News Article: Detroit Red Wings’ Salary Cap Mess & How Larkin Fits

[Winger98]

So would you take two years of Bobby Ryan at $7.25 million for a second round draft pick? Or would you rather trade Helm with two years left on his deal for a 3rd round pick?

Yes. Then turn around and deal Ryan in the last year of his deal for something. I didn't realize that guy still has like four years on that deal, though. And that in 3/5 of the years he's been in Ottawa he hasn't been able to score 20 goals.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

Wilson isn’t much different than Abby and got a bigger deal from what I guess is just a cup winning moron of a GM.

That deal was heavily criticized from the get-go, so I am not sure what point you are trying to make, here.

 

[Pavels Dog]

That deal was heavily criticized from the get-go, so I am not sure what point you are trying to make, here.

That fans criticize/underrate these players constantly but GMs and coaches keep valuing them.

 

[njx9]

That fans criticize/underrate these players constantly but GMs and coaches keep valuing them.

And since we all know GMs and coaches are infallible, that's a valuable data point.

 

[Pavels Dog]

And since we all know GMs and coaches are infallible, that's a valuable data point.

It shows that these types of players have more value than fans think. Even if they only have value among the 10 worst GMs in the league that’s still 9 potential destinations we can trade them to. Even if only Babcock loves Glendening, that’s still one team that might give us something for him.

 

[njx9]

It shows that these types of players have more value than fans think. Even if they only have value among the 10 worst GMs in the league that’s still 9 potential destinations we can trade them to. Even if only Babcock loves Glendening, that’s still one team that might give us something for him.

Unless, of course, they realize that those kinds of players are available every single offseason for free as UFAs, and they just sign them then.

Edit: Sorry for the unnecessary snark in my first reply - re-reading the thread, I completely mis-read your point; though understanding it now, I still disagree with it.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

That fans criticize/underrate these players constantly but GMs and coaches keep valuing them.

But where can you demonstrate the value and the idea that these players are worth these deals?

GMs aren't infallible. You are just appealing to authority instead of arguing the merits of your position, here.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Unless, of course, they realize that those kinds of players are available every single offseason for free as UFAs, and they just sign them then.

Only matters if we want to trade them with multiple years left on their deals.

But where can you demonstrate the value and the idea that these players are worth these deals?

GMs aren't infallible. You are just appealing to authority instead of arguing the merits of your position, here.

Worth their deals? Perhaps not. Worth signing or trading for in the eyes of GMs? Yes. And I don’t know how to demonstrate that in any other way than showing examples of these types of players getting signed all the time, getting traded for, getting ”overplayed” by coaches.. and this is frequently cup winning coaches and GMs. Infallible? Nah, if GMs were infallible we wouldn’t have gotten returns on Smith, Kindl, Jurco and Mrazek. We will get returns on a lot of other pieces on our roster simply because GMs value some of our players more than fans do.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

Worth their deals? Perhaps not. Worth signing or trading for in the eyes of GMs? Yes. And I don’t know how to demonstrate that in any other way than showing examples of these types of players getting signed all the time, getting traded for, getting ”overplayed” by coaches.. and this is frequently cup winning coaches and GMs.

But you are conflating "getting signed to a contract or traded with assets" with "getting multi-year deals at high prices or traded with an abundance of assets". I don't think anyone here believes Abdelkader doesn't have some value to the team. However, believing Abdelkader has value does not mean he should be retained at all costs. I don't see the argument that says Washington should have signed Wilson to his contract if that is the minimum he would sign for.

 

[Winger98]

The fact that GMs value these guys, and are willing to chuck the sort of money/term at them that they do, is precisely why I wanted to see us deal them when they were coming up on their UFAs. Now, we'll still get some return, but it's not going to be what we could have gotten a few years ago and it's going to come at a time where it probably won't be a big help to the rebuild (unless we get stupid lucky with the midround pick we will likely be getting in return for them).

It's water under the bridge, but it's deals like that which could have kicked the rebuild into high gear and probably cut a few years off that rebuild window.

 

[jkutswings]

That fans criticize/underrate these players constantly but GMs and coaches keep valuing them.

