Prospect Info: Necas: Keep him or Send him down

[geehaad]

Your grasp of SPCs is unreal and your grasp of the English language is amazing, so let me just slide this bit of knowledge over to you: the past tense of “slide” is “slid”, rather than “slided”.

No worries, though, Lumpy, you’re still one of my top-20 favorite posters on HFCanes, misspellings notwithstanding.

 

[Lempo]

Your grasp of SPCs is unreal and your grasp of the English language is amazing, so let me just slide this bit of knowledge over to you: the past tense of “slide” is “slid”, rather than “slided”.

No worries, though, Lumpy, you’re still one of my top-20 favorite posters on HFCanes, misspellings notwithstanding.

Totally should be "Slided" for the ELCs, like dead meat is hung but men are hanged.

 

[Lempo]

I stupidly said "European-drafted", but obviously being under the NHL/IIHL transfer agreement is dependent on playing in an IIHF league at the time of signing the ELC (in which case NHL SPC overrides but doesn't void the IIHF-associated league contract the player has) and not on the league one was drafted from like it is with the AHL prohibition for the guys drafted from CHL.

 

[Lempo]

Playing in the AHL doesn’t burn a year? If not, what contract are guys like Roy playing on?

Oh right, this one:
Nicolas Roy - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

He signed his ELC at 19, was thus eligible for one Slide year in 2016-17 and also did Slide. From 2017-18 onwards he's been 20+ of age and burning his ELC in normal duration, and is currently on the second year of his three year ELC.

Zykov was in similar situation but two seasons ahead Roy. Zykov likewise signed his ELC at 19, served his ELC in four years (Slide + 3) in QMJHL/AHL (and tiny bit in NHL in the end with 10 games to apparently unlock his roster bonus as a reward/RFA sweetener) and got signed to extension this summer.

 

[Lempo]

And, I've been told, re: Mittelstadt who was allowed to burn one year of ELC immediately when he signed (a 19 y.o. late birthday guy) at spring, that the teams don't really worry about burning the ELC so much but are wary of giving an 18 y.o. guy 40 games because that counts as accrued season and means that he'll in all likeliness get seven accrued NHL seasons at 25 and reach the big money UFA status a year "early".

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

"Service time" isn't terminology used in CBA 11.19 for the Entry-Level Slide; eligibility for Slide depends solely on the ELC signing age and NHL Games (not) played. Whether the player is in Junior league or not doesn't affect it.

Sign ELC at 18 or 19 (age at Sept 15th that year; 19 y.o. late birthday guys are an exception and not eligible), you will slide the first season under that ELC unless you play 10+ games in NHL. Sign ELC at 18 and Slide your first season, you're eligible for another Slide if you still won't play 10+ games in NHL. Playing in AHL doesn't burn any young player's ELC.

Europe guys are just as eligible for Entry-Level Slide as anyone, but the European-drafted guys have their own quirk from the NHL/IIHF transfer agreement, by which guys under 20 if they are under a contract to an IIHF-associated league and if they don't make it to the NHL roster and would be sent down to AHL, the European team has the first dips to demand the young player being sent back to service his contract there. Quite often the Euro teams seem to sign promising youngsters at 17 for multi-year contracts to get their hand on the sweet transfer agreement moolah in the likely case he gets drafted and signed.

Case in point: Kuokkanen slided his first in 2017-18. Having signed at 19, he's not eligible for another slide. As we remember Sebastian Aho's dad threatened that a year in AHL wasn't an option and that they would call him back to Kärpät. But they didn't in the end.

Janne Kuokkanen - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps


Case 2: Gauthier and Entry-lever Slide re CHL -> AHL:

He slided 2016-17 playing in CHL and slided again 2017-18 playing in AHL. BUT, despite this the AHL year nevertheless counts as a professional season for the Expansion Draft purposes due to the underager CHL/AHL transfer rules.

Julien Gauthier - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps


Case 3: Necas. Signed at 18, slided 2017-18 playing in Europe, is still eligible for another slide.

Martin Necas - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

I wasn’t quoting the CBA but service time is fairly understandable. And yes every player is eligible for a slide but only European players will have contract slide discussions associated with them.
Players drafted from North America either come from juniors leagues or are going to college after the draft. They will go to the NHL, starting their time, or will go back to the Juniors or College. Juniors players must play in Juniors until the year they turn 20 removing their chance to slide while in the NHL. The juniors players aren’t playing in the AHL so we don’t talk about their contracts sliding and typically aren’t signed (first rounders excluded) until they are AHL eligible. Again their contract isn’t sliding because they don’t have one.

Recap: only European players are slide eligible in the AHL all others have used their slides. Slides are only discussed with European players because of it. Discussing it with NA players is a mute point, moving on.

 

[Boats Ahoes]

Send him down. I'm confident that Nachos will one day be an impact player for us, but right now he's not good enough to help us win hockey games. Would rather see what Roy or Kuokks can do with the big club and have Marty take a year in the AHL to figure out North American ice.

