Confirmed with Link: Lehner(72% retained), & Martins Dzierkals for 2nd, Subban, 5th, & Slava Demin

[Boris Zubov]

I should say, I meant 4M as the upper limit of what they could spend on a 3C to make up for Glass moving up. I agree that we could probably pick up Haula for cheaper.

Looking at the roster, I think they could see a 3C who could score goals as their biggest need next season. We don't need defensive forwards, physical forwards, top sixers or goaltenders. We probably trust our young defensemen again to step into bottom pairing so I think getting more depth scoring becomes their priority.

I'd rather try a combination of Stephenson or Glass at 3C with Tuch. I don't care which one of them plays center, but I think that could be an effective line. Haula brings nothing to the table, IMO & I certainly wouldn't want to allocate any FA money on him. Money that could be spent to upgrade the D or used for Lehner.

 

[Nevada Jones]

Have a hunch any speculation about signing Lehner to a new contract is moot. Based on some of the comments by both Lehner and Kelly, I'm thinking both sides agree this is purely a rental situation.

Of course, I could be wrong.

In any case, help us get that Cup this season, Robin!

 

[Vegan Knight]

Have a hunch any speculation about signing Lehner to a new contract is moot. Based on some of the comments by both Lehner and Kelly, I'm thinking both sides agree this is purely a rental situation.

Of course, I could be wrong.

In any case, help us get that Cup this season, Robin!

What happens if he plays better?

I feel it would be wrong for the other hardworking players in the lineup to make a decision with regards to one player sentimenalities or ego. If Lehner is the better goalie then we should keep him.

 

[Nevada Jones]

What happens if he plays better?

I feel it would be wrong for the other hardworking players in the lineup to make a decision with regards to one player sentimenalities or ego. If Lehner is the better goalie then we should keep him.

Oh, I'm not saying we shouldn't keep Lehner (although his past issues give me some pause). I'm saying I get the impression that his coming here was understood by both sides to be nothing more than a rental.

If Robin works out, and he feels like he can be comfortable here, I'd love to see him signed to a new contract. But today when asked about the city of Las Vegas he said he and the city used to be "old friends, but not anymore," which is another reason I think this isn't going to turn into anything long-term.

 

[Vegan Knight]

Oh, I'm not saying we shouldn't keep Lehner (although his past issues give me some pause). I'm saying I get the impression that his coming here was understood by both sides to be nothing more than a rental.

If Robin works out, and he feels like he can be comfortable here, I'd love to see him signed to a new contract. But today when asked about the city of Las Vegas he said he and the city used to be "old friends, but not anymore," which is another reason I think this isn't going to turn into anything long-term.

I don't buy this argument. Is Vegas the only city with alcohol? What other city has nightlife or adult oriented activities that don't include alcohol? Gambling is the only difference.

The arena is the same as other arenas, and other arenas are surrounded by city squares with bars and restaurants. There's other things to do in Vegas and living in Summerlin is like living in a smaller community. There's outdoor things to do, he has a family and Summerlin has many family activities especially if you can afford it, which he would be able.

He's not getting away from temptation wherever he goes, NY, Chicago, Vegas, LA. Even a smaller market where he could get bored out of his mind and start drinking. There's pitfalls everywhere and I don't think it's a greater risk here.

 

[theslatcher]

Have a hunch any speculation about signing Lehner to a new contract is moot. Based on some of the comments by both Lehner and Kelly, I'm thinking both sides agree this is purely a rental situation.

Of course, I could be wrong.

In any case, help us get that Cup this season, Robin!

I think a better way to put it is removing the purely, as it's a rental situation that could blossom into something more after the season is done, but right now we just focus on this season.

And yeah, Vegas got temptations... Food, that is, Lehner loves a good restaurant.

Remember, folks: hockey teams are surrounded by alcohol anyways so an extra element which exists pretty much everywhere is no biggie. Shoutout to when Sweden lost in world juniors and Elvenes, & Brännström went clubbing with teammates, involving alcohol ofc.

 

[ChanceVegas]

I don't buy this argument. Is Vegas the only city with alcohol? What other city has nightlife or adult oriented activities that don't include alcohol? Gambling is the only difference.

The arena is the same as other arenas, and other arenas are surrounded by city squares with bars and restaurants. There's other things to do in Vegas and living in Summerlin is like living in a smaller community. There's outdoor things to do, he has a family and Summerlin has many family activities especially if you can afford it, which he would be able.