Chiarelli valued Larsson enough to trade Hall for him. That didn't stop Planet Earth from reminding him every 10 seconds how bad a move it was.

 

[Claypool]

It's water under the bridge, but it's deals like that which could have kicked the rebuild into high gear and probably cut a few years off that rebuild window.

Teams that are chasing a playoff spot generally don't sell off players at the deadline. To suggest Detroit should have sold Abdelkader and Helm during the 2015-16 season, the final year of Datsyuk's career, to get a couple draft picks instead of trying to get into the playoffs is baloney.

 

[WingedWheel1987]

Teams that are chasing a playoff spot generally don't sell off players at the deadline. To suggest Detroit should have sold Abdelkader and Helm during the 2015-16 season, the final year of Datsyuk's career, to get a couple draft picks instead of trying to get into the playoffs is baloney.

Teams that know their best player is retiring at the end of the season don't proceed to sign Gator and Helm to life time deals.

That is far more ridiculous than trading away Gator and Helm before the TDL.

Wanna help Datsyuk lose in the first round one more time? Whatever. But don't bring both players back on contracts that take place exclusively during their 30's.

 

[Pavels Dog]

But you are conflating "getting signed to a contract or traded with assets" with "getting multi-year deals at high prices or traded with an abundance of assets". I don't think anyone here believes Abdelkader doesn't have some value to the team. However, believing Abdelkader has value does not mean he should be retained at all costs. I don't see the argument that says Washington should have signed Wilson to his contract if that is the minimum he would sign for.

Contracts can and have been debated endlessly. We were discussing the value of taking on cap dumps vs. for example signing players that you can then sell. Abby/Helm/etc. were mentioned as zero value assets, no upside, no value. Which I disagree with. It's not the same thing as thinking those players should be retained at all costs, it's more a matter of how you spend your cap space and how you acquire draft picks for your rebuild.

The fact that GMs value these guys, and are willing to chuck the sort of money/term at them that they do, is precisely why I wanted to see us deal them when they were coming up on their UFAs. Now, we'll still get some return, but it's not going to be what we could have gotten a few years ago and it's going to come at a time where it probably won't be a big help to the rebuild (unless we get stupid lucky with the midround pick we will likely be getting in return for them).

It's water under the bridge, but it's deals like that which could have kicked the rebuild into high gear and probably cut a few years off that rebuild window.

Cut a few years off the rebuild? Did you expect us to get a couple of top 10 picks for them? Tbh I think this game could have been played no matter what year we finally dropped out of the playoffs. If we were bad in 2016 and sold Helm+Abby, you could have said "we should have sold X and Y in 2015". If we were bad in 2015, you could have said "we should have sold A and B in 2014" all in an effort to "cut off a few years on the rebuild". Some people already do this, going as far back as 2010 to claim we should have started to sell back then.
Always looks great to have started things off just a little sooner so more of the rebuild is in the rearview mirror. I don't think Helm and Abby either as trade bait or as re-signed players have tons of impact on our rebuilding timeline. Like, we're not talking about letting John Tavares walk for nothing. We're not talking about being a likely bottom 3 team and not having our 1st round pick.
Yeah we didn't sell while being a playoff team. It's pretty much the standard operating procedure for all teams.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

Contracts can and have been debated endlessly. We were discussing the value of taking on cap dumps vs. for example signing players that you can then sell. Abby/Helm/etc. were mentioned as zero value assets, no upside, no value. Which I disagree with. It's not the same thing as thinking those players should be retained at all costs, it's more a matter of how you spend your cap space and how you acquire draft picks for your rebuild.

Mentioned by who? The prevailing sentiment was that Helm and Abdelkader were not worth the contracts they were given, not that they had no value at all. Abdelkader primarily for the term and Helm for both term and money. I think when you sign a player to a contract with bad salary/term then you are decreasing the value of that player and reducing the potential assets you can get out of them if that is the end goal. What do you even think of those contracts? Good? Bad? The best Holland could do? The only choice Holland had? What?