 

[FreshSeabass]

For the record i'd still like to kill hill him behind the Bojangles. I would pick some bo rounds as one of the fixins.

Are we not actually in a pretty good spot with the 3 other line firing on all cylinders to just let him get experience and figure his game out up here on the big club. As long as his mistakes aren't costing us games i think he would benefit from being up here than the ahl. He has all the the talent once he figures it out and puts it together i think he will be pretty dangerous.

 

[DaveG]

I still like my idea of Kuokkanen up, PDG down. And that's nothing against PDG, but Necas needs someone that can keep up with him. Sucks that Rask got injured like he did as starting Necas out on the wing isn't the worst thing for his development either.

 

[Lempo]

I wasn’t quoting the CBA but service time is fairly understandable. And yes every player is eligible for a slide but only European players will have contract slide discussions associated with them.
Players drafted from North America either come from juniors leagues or are going to college after the draft. They will go to the NHL, starting their time, or will go back to the Juniors or College. Juniors players must play in Juniors until the year they turn 20 removing their chance to slide while in the NHL. The juniors players aren’t playing in the AHL so we don’t talk about their contracts sliding and typically aren’t signed (first rounders excluded) until they are AHL eligible. Again their contract isn’t sliding because they don’t have one.

Recap: only European players are slide eligible in the AHL all others have used their slides. Slides are only discussed with European players because of it. Discussing it with NA players is a mute point, moving on.

That is the ultimate takeaway when you superimpose the ELC Slide rules and CHL/NHL transfer agreement, yes. With caveats.

You have to be careful to notice when bringing Junior leagues to the thought process that there are guys like Kuokkanen who were drafted from Europe, and only afterwards came to play D+1 year in CHL, who aren't blocked from playing in AHL under 20.

And on the contrary, Olli Juolevi was drafted from CHL, and played his first ELC Slide year in CHL and, being not allowed to AHL, his second ELC Slide year in Finland.

Olli Juolevi - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

And to complicate it even more, Wikipedia page on Entry Draft 2017 lists Tolvanen as NA drafted guy, but he was playing in USHL and not CHL when he was drafted, and thusly was eligible to be sent to AHL despite being 19. The cheeky devil had them use the ELC burn option for season 2017-18 by signing in March 2018, at 19, and playing a couple of NHL games. If he had signed only in this summer, he would now be a guy drafted from NA, playing in AHL at 19, Sliding the first year of his ELC.

Contrary to CHL, USHL doesn't pay to it's players, who keep eligibility for NCAA, and apparently also aren't subject to CHL-like AHL restrictions despite being Major Juniors, I would assume due to not having a transfer agreement with NHL.

 

[Stickpucker]

I don't see the harm in swapping Necas and Wallmark for 4 games to evaluate Necas.

Necas has had some really nice passes, shown really good speed, and obviously has had some defensive lapses. I recall a couple times he sent some really nice passes to McGinn who sent them sailing wide. If McGinn finishes those I think people have a totally different perspective on Necas.

 

[Svechhammer]

Nachos has looked fine to me so far. Yes, he's playing 4th line minutes now, but it's only Game 4 in his American career and he's shown flashes of being a great player. He has playmaking ability that should be able to translate immediately. I do agree with maybe moving him to wing to let him adjust to NHL speed better, and then shift him to Center when he's ready, much like we did with Aho.

I do think he could use a year in Charlotte, but is that extra ELC year worth a year of legitimate experience at the NHL level. It's not like we are talking about someone who is being healthy scratched every night.

 

[dogbazinho]

Definately would like to see Kuokkanen up. Would send PDG down now and Necas in 4 days assuming he doesn't set the world on fire. I'd give Necas more opportunity with better wingers tho or a winger himself.

 

[Lempo]

I do think he could use a year in Charlotte, but is that extra ELC year worth a year of legitimate experience at the NHL level. It's not like we are talking about someone who is being healthy scratched every night.

Especially as the third and last year if we'd keep him up is 2020-21. It may be that there won't be much opportunity for a player to drive up the price in that season for the extension scheduled to be done latest at summer 2021.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

The extra year of control should be worth the potentially higher cost to bridge him / long term extension.

Its an analysis that has variables.

If Necas stays and struggles this season, he does progressively better each of the remaining 2 ELC years. It is typically in the best interest of the player to take a bridge deal to maximize their worth. Of course the variable is if he sets the world on fire the last 2 years and looks like a no brainer, top 6 player. After the bridge the player may look stronger and has more data to back up their demands, potentially costing more in the long term. At the same time after the bridge and 7 to 8 year extension the organization has gotten the vast majority of good years out of the player. It leaves the player more of a disadvantage than the organization. The player may have a handful of good years left, leaving them with a shorter contract term in free agency, typically.

If we keep him in Charlotte this year, there is a good chance he has decent to pretty strong 3 years of ELC. The organization has more confidence in giving a long term extension and with only 3 years of data, the organization can usually get the player cheaper long term than the previous scenario (unless you’re Nylander). The player has more advantage in this scenario because the player still has 3-5 good years and usually get a team to pay for 2-3 years of declining years. The player would get more money longer (2-3 years extra of good years type money).