He's not getting away from temptation wherever he goes, NY, Chicago, Vegas, LA. Even a smaller market where he could get bored out of his mind and start drinking. There's pitfalls everywhere and I don't think it's a greater risk here.

It might be more than just alcohol. Maybe he has himself convinced that he won't like Vegas? I mean we are biased, but this town isn't for everyone and that's ok too. We want someone who wants to be here.

 

[Vegas07]

Spending 13m on two goalies and not knowing which is the real #1? That's a total nightmare scenario.

I’d say it’s a dream scenario and the exact opposite is the nightmare. Having only Fleury, and then having Fleury get injured so you have neither of those goalies is the nightmare. McCrimmon said that himself when he said this:

"If anything ever happened to Marc-Andre Fleury, we weren't strong enough to win playoff games." -McCrimmon

 

[Vegas07]

If your goaltending is so good that Fleury might be your #2 that is a good thing. It’s not a bad thing.

 

[Vegas07]

 

[Nevada Jones]

Regards the various temptations in Las Vegas, I have lived in nearly every time zone, from big cities to small towns, during the course of my life, and I can say without a doubt the temptations in Las Vegas dwarf those of any other place I've lived.

Also, let's not forget that Lehner has issues beyond those we're referring to here. I'm absolutely pulling for him and think it would be great if something were worked out long-term, but some are missing my initial point which was I don't think that was the intention on either side going into this.

That is all.

 

[Vegan Knight]

Regards the various temptations in Las Vegas, I have lived in nearly every time zone, from big cities to small towns, during the course of my life, and I can say without a doubt the temptations in Las Vegas dwarf those of any other place I've lived.

Also, let's not forget that Lehner has issues beyond those we're referring to here. I'm absolutely pulling for him and think it would be great if something were worked out long-term, but some are missing my initial point which was I don't think that was the intention on either side going into this.

That is all.

As somebody who deals with some of the other issues Lehner has, Vegas is full of great places to go and ways to deal with those. Plenty of mental health officials and ways to deal with stress and anxiety here in a positive way. I would say there are probably more tools available to people who deal with those issues here than in many other places, especially if you can afford it, and he and the team can afford it.

 

[nihlify]

I'd say with Lehner coming out publically about it makes it much less likely he'll fall back into his old habits. Obviously there's always a risk, but he seems to be fully aware about what he needs to do to keep himself in a good place. I don't see it as a problem.

 

[derriko]

Unpopular opinion. Trade MAF in the offseason and re-sign Lehner.

This team is not even close to having its Championship window close. Outside of Patches, the core is all in their late 20’s, and Max seemingly isnt slowing down just yet. Signing Lehner would guarantee this team will remain a force for the next 3+ years. Fleury is going to slow down here pretty soon imo.

MAF is 35, Lehner is 28. Robin would fit right into the core players age here, and he is trending up while Fleury’s gas tank has to be running out here soon.

The cap is a big problem, but with Fluery gone the room is there. Im not even against retaining a bit to ensure the move. This is absolutely the right move. I know the casual fans will hate it, but I cant think of any other reason not to.

 

[Brazen331]

Who would you trade Fleury to at his age and cap hit?

 

[willy702]

I’d say it’s a dream scenario and the exact opposite is the nightmare. Having only Fleury, and then having Fleury get injured so you have neither of those goalies is the nightmare. McCrimmon said that himself when he said this:

"If anything ever happened to Marc-Andre Fleury, we weren't strong enough to win playoff games." -McCrimmon

They can't spend nearly 20% of the cap on two goalies. The position is always overrated in its importance so doing that is an utter disaster. It's not about performance, it's about managing the cap and most fans don't seem to realize that's job number one in today's NHL.

 

[CupInSIX]

They can't spend nearly 20% of the cap on two goalies. The position is always overrated in its importance so doing that is an utter disaster. It's not about performance, it's about managing the cap and most fans don't seem to realize that's job number one in today's NHL.

Cap doesn't win Cups. Good defense and goalies do. If they don't have their goaltending sorted out, they need to overpay for a veteran defenseman. Either way, cap needs to be spent on the D zone.

Unless Pietrangelo magically goes to UFA, I'd rather spend 6m on Lehner if he has a really good run with Vegas. That's 13m on goalies for one year, then they can explore other options with Fleury, like buying him out & re-signing him.

 

[theslatcher]

FYI - Flower has played better than Lehner has since the All-Star break. And no, it's not only on the teams, Crawford has heavily outperformed Lehner in Chicago since then, too, and had taken the starter spot. Hopefully Lehner's play since then has more to do with him, & his agent being stonewalled by the Hawks in contract talks than his actual play.

