Niskanen

[Honour Over Glory]

So worth the money to sign Scuds, because who needs a defenseman the team has helped turn around, then lose for nothing.

 

[DoktorZaius]

So worth the money to sign Scuds, because who needs a defenseman the team has helped turn around, then lose for nothing.

But we NEEDED Scuds to make Letang good again. Except Letang looks much better with, like, every else, but particularly Martin. We NEEDED Scuds, he's THE PIECE.

Although, I gotta admit, it will be hilarious if we manage to win the cup the year we re-sign this guy, horribly misguided or not.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

But we NEEDED Scuds to make Letang good again. Except Letang looks much better with, like, every else, but particularly Martin. We NEEDED Scuds, he's THE PIECE.

Although, I gotta admit, it will be hilarious if we manage to win the cup the year we re-sign this guy, horribly misguided or not.

He's what, The Piece of **** that seems to pass into players skates and drop down as his only default move? Sorry, I loved the guy for his hard work in 2009, but he's not the same, or maybe he is and the game has changed and he hasn't adapted enough.

But Letang has looked great with Despres, Maatta, and most notably, Martin. The only guy Letang hasn't worked with was Niskanen prior to Scuds and he looked meh with Orpik and now he looks like hot garbage with Scuds.

I mean even when Bortuzzo was with Scuderi, the biggest mistakes Bortz made, was when he was attempting to recover from the passes he kept getting into his skates.

The hockey gods have shone on us with Orpik, let them shine on us one more time....

I don't even care saying that anymore. Not with this team.

It's also sad that this might be the last playoffs we see with Niskanen in a Pens uniform, when he goes on to sign with someone like the Wild or whatever, watch this board gush about how awesome he is, something we already knew, and the haters that never wanted him, will suddenly use that as an example against Shero.

You just know it.

 

[JimsDoors]

Here's part of an article about Nisky that was written today by ESPN's Craig Custance.

________


"This season, he was arguably the Penguins' most important defenseman, and while his puck-handling skills stand out, Dan Bylsma points out that his reliability against tough competition this year was just an equally important development.

In his first full season with the Penguins in 2011-12, Niskanen’s Relative Corsi Quality of Competition was minus-0.064, which placed him No. 6 on the Penguins among defensemen who played at least 40 minutes (per behindthenet.ca). He started in the offensive zone 57.3 percent of the time. Translation: no regular defenseman on the Penguins had easier ice time.

This year, he trailed only Brooks Orpik and Rob Scuderi in quality of competition among defensemen who played at least 40 games. He started just 49.5 percent of his even-strength shifts in the offensive zone. The sheltering is over.

“His matchups have significantly been different the last year and a half than the first year and a half. He’s played against the top guys. That’s been the most understated part,” Bylsma said, adding that his growth on the power play has also been impressive. “His confidence to shoot the puck and shoot it at the right times and be a factor offensively has been a huge growth.”

Acquiring Niskanen was relatively painless for the Penguins. Keeping him won’t be quite as easy.

He’s an unrestricted free agent after this season. Pittsburgh and his camp had preliminary contract talks during the season, in which each side shared where the other was at in terms of expectations. If it was close, a deal would be made.

Ultimately, they decided to reconvene after the season.

The conventional thinking is that the Penguins will allow Orpik to walk, leaving the cap space to keep Niskanen, who definitely wants to stay in Pittsburgh.

Still, there’s no doubt the bigger offer will come on the open market. He’s a 27-year-old right-handed shot defenseman who put up nearly 50 points. There are exactly zero other players like that on the potential free-agent list.

A team like Colorado would love to add him. Detroit has money to spend and a big need on defense. Florida is poised to spend money again in free agency. The Capitals have long needed another top-four defenseman. If the Sharks let Dan Boyle walk, this would be an opportunity for them to get younger on defense.

There’s no shortage of potential suitors.

“We’ll have discussions when it’s said and done,” said Niskanen’s agent, Neil Sheehy, who negotiated Ryan Suter’s $98 million free-agent deal with the Wild. “Matt would like to stay there. I don’t know what’s going to happen.” The Philadelphia Flyers helped set the market with their six-year, $30 million deal in April with Andrew MacDonald. It’s hard to imagine Niskanen’s next contract being worth anything less, although Shero does have a way of getting players to stick around for less than market value.

Niskanen’s focus is squarely on beating the Rangers right now, but his revival in Pittsburgh has made it a place he’d like to stay long term.

