Does EP stay?

[ChilliBilly]

The answer is we don't know. And in fact, the answer probably is EP doesn't know for sure. If I was in his position I wouldn't decide until the last moment I needed to decide. But he probably is leaning one way or the other. We just have no insight into his feelings.

Putting on the detective hat, we can say what we know
- Vancouver is a pretty nice city to live if you are wealthy. Probably one of the nicest overall
- The team has a decent amount of high end talent to play with
- They have underperformed drastically for a while, and the depth of the team has been fairly weak and absurdly overpriced... but cap issues probably are outside a players care-meter
- The coaching seems to have been pretty poor for years. However, this looks like the best coaching staff they've had in forever, and the tiny snippets we see from the team seem to reflect that... the players seem to be buying in
- I don't know if players are very cognizant of this, but the management has been overhauled
- Still a meddlesome owner who seems to want to do things his way, probably interfering
- Pettersson has been able to crack 100 points with this team (I assume he could do so with any team, but it's not a guarantee)
- He has seemed to have changing levels of motivation to the team, or perhaps to the game itself, which are reflected in the scoring droughts he has had ... which is probably why he hasn't hit 70 points until this year ... although these periods could easily be explained by injuries, as far as we know
- He has at least one winger who appears to be able to think the game at as high a level as himself
- He seems to care very much about winning. He's won at every level he's played up until the NHL
- He's made some comments that indicate he wants to have the chance to win here if he signs long term

All told, Vancouver is a pretty good situation for a young millionaire athlete. People will argue over what position the team is in. Most will probably say the team is going to be bad next year. I am on record saying the opposite, I think the team will do well next year. I think it's a good situation for Pettersson, as long as the team shows signs of improvement. You never know what someone is thinking, but I'd say there's a good chance Petey would be willing to re-sign. As an example, Kuzmenko had a choice of 32 teams to sign with.

fairly well said. The one issue that no one is referring to is how do we sign him for $80 - 100 M and ever meet the cap? Our cap position is already a disaster.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

fairly well said. The one issue that no one is referring to is how do we sign him for $80 - 100 M and ever meet the cap? Our cap position is already a disaster.

Will be just extremely hard to ice a competitive roster in 2024-25 with all the raises coming up.

 

[Gurn]

At this point I don't care if he stays or goes.
I'm not into running a team to suit 1 or 2 players.
If they don't like how it is going, or looking; trade them.
Looking like a hall of fame guy- but players need to play, and management needs to manage; no overlap allowed.

 

[MarkMM]

Sign him to a long-term deal this summer or auction him now at peak value and accept that we're rebuilding, find out who aren't part of the long-term plan and sell everything, probably also Miller. Good news is that would be a 3-5 year rebuild so OEL can just sit there with his wasted cap space as a marker for our timeline, we'd be clean of bad capspace and be loaded with maturing assets in 5 years time.

If EP commits, then yeah, all in boys.

 

[McDavid is too whiny]

Sign him to a long-term deal this summer or auction him now at peak value and accept that we're rebuilding, find out who aren't part of the long-term plan and sell everything, probably also Miller. Good news is that would be a 3-5 year rebuild so OEL can just sit there with his wasted cap space as a marker for our timeline, we'd be clean of bad capspace and be loaded with maturing assets in 5 years time.

If EP commits, then yeah, all in boys.

It’s funny that OEL actually was us rocketing out of bad contracts and climbing the league ladder with heretofore untold ferocity…as a concept.

What an all timer piece of pro scouting.

 

[EverTheCynic]

If he stays, does it take so much money the team can't have even a chance at building a winner?

How much does he get?
$10 mill per; or more?

Definitely more. I'd think around $11m-$12m

 

[Gurn]

Definitely more. I'd think around $11m-$12m

Ouch.
going to be hard to build/keep a good team around him, at that price.

 

[Jyrki21]

With his namesake signed, now he pretty much has to stay. How could you pass up the zaniness?

 

[StreetHawk]

Definitely more. I'd think around $11m-$12m

Most likely. Difference between bridge vs max term is that:

Bridge he signs new deal at 25 which if you max it takes him to 33, the end of his prime years. But take the higher cap hit on the third contract.