 

[willy702]

Cap doesn't win Cups. Good defense and goalies do. If they don't have their goaltending sorted out, they need to overpay for a veteran defenseman. Either way, cap needs to be spent on the D zone.

Unless Pietrangelo magically goes to UFA, I'd rather spend 6m on Lehner if he has a really good run with Vegas. That's 13m on goalies for one year, then they can explore other options with Fleury, like buying him out & re-signing him.

We could argue this forever but lots of analytics and simple math prove that goalies are extremely overrated on a predictive basis. Goalie importance is easy to point to after the fact, but the hard part is figuring the value of goalies and paying for that in advance.

In advance if you choose between MAF and Subban in a playoff series, MAF predictively saves one, maybe two, more shots over a series. That's just math. Except for rare cases of bad sequencing, this rarely would change the ultimate result. Of course anything can happen and the way perception works is fans and team management believe a goalie won a series for them and then overpayment begins. Meanwhile few stop to think maybe another goalie could have done the same or a little less and the team still wins a series.

Mathematically goalies get overrated and strategic thinking can prove it. However GMs and fan bases never figure this out.

 

[theslatcher]

We could argue this forever but lots of analytics and simple math prove that goalies are extremely overrated on a predictive basis. Goalie importance is easy to point to after the fact, but the hard part is figuring the value of goalies and paying for that in advance.

In advance if you choose between MAF and Subban in a playoff series, MAF predictively saves one, maybe two, more shots over a series. That's just math. Except for rare cases of bad sequencing, this rarely would change the ultimate result. Of course anything can happen and the way perception works is fans and team management believe a goalie won a series for them and then overpayment begins. Meanwhile few stop to think maybe another goalie could have done the same or a little less and the team still wins a series.

Mathematically goalies get overrated and strategic thinking can prove it. However GMs and fan bases never figure this out.

Do you have any source for this, because this smells like utter bs. I've seen enough goalies steal playoffs series that this reeks.

 

[Vegas07]

We could argue this forever but lots of analytics and simple math prove that goalies are extremely overrated on a predictive basis. Goalie importance is easy to point to after the fact, but the hard part is figuring the value of goalies and paying for that in advance.

In advance if you choose between MAF and Subban in a playoff series, MAF predictively saves one, maybe two, more shots over a series. That's just math. Except for rare cases of bad sequencing, this rarely would change the ultimate result. Of course anything can happen and the way perception works is fans and team management believe a goalie won a series for them and then overpayment begins. Meanwhile few stop to think maybe another goalie could have done the same or a little less and the team still wins a series.

Mathematically goalies get overrated and strategic thinking can prove it. However GMs and fan bases never figure this out.

Your position is interesting because from it one could conclude that a better strategy would be to have a couple of cheap goalies like Subban and someone else at a similar price and skill level, and then use the extra cap room to strengthen the other positions.

I don’t really dislike Subban the way some others do. I have mixed feelings about him.

 

[willy702]

Do you have any source for this, because this smells like utter bs. I've seen enough goalies steal playoffs series that this reeks.

Exactly after the fact you saw them steal a series. Not arguing it doesn't happen, but you sign contracts and manage your cap based on what you expect to happen in the future. You shouldn't pay for what someone did over a short series of games, but I'm fully aware it happens all the time. We're stuck with a bad contract with MAF precisely because of what he did in a couple of playoff series.

But analytics is about what are you going to do for me in the future and looking it at coldly without emotion. We have a fanbase that is emotionally tied to MAF forever now and if it came out that George McPhee told him "Hey Flower, we love you and thank you for what you did, but the analytics suggests our extension offer to you should be 2 years, $3.5m per because you are getting up there in age after all and we aren't sure you can repeat that performance" what would the fanbase's reaction be? And he would be right and should have let him walk because some other GM who is not good at analytics and simple strategy will be like this is a guy who has won Cups and seems still good enough, we'll pay him $6m per or more and then the VGK fanbase will be like you idiot McPhee, how could you let him go for nothing.

I'm not trying to say anyone is right or wrong, I'm just pointing out the critical thinking and strategy skills that can be improved upon by every team. Its easy to say mistakes were made looking in the rear view mirror. I accept those, but what I'm less accepting of is continuing to make mistakes or doing things like thinking if you do one thing right to correct something you did wrong, it makes the wrong go away. Signing Lehner to a fair contract doesn't make the wrong of an overpriced and probably over lengthy extension for MAF go away, and it also makes a huge strategic mistake of spending too much on a category of players that other teams can and will be better at spending much less on.