So the send down or keep up has long and short term consequences for the player, team, and future contract. Its a gamble on either scenario that no answer truly is correct.

Of course like my contract slide explanation, this is a generalization and has holes for exceptions (but who wants a 3 paged post going through specific examples of where this generalization isn’t 100%).

 

[Lempo]

Of course like my contract slide explanation, this is a generalization and has holes for exceptions (but who wants a 3 paged post going through specific examples of where this generalization isn’t 100%).

Hey! I resemble this notion!

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

Hey! I resemble this notion!

Names were left off to protect the innocent.

 

[Lempo]

Names were left off to protect the innocent.

And to add insult to injury, he sets my internal jukebox to play reggae.

 

[Vagrant]

there's no rush to make this decision this quickly in my opinion. we're going to need him until we get rask back. we can resume the conversation at that point, but it would be needlessly reactionary to demote a player who made the team after 4 games for a player that didn't because he started hot in the minors. i know we're all on a high right now from this up and down the lineup production, but this degree of offensive explosion is unlikely to persist. that doesn't mean we can't be a good offensive team, it just means that we have a lot of guys playing over their capabilities right now. when teams talk about making an investment in a young player, what they mean is giving that young player time in the league to develop where it might not make sense for lesser prospects because the immediate returns might not be substantial, but the experience you're giving that player is going to help them get better at this level. it could be argued that the *best* time to break necas in is at a time when his production would be nearly superfluous.

it sucks for necas that he's coming in behind a player like svechnikov, because he can look fairly pedestrian by comparison just for being human. if we're still not seeing a pulse when rask is ready to come back, the lineup will sort itself at that point.

 

[Lempo]

there's no rush to make this decision this quickly in my opinion. we're going to need him until we get rask back. we can resume the conversation at that point, but it would be needlessly reactionary to demote a player who made the team after 4 games for a player that didn't because he started hot in the minors.

The only thing forcing a rush on the decision after 9 games is if you want his ELC to Slide this season (unless he gets a call-up in later season and plays 10+ games in NHL altogether) so that he'll be under the ELC for one more season and thusly somewhat more cap- and wallet-friendly player to have in 2021-22. Under the ELC he'd be $1.37M in real money (if he hits the bonuses which he probably will) and $1.43M in cap hit in the final ELC season. Having hit RFA status he would be somewhat more expensive.

I guess it'd be a legit argument that neither amount of money really are a serious issue with the projected cap space and Dundo dough, and that his acclimatisation and development in the NHL environment and him substituting Rask are much more important worries, and all this ELC business is for shortsighted morons without true vision.

 

[A Star is Burns]

I don't think they will make this particular decision based on the 9 games mark. I think they're willing to let him grow in the NHL.

 

[dogbazinho]

Sending Necas down isn't really about the team it's about whats best for his development. If we think he'll learn more by doing the right things in a lower league with more minutes than making mistakes with less minutes in the pros then we need to send him down.

 

[Vagrant]

The only thing forcing a rush on the decision after 9 games is if you want his ELC to Slide this season (unless he gets a call-up in later season and plays 10+ games in NHL altogether) so that he'll be under the ELC for one more season and thusly somewhat more cap- and wallet-friendly player to have in 2021-22. Under the ELC he'd be $1.37M in real money (if he hits the bonuses which he probably will) and $1.43M in cap hit in the final ELC season. Having hit RFA status he would be somewhat more expensive.

I guess it'd be a legit argument that neither amount of money really are a serious issue with the projected cap space and Dundo dough, and that his acclimatisation and development in the NHL environment and him substituting Rask are much more important worries, and all this ELC business is for shortsighted morons without true vision.

if this were baseball there's a chance i would agree that the extra year of control is more important. in hockey, i'm not sure it matters as much as it once did considering bridge contracts have been all but eliminated. when you think about how close he was to making the team last year, sliding his contract another year by burying him in the ahl for a rough start to his nhl career seems like something that might generate bad faith with the player. they understand the economics of their position much more than to think this would be a paper transaction that would evade necas' observation. you obviously never want to let a player drive the bus in these situations, but you don't want to hand a guy the motivation to bury you in future negotiations either. it's a tough spot.

 

[Lempo]

The tweener player sent to AHL after 9 can make it hard for the team to not call him up later in the season and force the ELC burn though, by proving himself to be an NHL caliber talent by rising above the AHL masses. If he can't, he will have hard time to argue that he should be up over the other guys.

Obviously the AHL salary is something very different from the NHL salary as economic considerations go, but on the other hand he did sign a two-way paper knowing quite well what the deal is, and that there are no guarantees of a spot up in the N when on ELC, and that there will be competition among all the wishfuls whenever one may open.

It must be noted, that we are not having this discussion about Foegele, but BSing about films and whatnot in his thread.

 

[NotOpie]

This is a case where patience is in order, doesn't hurt us (short term or long term). Personally I'd take the ELC slide consideration off the table and only think about what's right for Marty's development.