Player Discussion Duncan Keith

[Mr Positive]

I think it would be pretty petty of the Blackhawks to not retire his jersey because he retired early. The GM who signed this deal is gone. He delivered them 3 Cup, 2 Norris trophies and one Conn Smythe.

A decision to not honor him could be another brick in the road on the way to destroying their brand.



I would hope all parties involved could see the benefit in this scenario:

Keith is traded to a team looking to make cap floor.

Oilers add sweetener - maybe a 3rd round pick.

Said team buys him out. Enjoys a $4.5M cap penalty at a $500k x2 cost.

Oilers sign Keith for one-year at league minimum.

Oilers have more cap room. Keith actually makes more money. Other team gets cap hit + extra.

The only issue there is that the league could nix it and even hit us with a penalty.

When Washington did this there was an investigation. You aren't allowed to do this to simply dodge a cap hit. The Oilers and Keith would have to get on board with some narrative that Kieth genuinely wants to retire or weigh new options, and then just changed his mind. The Oilers have to be on board too and say the right things. I'm not sure our management is up to it.

Like I said, I'm not sure giving Holland a ton of cap space right now is a great idea anyway. It probably gets wrapped up in a veteran with term or is just used to avoid trading Kassian

 

[bone]

I suspect with how clearly the credit is outlined in the CBA, the league would open themselves up to a lawsuit if they didn’t honour it. Whether the Oilers organization has the balls to call them on that is another matter entirely though

I can't find anything outlining a credit, but it's pretty clearly stated in the clause how recapture should be applied to all teams that had the contract in the time after the 2012 CBA was signed.

So basically the language says that the total cap recapture penalty would only be $4M, but the penalty is to be split amongst the teams he played on related to the years they played and how much benefit they gained.

Based off that formula, the Hawks should be on the hook for $7.4M of cap recapture penalty, so my question is where does that $3.4M go?

If they still charge the Hawks $7.4M without giving Edmonton the $3.4, they are technically reducing the league wide cap limit by $3.4M which is against the CBA.

If they reduce the Hawks penalty to match the $4.0M, how is it fair they get relief for a year that they already got that relief by the fact that Edmonton took on the full cap burden.

Unfortunately, Keith isn't retiring anyways, so it won't matter. But I'd love to see how the leagues twists itself inside out trying to figure this out.

 

[Mr Positive]

I can't find anything outlining a credit, but it's pretty clearly stated in the clause how recapture should be applied to all teams that had the contract in the time after the 2012 CBA was signed.

View attachment 558644

So basically the language says that the total cap recapture penalty would only be $4M, but the penalty is to be split amongst the teams he played on related to the years they played and how much benefit they gained.

Based off that formula, the Hawks should be on the hook for $7.4M of cap recapture penalty, so my question is where does that $3.4M go?

If they still charge the Hawks $7.4M without giving Edmonton the $3.4, they are technically reducing the league wide cap limit by $3.4M which is against the CBA.

If they reduce the Hawks penalty to match the $4.0M, how is it fair they get relief for a year that they already got that relief by the fact that Edmonton took on the full cap burden.

Unfortunately, Keith isn't retiring anyways as I'd love to see how the leagues twists itself inside out trying to figure this out.

the big one to me is why not just make it whole like you say?

Why not give a cap credit to a team that endures the bad years of a contract? It seems like a win-win. Nothing was stolen, because the Oilers paid extra cap space and less money because of year 1 of the deal. Trading Keith wouldn't change that either.

The only possible bad situation would be with a team that wants a big cap hit to hit the floor. But, of course the league has really allowed the rules to be bent there to have all kinds of weird situations to have LTIR cap hits and other stuff just to allow a team not to put money into the system.

 

[bone]

the big one to me is why not just make it whole like you say?

Why not give a cap credit to a team that endures the bad years of a contract? It seems like a win-win. Nothing was stolen, because the Oilers paid extra cap space and less money because of year 1 of the deal. Trading Keith wouldn't change that either.

The only possible bad situation would be with a team that wants a big cap hit to hit the floor. But, of course the league has really allowed the rules to be bent there to have all kinds of weird situations to have LTIR cap hits and other stuff just to allow a team not to put money into the system.

Reality is that there are so few of these contracts left now that the league doesn't even need to worry about precedence anymore, just follow the legal wording.

I believe with the buyouts on Parise and Suter last year the only ones left are Keith, Quick (expires next year as well), Crosby who has few years still but will never be traded nor will he likely retire, and Weber who's likely LTIR until the contract ends.

 

[CanmoreMike]

The only issue there is that the league could nix it and even hit us with a penalty.

When Washington did this there was an investigation. You aren't allowed to do this to simply dodge a cap hit. The Oilers and Keith would have to get on board with some narrative that Kieth genuinely wants to retire or weigh new options, and then just changed his mind. The Oilers have to be on board too and say the right things. I'm not sure our management is up to it.