 

[Winger98]

Teams that are chasing a playoff spot generally don't sell off players at the deadline. To suggest Detroit should have sold Abdelkader and Helm during the 2015-16 season, the final year of Datsyuk's career, to get a couple draft picks instead of trying to get into the playoffs is baloney.

yet it's exactly what they should have done. They could have dealt both off at the TDL, gotten their picks, and ran with Mantha and Nosek the rest of the season In March and April, Gator had 9 points in 19 games while being -10, and Helm had 8 points and as +1. This team had a weak blueline, an injured and aged forward corp, and had already been 1st round exits the two previous seasons. They were doing nothing in the playoffs, and it should have been clear to management.

Cut a few years off the rebuild? Did you expect us to get a couple of top 10 picks for them? Tbh I think this game could have been played no matter what year we finally dropped out of the playoffs. If we were bad in 2016 and sold Helm+Abby, you could have said "we should have sold X and Y in 2015". If we were bad in 2015, you could have said "we should have sold A and B in 2014" all in an effort to "cut off a few years on the rebuild". Some people already do this, going as far back as 2010 to claim we should have started to sell back then.
Always looks great to have started things off just a little sooner so more of the rebuild is in the rearview mirror. I don't think Helm and Abby either as trade bait or as re-signed players have tons of impact on our rebuilding timeline. Like, we're not talking about letting John Tavares walk for nothing. We're not talking about being a likely bottom 3 team and not having our 1st round pick.
Yeah we didn't sell while being a playoff team. It's pretty much the standard operating procedure for all teams.

I expect us to have gotten first round picks and financial flexibility for Holland to be more aggressive on other fronts. Even if he starts the whole "sign a guy in August, deal him in February" thing sooner he would have started having a deeper farm system sooner.

And I disagree about it being a game that can be played whenever we dropped out of the playoffs. What major contracts were up in 2015 that we locked into long term deals with? In 2014? That season was significant not because it was our last season in the playoffs, but because that was the year we could have pivoted and more aggressively pursued a rebuild. Instead, Holland continued to lock guys down into questionable deals.

You can fall back on the SOP argument, but just because that's how teams usually roll doesn't make it right. It's like the discussion around Wilson and GMs valuing guys. Them putting a premium on Wilson doesn't make it right or smart. Not selling when you're a bubble playoff team despite looking at the retirement of one of your top centers, a brutal blueline, and a rapidly aging corp might be what teams typically do, but it doesn't make it right or smart.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Mentioned by who? The prevailing sentiment was that Helm and Abdelkader were not worth the contracts they were given, not that they had no value at all.

This -

Yes, I'm sure plenty of contenders will be fighting to get Justin Abdelkader, Darren Helm, Jonathan Ericsson, Thomas Vanek or Niklas Kronwall on their rosters.

abby, ericsson, dekeyser, nielsen etc take large portions of our cap space and aren't assets. they are just empty cap space.

if you think another team would give Detroit a good draft pick for a guy like Abdelkader or Helm, then we'll have to agree to disagree.

There is literally zero upside in signing those players to long term deals. It can only hurt you.

Plus stuff like this with essentially zero evidence to back it up:

The odds of getting a 3rd round pick or better for taking somebody else's bad player are better than the odds of getting a 3rd round pick or better for one of the lousiest contracts currently on the roster, so what's the big deal?

they might be moveable someday but the return is going to be lot worse than what teams have gotten from cap dumps.

What do you even think of those contracts? Good? Bad? The best Holland could do? The only choice Holland had? What?

I could and have discussed each of the "7 Contracts of hell" (Helm, Abby, Howard, Glenny, Nielsen, Dekeyser, Ericsson) at length. I understand why they're disliked but I personally wouldn't feel a lot better about our rebuild if we had just thrown 7 terrible young prospects into those roles instead or filled those spots with cap dumps or UFA garbage bin players. I wouldn't mind paying 10 million to Abby if he got to play with Zadina and Hughes on ELC contracts and the team did great. Basically I don't give a sh*t if a 20 year old is vastly underpaid and a 33 year old is overpaid as long as the team is good. And I don't give a sh*t if no one is overpaid if the team still sucks. I sure as hell think it's a lot easier to get rid of a bad contract than it is to fill a roster with quality people and players if you let everyone walk as soon as they demand more money (aka, turning into Ottawa).