Max Term after elc, signed until 30, then you are talking retirement contract to 38. Better cap hit on contract 2, but would have 6 years left on it. And then it’s decision time after that. If you’re competitive you pay him and deal with the down years later.

 

[valkynax]

With his namesake signed, now he pretty much has to stay. How could you pass up the zaniness?

They even LOOK like brothers

 

[tyhee]

I doubt it will be less just because of the additional taxes paid in BC vs Boston.

If I were EP, I would flat out refuse to sign until next season is over. There is a small chance he has a poor season or gets injured. But I would bet on him increasing his value by having another monster year.

Also gives him self a year to assess where the team is headed. Another year without playoffs and no meaningful ways to improve should make the decision pretty easy.

I consider your last paragraph to be the decisive factor.

He can't actually force his way out for two years, but the decision will probably be made well before then. I voted No, which wouldn't surprise anyone reviewing my old arguments about whether the team should rebuild from scratch vs the retool that is being attempted. My concern has been about the direction of the team the wisdom of which depends so much on what I thought was a mediocre chance of keeping him.

It would probably be nice if I'm wrong, though I have nightmares about them overpaying for eight years and then having something happens that reduces his effectiveness to that of a second liner (or worse) for most of his contract.

 

[Paulinbc]

More than likely stays.

 

[StreetHawk]

I consider your last paragraph to be the decisive factor.

He can't actually force his way out for two years, but the decision will probably be made well before then. I voted No, which wouldn't surprise anyone reviewing my old arguments about whether the team should rebuild from scratch vs the retool that is being attempted. My concern has been about the direction of the team the wisdom of which depends so much on what I thought was a mediocre chance of keeping him.

It would probably be nice if I'm wrong, though I have nightmares about them overpaying for eight years and then having something happens that reduces his effectiveness to that of a second liner (or worse) for most of his contract.

the moves to not take futures would indicate that convincing Petey to stay is very important thus the push for NHL players in their transactions, vs draft picks. Have 23-24 really to prove that they can do something over the next 5 years. Otherwise, they end up in the Tkachuck, Trouba, PLD situation come summer of 2024 with a year to go before he hits UFA.

And signing a deal doesn't cement that he can't ask out later if the team is still bad.

Quinn could ask out before his deal is up in 4 years if the losing continues over the next 2 seasons.

 

[MarkMM]

If they offer him a life-establishing deal ($11-12M over 7/8 years) the logical thing would be for him to take it and secure his future. If he takes a short-term deal there's always the huge risk that he could get injured and watch that money disappear, even just have an off-year, it's pretty hard to imagine this past year having gone better for him so might as well cash in now.

If he doesn't like the direction of the team he can always ask for a trade later, with his money locked up, and if he got a NTC / NMC he could also control his destiny to a degree.

Could also work for the team; lock him up, hopefully the next couple years go well and they're able to start turning into a contender but if it's really obvious that we just never have the pieces, it's not like the opportunity to do a full rebuild vanishes over the course of EP's contract, you could be in a position of auctioning off Petersson, Hughes, Demko, etc, all under contract and getting some Gucci pieces to do a full re-build. OEL's contract would die out over that course, and you'd just have Miller around as a an expensive piece (maybe Hronek unless he's auctioned off as well).

 

[dman34]

Pretty difficult to say no to $90M. Massive, massive risk for EP to look at something short term. Amazing player, but the injury risk will always be a little higher for a player built like EP. I think he locks in long term.

 

[LordBacon]

They even LOOK like brothers

Neck game is lacking though

 

[RandV]

fairly well said. The one issue that no one is referring to is how do we sign him for $80 - 100 M and ever meet the cap? Our cap position is already a disaster.

When looking at how a new contract disrupts a teams salary cap it's not how much total cap hit a contract is but how much the raise is. The team as is it is already paying Pettersson $7.35M, so for an extension they will need to find an extra $3-4M cap space. There's always going to be a lot of moving parts on a team but with the current roster in the 2024 summer simply cutting Myers from the books and replacing him with an ELC/minimum contract could be enough to cover both Pettersson and Hronek raises.