have no open slots on the right.

 

[KG]

I'm concerned about this deal. hopefully Stone likes it here and will sign an extension asap

 

[hbk]

Probably a tad high but with his production last year he had a fairly strong case to get an award at this number or even higher. Worth justifying relationship by going through arbitration?

 

[mouser]

Probably a tad high but with his production last year he had a fairly strong case to get an award at this number or even higher. Worth justifying relationship by going through arbitration?

Salary arbitration is never good for player relations. You have the team you've probably played for your entire young career arguing in arbitration how bad you are and merit a lower salary.