“I hope I’m here,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that go into it, but ideally, I like it here.”

 

[Your Boy Troy]

I was thinking earlier today, if Pittsburgh wasn't able to re-sign Niskanen because of the money that he would demand, then they should trade his rights along with a draft pick for RFA rights to Cody Franson.

Franson has a hard slap shot from the point which could help the PP with the absence of Niskanen. Right-handed shot as well. His skating is ****, along with his decision making can cause turnovers. He has turn into a physical defensemen. I believe that he was third in the NHL in hits. He has great size as he listed at 6'5".

 

[DoktorZaius]

I was thinking earlier today, if Pittsburgh wasn't able to re-sign Niskanen because of the money that he would demand, then they should trade his rights along with a draft pick for RFA rights to Cody Franson.

Franson has a hard slap shot from the point which could help the PP with the absence of Niskanen. Right-handed shot as well. His skating is ****, along with his decision making can cause turnovers. He has turn into a physical defensemen. I believe that he was third in the NHL in hits. He has great size as he listed at 6'5".

Why would we want to replace a strong skater who makes good decision with someone like that?

 

[Honour Over Glory]

I was thinking earlier today, if Pittsburgh wasn't able to re-sign Niskanen because of the money that he would demand, then they should trade his rights along with a draft pick for RFA rights to Cody Franson.

Franson has a hard slap shot from the point which could help the PP with the absence of Niskanen. Right-handed shot as well. His skating is ****, along with his decision making can cause turnovers. He has turn into a physical defensemen. I believe that he was third in the NHL in hits. He has great size as he listed at 6'5".

Why wouldn't we just trade for Gonchar then? He'd cost less and the Pens could probably get the Stars to eat some salary just to rid themselves of him.

In any case, I would hope he signed for around 5.5m/yr, long term. Then Shero needs to find a way to dump Scuderi.

 

[MtlPenFan]

Why wouldn't we just trade for Gonchar then? He'd cost less and the Pens could probably get the Stars to eat some salary just to rid themselves of him.

In any case, I would hope he signed for around 5.5m/yr, long term. Then Shero needs to find a way to dump Scuderi.

Yeah, I think most of us cringed with the Scuderi signing because we knew it would immediately impact re-signing Nisky.

I absolutely love the guy and hope he takes a big discount to stay. I'd even go as far as maxing him out as long as the cap hit is decent.

My only hope is he sees what's happened to guys like Staal and Malone who left good situations playing with talented players only to see them fall back down to earth the minute they took on a bigger role.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Yeah, I think most of us cringed with the Scuderi signing because we knew it would immediately impact re-signing Nisky.

I absolutely love the guy and hope he takes a big discount to stay. I'd even go as far as maxing him out as long as the cap hit is decent.

My only hope is he sees what's happened to guys like Staal and Malone who left good situations playing with talented players only to see them fall back down to earth the minute they took on a bigger role.

Yeah, except you can't think Niskanen is going to wait and take something less when he could get market value elsewhere. I think he's worth 5m+.

I also think Scuderi's contract is going to cause problems. I mean, does Shero want to keep a 27yr old that might have another solid 4-5yrs in him? Or keep a guy in Scuderi that might be half decent for another year or two?

I mean, how little faith did Shero have in the future of the Pens blueline that he threw a 4yr offer at Scuds last year?

4yrs!

He's 35, he's not going to get any better, if anything, he's going to regress and that cap hit is going to make the Pens miss out on keeping someone good (like Nisky). I mean, did anyone read about what Bettman said the cap might be? 69-71m...figure in the increases for some guys and RFA's...that cap space is going to close up real fast.

 

[mpp9]

Yeah I wonder if the Dallas situation is still squarely in the back of his mind. He can be a quality middle pairing guy, but alot of the teams who will give him big money in free agency will be relying on him way too heavily. I would not want him as my go to shutdown defender.

Replace Scuds with Despres and our defense is awesome moving forward. And he fits in quite nicely as a guy coming into his prime on a team with a nice mix of youth and vets.

Id go 4.5 longterm. Or 5 for 5 or fewer. But we still need to focus on forwards this offseason, so Scuds has to go if we're paying up for him.

 

[Shockmaster]

Yeah, I think most of us cringed with the Scuderi signing because we knew it would immediately impact re-signing Nisky.

I absolutely love the guy and hope he takes a big discount to stay. I'd even go as far as maxing him out as long as the cap hit is decent.