Like I said, I'm not sure giving Holland a ton of cap space right now is a great idea anyway. It probably gets wrapped up in a veteran with term or is just used to avoid trading Kassian

I'm not saying you are wrong but how is what I am proposing different than what Capitals did in 2018? If there was an investigation and it discovered no cap circumvention occurred how can the exact same deal 4 years later be now considered cap circumvention?

 

[Mr Positive]

I'm not saying you are wrong but how is what I am proposing different than what Capitals did in 2018? If there was an investigation and it discovered no cap circumvention occurred how can the exact same deal 4 years later be now considered cap circumvention?

there is public evidence that Keith demanded to be in western canada for his son. If we trade him to Arizona or whoever, so they buy him out, it looks not genuine, especially if we sign him.

What made the Washington case ruled as genuine was probably that the Capitals liked Orpik but could not have his cap hit, so they traded him fully comfortable with him being gone forever. There was also no NTC muddying that up, and no public record that linked Orpik to the Capitals besides hockey. So in Keith's case it's hard to take it seriously when Keith agrees to be traded to team that is away from his son, because it seems like he knows he will be bought out and knows he will sign again with Edmonton. I bet those would be the questions the NHL would have for Keith in this.

The fact that they did investigate it in the Washington case tells me that there is a way to do this the wrong way. You aren't allowed to do this just to keep a player and reduce the cap hit.

The way around this is if Holland and Keith are both on board and say the right things. When Keith is traded, the messaging has to be that it is for a buyout, which makes Keith okay with it, and then Holland has to say that they are moving on and wish him luck, or even better Keith retires soon after, or at least public says he is contemplating it. Then, much later, we sign him. If at any point Holland says something like "we are just doing what Washington did" then instantly we'd get ruled for circumvention I think. Let's be real here to, this whole thing is circumvention. If Washington planned that whole thing out with Orpik, that was too.

I do think this happened before. Wasn't there a team that tried this with Lecavalier and the league nixed it?

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

I'm not saying you are wrong but how is what I am proposing different than what Capitals did in 2018? If there was an investigation and it discovered no cap circumvention occurred how can the exact same deal 4 years later be now considered cap circumvention?

Because one team is the Capitals and the other team is the one that the NHL forced to give up a 3rd by prorating James Neal's goals.

 

[CanmoreMike]

there is public evidence that Keith demanded to be in western canada for his son. If we trade him to Arizona or whoever, so they buy him out, it looks not genuine, especially if we sign him.

What made the Washington case ruled as genuine was probably that the Capitals liked Orpik but could not have his cap hit, so they traded him fully comfortable with him being gone forever. There was also no NTC muddying that up, and no public record that linked Orpik to the Capitals besides hockey. So in Keith's case it's hard to take it seriously when Keith agrees to be traded to team that is away from his son, because it seems like he knows he will be bought out and knows he will sign again with Edmonton. I bet those would be the questions the NHL would have for Keith in this.

The fact that they did investigate it in the Washington case tells me that there is a way to do this the wrong way. You aren't allowed to do this just to keep a player and reduce the cap hit.

The way around this is if Holland and Keith are both on board and say the right things. When Keith is traded, the messaging has to be that it is for a buyout, which makes Keith okay with it, and then Holland has to say that they are moving on and wish him luck, or even better Keith retires soon after, or at least public says he is contemplating it. Then, much later, we sign him. If at any point Holland says something like "we are just doing what Washington did" then instantly we'd get ruled for circumvention I think. Let's be real here to, this whole thing is circumvention. If Washington planned that whole thing out with Orpik, that was too.

I do think this happened before. Wasn't there a team that tried this with Lecavalier and the league nixed it?

Excellent points. Can't hit them all but in 2015 when Kings traded for Lecavalier (or 16?) Lombardi specifically said he wouldn't have made that deal unless Lecavalier promised to retire at seasons end.

And I'll see if I can find it but I'm pretty sure it was widely discussed that the capitals were going to trade Orpik so another team can buy him out and he can resign in the capital.

there is public evidence that Keith demanded to be in western canada for his son. If we trade him to Arizona or whoever, so they buy him out, it looks not genuine, especially if we sign him.

What made the Washington case ruled as genuine was probably that the Capitals liked Orpik but could not have his cap hit, so they traded him fully comfortable with him being gone forever. There was also no NTC muddying that up, and no public record that linked Orpik to the Capitals besides hockey. So in Keith's case it's hard to take it seriously when Keith agrees to be traded to team that is away from his son, because it seems like he knows he will be bought out and knows he will sign again with Edmonton. I bet those would be the questions the NHL would have for Keith in this.

The fact that they did investigate it in the Washington case tells me that there is a way to do this the wrong way. You aren't allowed to do this just to keep a player and reduce the cap hit.

