Confirmed with Link: Eric Staal signs With Minnesota (3 yr, 3.5 AAV)

[Saga of the Elk]

I guess that's one way to remember it... I seem to recall that you said that Dumba could not even be the base of a trade for someone as valuable as RNH.

The lack of a trade also indicates that RNH was NOT more valuable to Fletch than Dumba. Fletch could have added to Dumba to make the deal and chose not to... but I guess that doesn't fit your narrative, eh?

My narrative has been that the Oilers would be absolutely idiotic to trade him. There are few players equal to his value to the team going forward and I never saw Brodin or Dumba or Spurgeon as that player fit. Now that we've seen Chiarelli dump Hall for Larsson we see that Dumba for RNH was more realistic than I imagined, but still not quite equal value.

The tunnel vision of this board for RNH has been something to behold.

 

[J22*]

As promised but delayed by a few days (no wifi at my place!)

Assumptions:
- Las Vegas selects Jason Zucker ($2 mil cap hit) vs one of our defensemen ($4mil cap hit)
- Salary cap stays at $73mil in 2017-18
- Mikael Granlund re-signs similar to Nazem Kadri
- Nino re-signs similar to Bjustad
- Dumba re-signs at $2.6 mil, a high price for a bridge contract
- We sign a backup goalie at a high premium at $2mil

With all those assumptions, we are left with a cap space of $85, 579 with still 1 forward left to sign. This is very, very tight

But as mentioned before, there are alot of assumptions built in that works AGAINST the Wild. For example, Las Vegas selects a hometown boy (Zucker) vs the better option in Scandella/Spurgeon. We are also assuming we are not moving one of these defensemen during this season, which I HIGHLY doubt as I don't think the Wild would risk leaving 2 of Spurgeon/Scandella/Dumba unprotected.

In addition to that assumed $2mil, we are also assuming the cap does not move up by even $1 mil.

Now, if you were to reverse these assumptions in favor of the Wild, it would give the team about $2 mil of cap space. Tight still but much more workable.

In summary, yes, Staal does put us at the edge. But factoring in how the expansion will affect the league (forcing us to move a defenseman) and some other assumptions (don't think we'll sign a $2mil backup) and maybe some optimism (getting Nino closer to Coyle than Bjustad; getting Haula cheaper than premium price), it should still be workable and does not FORCE the Wild trade a valuable asset like Coyle or Nino; the expansion draft is already doing that with our d-men.

What the Staal signing DOES do however, is give us a team that will look almost the same in 2016 than it will in 2018. So how we do this year will be REALLY telling. Doesn't force us to make a move but does paint a rather solid picture of our next 2 years. But I love how Staal and Stewart don't have a NTC, otherwise that would be killer.

EDIT: Basically, how you see this situation is based on how optimistic you are of the current roster (we need drastic improvements vs quite solid). I am in the quite 'solid party' so I don't expect us to need $4-5 cap space flexibility to make major moves. I like the team we have. If need more offense, we could always use our required defenseman trade to bring one in.

Cool chart. I think your projections on future contracts are pretty good for what we can expect. I do have 2 little squabbles with the parts that are in bold.

1. In your chart, the Wild need to add 2 players, not 1.

2. If you're going to expose 1 dman that you don't want to, it doesn't really matter if you expose them all. Can only lose one of them.

 

[nickschultzfan]

My narrative has been that the Oilers would be absolutely idiotic to trade him. There are few players equal to his value to the team going forward and I never saw Brodin or Dumba or Spurgeon as that player fit. Now that we've seen Chiarelli dump Hall for Larsson we see that Dumba for RNH was more realistic than I imagined, but still not quite equal value.

The tunnel vision of this board for RNH has been something to behold.

Reality is not tunnel vision. RNH is available, attainable, an upgrade over pretty much everybody currently on the Wild outside of a now very old Koivu, and the potential to be a passable 1st center in this league.

Fantasy is ignoring that and praying a Seguin 2.0 drops from the sky into the Wild's lap and some point in the undefined future.

 

[Circulartheory]

Cool chart. I think your projections on future contracts are pretty good for what we can expect. I do have 2 little squabbles with the parts that are in bold.

1. In your chart, the Wild need to add 2 players, not 1.

2. If you're going to expose 1 dman that you don't want to, it doesn't really matter if you expose them all. Can only lose one of them.

1. I miswrote the 2016-17 year. We already have 12 forwards.

2. Yeah, the expansion draft creates alot of different options that will hard to foresee as a fan. Either way, if we keep both d-men and one gets pick in the draft, thats $4mil gone.

Basically, with the Staal signing, we are dependent on Las Vegas selecting someone $2mil+ to keep afloat, which that should be a good chance of happening.

But yeah, it doesn't leave alot of room for changes, but that is only if you want changes. This season will be really telling on whether we want it or not. Unfortunately we aren't Chicago and don't have a line of promising prospects to jump right into our lineup for the 2017-18 season as a regular so I'm willing to at least wait to see how we do this year. We don't have alot of options really (thats a problem with our drafting and lousy AHL team, different from Staal)

 

[J22*]

1. I miswrote the 2016-17 year. We already have 12 forwards.

2. Yeah, the expansion draft creates alot of different options that will hard to foresee as a fan. Either way, if we keep both d-men and one gets pick in the draft, thats $4mil gone.

Basically, with the Staal signing, we are dependent on Las Vegas selecting someone $2mil+ to keep afloat, which that should be a good chance of happening.

But yeah, it doesn't leave alot of room for changes, but that is only if you want changes. This season will be really telling on whether we want it or not. Unfortunately we aren't Chicago and don't have a line of promising prospects to jump right into our lineup for the 2017-18 season as a regular so I'm willing to at least wait to see how we do this year. We don't have alot of options really (thats a problem with our drafting and lousy AHL team, different from Staal)

Yes, 12 forwards + 7 dmen + 2 goalies = need to sign 2 more players to get to 23.

Having only 85K to fill 2 roster spots means that you would realistically need to move almost $3M worth of salary to make everything work out.