My only hope is he sees what's happened to guys like Staal and Malone who left good situations playing with talented players only to see them fall back down to earth the minute they took on a bigger role.

If he gets paid between $5-$6 million on the open market, why would the situations with Staal and Malone sway him away from that? If he sucks with his next team, so what? He still gets paid.

 

[joeyjake5]

Whether Nisky resigns or not, Scuds has to go. If one of Pouliett,harrington, Dumulin, Samuelson and Despres isn't better than Scuds, then RS should be fired immediately. Scuds has shown that he is now terrible and the solution is to get rid of him via trade, waiver or buy-out.

 

[joeyjake5]

Here are the stats on Scuds for this year.

Regular season, no goals and 4 assists with a minus 8 in 53 games.

Playoffs, no goals and no assists in 10 games and is a minus 3. No other Pens D is a minus in the playoffs.

And his salary is $3MM plus. Can any one justify his salary based on productivity of having no offensive capability and being a way less than average so-called shut down D.

 

[DoktorZaius]

Here are the stats on Scuds for this year.

Regular season, no goals and 4 assists with a minus 8 in 53 games.

Playoffs, no goals and no assists in 10 games and is a minus 3. No other Pens D is a minus in the playoffs.

And his salary is $3MM plus. Can any one justify his salary based on productivity of having no offensive capability and being a way less than average so-called shut down D.

I don't think there's ANYONE on this board who thinks Scuds is better than any number of league-minimum or ELC replacements -- and most agree that he's probably significantly worse than those options. But yeah, the numbers only confirm what the eye test is telling us, and it's that Scuds needs to go. He may get a bit more comfortable here with time to learn the system, but I guarantee there will be no Martinesque renaissance here -- Scuds just isn't skilled, and this is simply the most he can give. Can't ask the guy for more than that. The only question, is, does Shero realize his "mistake" this time around?

 

[AjaxTelamon]

Yeah I wonder if the Dallas situation is still squarely in the back of his mind. He can be a quality middle pairing guy, but alot of the teams who will give him big money in free agency will be relying on him way too heavily. I would not want him as my go to shutdown defender.

Replace Scuds with Despres and our defense is awesome moving forward. And he fits in quite nicely as a guy coming into his prime on a team with a nice mix of youth and vets.

Id go 4.5 longterm. Or 5 for 5 or fewer. But we still need to focus on forwards this offseason, so Scuds has to go if we're paying up for him.

I think Nisky likes it here, and doesn't seem to bear the organization any ill-will for waiting to make him an offer. I have to think we'll make a strong run at him, but I don't think Shero will cut ties with Scuds. Having them both will be a problem cap-wise and in terms of blocking our young D. But a problem Shero seems to like to have.

I expect something like this next year, not awful, but could be better:

CAPGEEK.COM ARMCHAIR GM ROSTER

FORWARDS
Chris Kunitz ($3.850m) / Sidney Crosby ($8.700m) / Lee Stempniak ($3.500m)
Beau Bennett ($0.900m) / Evgeni Malkin ($9.500m) / James Neal ($5.000m)
Brian Gibbons ($0.550m) / Brandon Sutter ($3.700m) / Pascal Dupuis ($3.750m)
Jayson Megna ($0.900m) / Joe Vitale ($0.550m) / Craig Adams ($0.700m)
Zach Sill ($0.550m) /
DEFENSEMEN
Kris Letang ($7.250m) / Paul Martin ($5.000m)
Matt Niskanen ($4.750m) / Olli Maatta ($0.894m)
Robert Bortuzzo ($0.600m) / Rob Scuderi ($3.375m)
Simon Despres ($1.000m) /
GOALTENDERS
Marc-Andre Fleury ($5.000m)
Jeff Zatkoff ($0.600m)
------
CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(estimations for 2014-15)
SALARY CAP: $71,100,000; CAP PAYROLL: $70,619,167; BONUSES: $0
CAP SPACE (22-man roster): $480,833

 

[Sutter16]

I'd like to re-sign Nisky but it's not a must. Say we resign Matt for 4.5 to 4.75 M per year for 4 years, then Shero almost has to trade one of our defensive prospects. We have so many of them and with Letang, Martin and Niskanen all potentially playing the right side next season, there's no room for Robert Bortuzzo or the right side D prospects. Now, we may see Martin-Letang next year. It'd be nice to keep Nisky but only if we make more moves and trades on the backend for some forwards. I'd guess Shero will have this figured out by the draft, so if Nisky plans on walking, we could get a 2nd round pick for his rights.