The way around this is if Holland and Keith are both on board and say the right things. When Keith is traded, the messaging has to be that it is for a buyout, which makes Keith okay with it, and then Holland has to say that they are moving on and wish him luck, or even better Keith retires soon after, or at least public says he is contemplating it. Then, much later, we sign him. If at any point Holland says something like "we are just doing what Washington did" then instantly we'd get ruled for circumvention I think. Let's be real here to, this whole thing is circumvention. If Washington planned that whole thing out with Orpik, that was too.

I do think this happened before. Wasn't there a team that tried this with Lecavalier and the league nixed it?

I'll add - a lot of this cap circumvention that's been going on for 15+ years would grind to a hault if the NHL did away with AAV values for cap hits and simply charged teams cap hits equal to the actually salary the player is paid in any given year.

 

[Stoneman89]

The more I think about Keith retiring, the more it sounds appealing, even though it's highly unlikely to happen. Wouldn't be terrible if he stayed another year, but you're really taking the chance of him falling further off the cliff. We got our year of him mentoring Bouchard, which likely was more valuable that we think, but man, if we had 9 mill at our disposal, I'm thinking we could get a pretty darned solid dman for about 6 mill and still have 3 mill to play with towards another need.

 

[alanschu]

Yeah... About that...

I'm usually loathe to read too much into conspiracy against the Oilers but lmao this would not help.

 

[CanmoreMike]

Funny - Shea Weber got traded today and many are suggesting Vegas doesn't make this deal without confirmation he's done and will spend the final 4 years on LTIR. That sounds...sorta like cap circumvention. Other players, Gary Roberts in the mid-90s jumps to mind, thought their careers were done due to injury and managed to heal and return and play for a long time. Seems kinda fishy that Weber mightve already told Vegas he was done-done and never coming back and that's why they made the deal.

 

[McJadeddog]

Funny - Shea Weber got traded today and many are suggesting Vegas doesn't make this deal without confirmation he's done and will spend the final 4 years on LTIR. That sounds...sorta like cap circumvention. Other players, Gary Roberts in the mid-90s jumps to mind, thought their careers were done due to injury and managed to heal and return and play for a long time. Seems kinda fishy that Weber mightve already told Vegas he was done-done and never coming back and that's why they made the deal.

Well yeah, that is obviously the only reason Vegas made that deal.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

Funny - Shea Weber got traded today and many are suggesting Vegas doesn't make this deal without confirmation he's done and will spend the final 4 years on LTIR. That sounds...sorta like cap circumvention. Other players, Gary Roberts in the mid-90s jumps to mind, thought their careers were done due to injury and managed to heal and return and play for a long time. Seems kinda fishy that Weber mightve already told Vegas he was done-done and never coming back and that's why they made the deal.

No shit Weber is never coming back. The NHL does everything in their power to protect Bettman's Sunbelt dream. If they will force the other 31 teams to pay tens of millions of dollars to the incompetent Arizona Coyotes to keep their operations afloat every year they'll never EVER do anything to inconvenience their actual successful, high revenue, first mover market share, expansion sunbelt franchise.

 

[Sempiternal]

The Oilers are lucky to have Duncan Keith. He was definitely not a problem this past season and I am sure he provided a lot of intangibles as a leader in the locker room during the playoffs.

Oilers fans love to pick on one defenseman, but a 3x Stanley Cup & 2x Norris winner is not the one you disrespect.

 

[Beerfish]

The Oilers are lucky to have Duncan Keith. He was definitely not a problem this past season and I am sure he provided a lot of intangibles as a leader in the locker room during the playoffs.

Oilers fans love to pick on one defenseman, but a 3x Stanley Cup & 2x Norris winner is not the one you disrespect.

He mostly stinks and is grossly over paid (over cap committed is a better term here). He is a 5/6 dman and those fall off trees.

I freaking laugh at 'intangibles'

Just a brutal brutal move by holland that will cost us a real player in Evander Kane.

 

[SwedishFire]

Near 20 min a night, 20 points, and a +15 (2nd best relative to the rest of the D).

I think if you told anyone last summer that stateline, everyone would be over the moon. Especially as it wasn't really sheltered at all, playing with Ceci at the start of the year and then 2nd pairing minutes with young defenceman in Bouchard during back half of the season.

If he steps away, great. That's either 5.5 or 9mil towards the cap depending on which path he takes. But honestly I don't hate the idea of him coming back one more season.

Imo he's an easy fit as a mentor for Broberg or Samorukov, and someone that can jump up to the top 4 when needed.

Nurse-Ceci
Kulak-Bouchard
Keith-Samorukov/Broberg/Niemo

Though that is betting a ton on the kids, and for at least one of them to step up and help push the unit from "meh" to one of the top groups in the league.