As for the proof, there have been dozens of articles written even by non-hockey focused people talking about how goalies are overpriced because it is just solving for a math problem. Save percentages adjust over time, but if trying to predict the future you have to assume the math you have predicts best what will happen. If a goalie is going to face about 30 shots a game and a series is likely to go on average 6 games, a goalie with a save percentage that is 0.1% higher will save about 1.8 more shots than the lesser goalie. Many of these extra goals will have no ultimate impact on the series, but they could. And the natural bias of fans is to remember when they could have.

 

[CupInSIX]

How is getting Lehner re-signed long term NOT thinking about the future? If he had a Cup (he may yet ) he would be commanding 9-10m based on past performance. IMO he's easily the best option for most teams moving forward.

2 years left on MAF's contract, then RFAs are due a hefty raise. Patera/Ferguson won't be ready for several years. Lehner's age lines up perfectly.


I'm not saying they're doomed if they have to sign someone like Khudobin next year, but Lehner seems to be worth 6m.

 

[willy702]

Your position is interesting because from it one could conclude that a better strategy would be to have a couple of cheap goalies like Subban and someone else at a similar price and skill level, and then use the extra cap room to strengthen the other positions.

I don’t really dislike Subban the way some others do. I have mixed feelings about him.

You don't necessarily have to spend that little. What happens in the "real world" is teams pay way too much for past accomplishments and there is less reason to do that with goalies. Spending $5-7m on your goalie tandem is probably about ideal, but its hard to do because the market wants to overpay for recognized goalie talent and at times you might have to pay market to keep one on your roster.

A way to think more critically about this is consider Jordan Binnington. He clearly was a big reason why the Blues won a Cup, he definitely made a difference. If he was that good and that important, why did it take him that long to get to the NHL? If Jake Allen didn't suck for awhile, he never even makes it and Allen may not have stolen a game or two and the Blues don't have a Cup. However, who could have predicted any of this along the way? Most importantly, he's now making more money and in a couple years could make a LOT of money, but will he ever produce at a level that justifies it?

 

[theslatcher]

Exactly after the fact you saw them steal a series. Not arguing it doesn't happen, but you sign contracts and manage your cap based on what you expect to happen in the future. You shouldn't pay for what someone did over a short series of games, but I'm fully aware it happens all the time. We're stuck with a bad contract with MAF precisely because of what he did in a couple of playoff series.

But analytics is about what are you going to do for me in the future and looking it at coldly without emotion. We have a fanbase that is emotionally tied to MAF forever now and if it came out that George McPhee told him "Hey Flower, we love you and thank you for what you did, but the analytics suggests our extension offer to you should be 2 years, $3.5m per because you are getting up there in age after all and we aren't sure you can repeat that performance" what would the fanbase's reaction be? And he would be right and should have let him walk because some other GM who is not good at analytics and simple strategy will be like this is a guy who has won Cups and seems still good enough, we'll pay him $6m per or more and then the VGK fanbase will be like you idiot McPhee, how could you let him go for nothing.

I'm not trying to say anyone is right or wrong, I'm just pointing out the critical thinking and strategy skills that can be improved upon by every team. Its easy to say mistakes were made looking in the rear view mirror. I accept those, but what I'm less accepting of is continuing to make mistakes or doing things like thinking if you do one thing right to correct something you did wrong, it makes the wrong go away. Signing Lehner to a fair contract doesn't make the wrong of an overpriced and probably over lengthy extension for MAF go away, and it also makes a huge strategic mistake of spending too much on a category of players that other teams can and will be better at spending much less on.

As for the proof, there have been dozens of articles written even by non-hockey focused people talking about how goalies are overpriced because it is just solving for a math problem. Save percentages adjust over time, but if trying to predict the future you have to assume the math you have predicts best what will happen. If a goalie is going to face about 30 shots a game and a series is likely to go on average 6 games, a goalie with a save percentage that is 0.1% higher will save about 1.8 more shots than the lesser goalie. Many of these extra goals will have no ultimate impact on the series, but they could. And the natural bias of fans is to remember when they could have.

No source, then? And if you just base it upon save percentage then that's a pretty bad analysis on a goalie's impact.

And yeah, I agree that Flower is overpaid, by 1 million, term however is more than fair.