You can fall back on the SOP argument, but just because that's how teams usually roll doesn't make it right. It's like the discussion around Wilson and GMs valuing guys. Them putting a premium on Wilson doesn't make it right or smart. Not selling when you're a bubble playoff team despite looking at the retirement of one of your top centers, a brutal blueline, and a rapidly aging corp might be what teams typically do, but it doesn't make it right or smart.

In vacuum, you may be right. Real world, a lot more comes into play. You've got a 1st year coach that you prevented from talking to other NHL teams on the promise that he'd be the Wings next coach. Team is in a playoff position... and you sell? Ouch.
Larkin and Mrazek carry you towards the playoffs... and you sell, effectively killing their season? Ouch.
Your biggest star and audience draw contemplates leaving for Russia while you hope you can entice him to stay one more year... and you sweep the legs out from a playoff team? Yep, no way Holland gets blamed for Datsyuk choosing to leave after that.
Etc.
It's just not normal. Even as mediocre as the team looked that year, if you don't take the chance you'll never know. You could have spent the next decade wondering if Z and Dats didn't have one last run in them in 2016...

 

[Winger98]

In vacuum, you may be right. Real world, a lot more comes into play. You've got a 1st year coach that you prevented from talking to other NHL teams on the promise that he'd be the Wings next coach. Team is in a playoff position... and you sell? Ouch.
Larkin and Mrazek carry you towards the playoffs... and you sell, effectively killing their season? Ouch.
Your biggest star and audience draw contemplates leaving for Russia while you hope you can entice him to stay one more year... and you sweep the legs out from a playoff team? Yep, no way Holland gets blamed for Datsyuk choosing to leave after that.
Etc.
It's just not normal. Even as mediocre as the team looked that year, if you don't take the chance you'll never know. You could have spent the next decade wondering if Z and Dats didn't have one last run in them in 2016...

Setting aside how I don't believe dealing Gator/Helm kills the season or whatever else, it's not Holland's job to worry about how much the fans like him or making his coach feel warm and fuzzy. And the idea that anything can happen is just tired when we know how against the odds it was that team would go on some sort of Cup run. For all of the things that isn't Holland's job there, it is his job to correctly assess where this team is and what it needs.

He failed at it. He's since done a really nice job the past couple of years, but the guy just plain goofed on these deals.

 

[StargateSG1]

It shows that these types of players have more value than fans think. Even if they only have value among the 10 worst GMs in the league that’s still 9 potential destinations we can trade them to. Even if only Babcock loves Glendening, that’s still one team that might give us something for him.

Sure, they do, when it's Draper, Maltby, McCarthy, players that provide an invaluable service staying on the "4th line", not pretending like they can be Top 6 or 9 and placed there by dumb coaches.

 

[StargateSG1]

That deal was heavily criticized from the get-go, so I am not sure what point you are trying to make, here.

What a truly smart GM would do is tell Abdelkader to "show me what you can do without Datsyuk" and "We'll talk long term contract next off-season".
But, of course, jumping the gun and giving him the money and term he will never earn is a much better idea, from the "cup winning GM".

 

[jkutswings]

This -





Plus stuff like this with essentially zero evidence to back it up:





I could and have discussed each of the "7 Contracts of hell" (Helm, Abby, Howard, Glenny, Nielsen, Dekeyser, Ericsson) at length. I understand why they're disliked but I personally wouldn't feel a lot better about our rebuild if we had just thrown 7 terrible young prospects into those roles instead or filled those spots with cap dumps or UFA garbage bin players. I wouldn't mind paying 10 million to Abby if he got to play with Zadina and Hughes on ELC contracts and the team did great. Basically I don't give a sh*t if a 20 year old is vastly underpaid and a 33 year old is overpaid as long as the team is good. And I don't give a sh*t if no one is overpaid if the team still sucks. I sure as hell think it's a lot easier to get rid of a bad contract than it is to fill a roster with quality people and players if you let everyone walk as soon as they demand more money (aka, turning into Ottawa).