I like, or "like" how many has excluded Barrie, like its already done.
And Kulak playing here, that is also not certain.

 

[SwedishFire]

I think it would be pretty petty of the Blackhawks to not retire his jersey because he retired early. The GM who signed this deal is gone. He delivered them 3 Cup, 2 Norris trophies and one Conn Smythe.

A decision to not honor him could be another brick in the road on the way to destroying their brand.



I would hope all parties involved could see the benefit in this scenario:

Keith is traded to a team looking to make cap floor.

Oilers add sweetener - maybe a 3rd round pick.

Said team buys him out. Enjoys a $4.5M cap penalty at a $500k x2 cost.

Oilers sign Keith for one-year at league minimum.

Oilers have more cap room. Keith actually makes more money. Other team gets cap hit + extra.

Why throw away one of tje few high picks left, esp. When Kieth actually fill a role as a bottompairing mentor for three incoming rookies? Blantant.
Its not Kieth that is the problem. It is his cap. He is better than Barrie at defending, and Barrie carries almost the same cap.
One of Barrie or Kieth can go, but only if oilers do some actual signing.
First to clear cap with is Kassian, then Holland awaits if Kieth retires. Then he makes a decision on jesse ( I prefer a sign and trade, why just lose him??).
After that, he should look over the richness of having cap on both Barrie and Kieth. I suspects that both stays.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

Why throw away one of tje few high picks left, esp. When Kieth actually fill a role as a bottompairing mentor for three incoming rookies? Blantant.
Its not Kieth that is the problem. It is his cap. He is better than Barrie at defending, and Barrie carries almost the same cap.
One of Barrie or Kieth can go, but only if oilers do some actual signing.
First to clear cap with is Kassian, then Holland awaits if Kieth retires. Then he makes a decision on jesse ( I prefer a sign and trade, why just lose him??).
After that, he should look over the richness of having cap on both Barrie and Kieth. I suspects that both stays.

Both Barrie and Keith need to go. Barrie's is a good player but his role redundant with Bouchard on the team and Keith just sucks at hockey. And they take up a combined 10 million that should be better served getting actual tough matchup defensemen and/or goaltending.

 

[Vakarte]

Would you guys say Bouchard is ready for top pair minutes next season?

 

[MessierII]

Would you guys say Bouchard is ready for top pair minutes next season?

No

 

[Macheteops]

The Oilers are lucky to have Duncan Keith. He was definitely not a problem this past season and I am sure he provided a lot of intangibles as a leader in the locker room during the playoffs.

Oilers fans love to pick on one defenseman, but a 3x Stanley Cup & 2x Norris winner is not the one you disrespect.

Someone should of told the competition that when he continued to get abused wide

 

[gordonhught]

Would you guys say Bouchard is ready for top pair minutes next season?

No.

 

[gordonhught]

Why throw away one of tje few high picks left, esp. When Kieth actually fill a role as a bottompairing mentor for three incoming rookies? Blantant.
Its not Kieth that is the problem. It is his cap. He is better than Barrie at defending, and Barrie carries almost the same cap.
One of Barrie or Kieth can go, but only if oilers do some actual signing.
First to clear cap with is Kassian, then Holland awaits if Kieth retires. Then he makes a decision on jesse ( I prefer a sign and trade, why just lose him??).
After that, he should look over the richness of having cap on both Barrie and Kieth. I suspects that both stays.

 

[SwedishFire]

Both Barrie and Keith need to go. Barrie's is a good player but his role redundant with Bouchard on the team and Keith just sucks at hockey. And they take up a combined 10 million that should be better served getting actual tough matchup defensemen and/or goaltending.

But Holland has got out and said litterary ;" Its hard to sign good players out there": no wonder. There are limited FAs, and there is now 32 teams. No matter if McDraisaitl is in Oilers. There are other dynastis.
So if Holland says its a challenge, why kick NHL regulars out of the team?
Im afraid there isnt much to bring in on the market.

Here is hoping for a top6er and a middle 6 forward, and OfC - a functional goalie for 1 year at least.
but I doubt that.
OIlers best outcome may be keeping 2 regular NHLers in Barrie and Kieth, no matter if you want or not.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

But Holland has got out and said litterary ;" Its hard to sign good players out there": no wonder. There are limited FAs, and there is now 32 teams. No matter if McDraisaitl is in Oilers. There are other dynastis.
So if Holland says its a challenge, why kick NHL regulars out of the team?
Im afraid there isnt much to bring in on the market.

Here is hoping for a top6er and a middle 6 forward, and OfC - a functional goalie for 1 year at least.
but I doubt that.
OIlers best outcome may be keeping 2 regular NHLers in Barrie and Kieth, no matter if you want or not.

Ken Holland couldn't tell the difference between a good or bad player if he had a crystal ball. He unironically views Zack Kassian and Duncan Keith as positive assets. Get a new general manager.