In vacuum, you may be right. Real world, a lot more comes into play. You've got a 1st year coach that you prevented from talking to other NHL teams on the promise that he'd be the Wings next coach. Team is in a playoff position... and you sell? Ouch.
Larkin and Mrazek carry you towards the playoffs... and you sell, effectively killing their season? Ouch.
Your biggest star and audience draw contemplates leaving for Russia while you hope you can entice him to stay one more year... and you sweep the legs out from a playoff team? Yep, no way Holland gets blamed for Datsyuk choosing to leave after that.
Etc.
It's just not normal. Even as mediocre as the team looked that year, if you don't take the chance you'll never know. You could have spent the next decade wondering if Z and Dats didn't have one last run in them in 2016...

Some fans may very well have reacted as you claim. Others may have been glad that Detroit finally put a bullet in that corpse of a roster and changed gears to rebuild. Here's to hoping for successful decisions going forward.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Setting aside how I don't believe dealing Gator/Helm kills the season or whatever else, it's not Holland's job to worry about how much the fans like him or making his coach feel warm and fuzzy. And the idea that anything can happen is just tired when we know how against the odds it was that team would go on some sort of Cup run. For all of the things that isn't Holland's job there, it is his job to correctly assess where this team is and what it needs.

He failed at it. He's since done a really nice job the past couple of years, but the guy just plain goofed on these deals.

Seperate the player from the contract for a second. Talking solely about selling while in a playoff position it happens so rarely that I don’t see any way to criticize Holland for not doing it without essentially criticizing every GM for not doing it.
There’s a nice saying that goes ”you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. Taking a 1% chance at a cup run is preferable to most over deliberately putting that chance at 0.
Kings in ’12 and Sharks at ’16 should have probably sold if you go by the ”they were longshots!” strategy.

 

[InjuredChoker]

Plus stuff like this with essentially zero evidence to back it up:

in savard trade, the devils got a second. hard to put real, accurate value for other cap dump trades but cap dump trades and/or 1 yr deal & selling at TDL are/would have accrued lot more value than what we are going to get for those guys indvidually at the end of their deals.

and in my world (yes i know we aren't living in that) those guys would've been traded before they were extended. they probably had more value when they were younger and more effective than what we will get for them in their mid 30s or so.

and right now, those deals aren't not assets, they have negative value. they might turn into assets on their final years if there is market for those kind of players and they haven't regressed significantly.

I sure as hell think it's a lot easier to get rid of a bad contract than it is to fill a roster with quality people and players if you let everyone walk as soon as they demand more money (aka, turning into Ottawa).

they pay their garbage/average players fair money, but not their stars. the opposite how it should be done.

and ideally one would trade them rather than let them walk.

and not having bad contracts can help finding quality players indirectly

 

[InjuredChoker]

Seperate the player from the contract for a second. Talking solely about selling while in a playoff position it happens so rarely that I don’t see any way to criticize Holland for not doing it without essentially criticizing every GM for not doing it.
There’s a nice saying that goes ”you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. Taking a 1% chance at a cup run is preferable to most over deliberately putting that chance at 0.
Kings in ’12 and Sharks at ’16 should have probably sold if you go by the ”they were longshots!” strategy.

except advanced stats suggested that kings in '12 and sharks in '16 were elite teams.

 

[Pavels Dog]

in savard trade, the devils got a second. hard to put real, accurate value for other cap dump trades but cap dump trdes and/or 1 yr deal & selling at TDL are/would have accrued lot more value than what we are going to get for those guys indvidually at the end of their deals.

Probably one of the better cap dump value deals. Not much of a proof that they consistently bring a better return. For example if we took on some cap dumps, we probably don't trade Tatar(since our roster would be so much worse with less depth) which was a 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Continually filling out roster holes with actual NHL players (instead of cap dumps) allows you to trade actual NHL players which tends to give you decent returns.

except advanced stats suggested that kings in '12 and sharks in '16 were elite teams.

Weren't our advanced stats similar to Sharks in '16 and to the Kings in '12? Maybe they were better in some very specific stat, some stat that shows that we had absolutely no chance and they were likely to make the SCF.