Speculation: Off-Season Roster Building/Line Combos Thread

[Big Daddy Cane]

If other GMs are lowballing Waddell to the point of a “very disappointing” return, why not just move van Riemsdyk first? I don’t really get the prioritization of TvR here. Faulk is a better player and a better fit given the makeup of the defense at this point; give me a ~15 goal defenseman in that 3rd pairing slot over another sub-20 point guy. Faulk’s shooting percentage should bounceback and his numbers will follow. That could improve his value for a deadline trade or a move next offseason.

This assumes that the budget isn’t a motivating factor here. If it is, moving Faulk for the best offer, even if it's crap, makes more sense. The opening night NHL player payroll is on track to be in the high-60s; that’s a pretty significant bump from the ~$60 mil mark of last year.

 

[Cardiac Jerks]

We should start making proposals with Philly to reunite the VR brothers.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

They don’t have much choice with Skinner. If I had to guess I’d agree that Brind’amour doesn’t want him on his team. Unfortunately JR gave him a NMC and that just is what it is.

I see the Cole and Brind’Amour comments as them griefing Skinner into opening up his NMC to a wider market. Seems like tactic that is fairly common but rarely works. I’d be surprised at this point if most of Skinner’s main options weren’t exhausted. Either by lack of agreement on extension (maybe Skinner is asking too much), lack of acceptable trade assets (other teams are offering too little or just futures), intra-division (Pittsburgh, NJ, NYR, etc. are not ideal landing spots). We saw a ton of pre-Draft buzz that Skinner was most likely to be traded. I don’t think the lack of a trade was for lack of trying.

So the Canes are left keeping Skinner and waiting for a team to get desperate, a team to clear Cap space (Chicago?), injuries, etc to open an opportunity. That is probably less than a 50/50 shot at this point. Which is why you start to see reports like the N&O article regarding the Canes gameplanning to keep Skinner. Half last-ditch effort to drive up demand in the market and half preparing Canes fans for life with Skinner next year despite every report this offseason saying the opposite.

I get what you are saying, but I think they will end up moving him, even if the return is less than they want. I don't see him on the opening night roster and will be very surprised if he is.

 

[Unsustainable]

We should start making proposals with Philly to reunite the VR brothers.

Skinner + TVR for JVR

Just to confuse them.

 

[cptjeff]

Debrincat vs Schmaltz is an incredibly tough choice. Which name would you rather hear Forslund say on a regular basis? Glad I’m not the one who has to make that call.

Schmaltz is the yiddish term for rendered chicken fat- for spreading on bread or using in cooking and baking akin to lard in kosher households.

Think about that fact. Now think about Tripp Tracy. How often do you want to hear about Tripp's experiences with Schmaltz?

OTOH, it would give Harris Teeter a pretty easy choice on the signature sub.

 

[tarheelhockey]

They don’t have much choice with Skinner. If I had to guess I’d agree that Brind’amour doesn’t want him on his team. Unfortunately JR gave him a NMC and that just is what it is.

I see the Cole and Brind’Amour comments as them griefing Skinner into opening up his NMC to a wider market. Seems like tactic that is fairly common but rarely works. I’d be surprised at this point if most of Skinner’s main options weren’t exhausted. Either by lack of agreement on extension (maybe Skinner is asking too much), lack of acceptable trade assets (other teams are offering too little or just futures), intra-division (Pittsburgh, NJ, NYR, etc. are not ideal landing spots). We saw a ton of pre-Draft buzz that Skinner was most likely to be traded. I don’t think the lack of a trade was for lack of trying.

So the Canes are left keeping Skinner and waiting for a team to get desperate, a team to clear Cap space (Chicago?), injuries, etc to open an opportunity. That is probably less than a 50/50 shot at this point. Which is why you start to see reports like the N&O article regarding the Canes gameplanning to keep Skinner. Half last-ditch effort to drive up demand in the market and half preparing Canes fans for life with Skinner next year despite every report this offseason saying the opposite.

It’s worth keeping in mind that the players pay their agents to deal with this stuff on the day-to-day. I kind of doubt that Jeff Skinner himself is having these in-depth negotiations with Waddell. He’s probably out fishing somewhere and getting a call from his agent every couple of weeks to touch base.

Doesn’t change much about our situation, but the dynamic is probably less “Skinner is asking too much” or “Skinner won’t open up his NMC”, and more “Skinner is being advised by his agent to sit tight”.

 

[tarheelhockey]

If other GMs are lowballing Waddell to the point of a “very disappointing” return, why not just move van Riemsdyk first? I don’t really get the prioritization of TvR here. Faulk is a better player and a better fit given the makeup of the defense at this point; give me a ~15 goal defenseman in that 3rd pairing slot over another sub-20 point guy. Faulk’s shooting percentage should bounceback and his numbers will follow. That could improve his value for a deadline trade or a move next offseason.

This assumes that the budget isn’t a motivating factor here. If it is, moving Faulk for the best offer, even if it's crap, makes more sense. The opening night NHL player payroll is on track to be in the high-60s; that’s a pretty significant bump from the ~$60 mil mark of last year.

I don’t think we can assume that the budget isn’t a motivating factor. Faulk is no better than our 3rd best defenseman right now, and arguably our 4th. If he’s looking for top pairing money, that’s tantamount to a trade request because this organization isn’t going to overpay him to play the way he has the past 2 years.

 

[Anton Babchuk]

Faulk's actual salary both this season and next is $6M. He had a backloaded contract where he made an average of just $3M for the first two years, which is why his cap hit looks like it does. This team, as usual, cares more about actual money than the cap hit.

Van Riemsdyk? 2.1M this year then 2.5M next year.

Also, there's more to hockey than goals and point scored. How much better defensively is Van Riemsdyk than Faulk....does that make up the gap of offense? Also, the powerplay has been terrible with Faulk on it, where's he picked up a huge percentage of points by virtue of being on it all the damn time for years and years. How much value is Faulk actually bringing offensively? We can say that Faulk's shooting percentage will rebound, but what if Hamilton takes his spot on the first PP unit and there are less opportunities to get points?

This is reminding me a lot of Joe Corvo, who got a ton of PP time here because of his big shot, but couldn't play defense at all and the powerplay always sucked with him on it anyway, because he couldn't pass his way out of a paper bag. All he had was his shot. It's pretty incredible that the most we paid him in a single season was $2.75M but he was still the #1 whipping boy for years. Faulk is making more than *double*.

 

[AD Skinner]

I don't think corvo ever wore a letter either... the co captain thing was dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb and not his decision but faulk had one of, maybe his worst season after getting that C

 

[DougieSmash]

Schmaltz or Saad <3.

 

[Dishface]

I don't think corvo ever wore a letter either... the co captain thing was dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb and not his decision but faulk had one of, maybe his worst season after getting that C

IIRC he did wear an A for a game against Tor one year when we had a lot of injuries. Not the same thing, but just a fun fact.

 

[Cardiac Jerks]

I definitely remember Corvo with an A at some point.

 

[Svechhammer]

I don't think corvo ever wore a letter either... the co captain thing was dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb and not his decision but faulk had one of, maybe his worst season after getting that C

Oh but he did, and there is proof

 

[cptjeff]

Semin, Corvo, and Sanguinetti. Well, that's certainly representative of a certain era of Canes hockey.

 

[AD Skinner]

I stand corrected- I guess I had blocked that out.

My favorite fun fact about joe corvo is that he has a really high rating on NHL Slapshot for the Wii that can either out in like 2010... He was unstoppable in that game

 

[bleedgreen]

I think Faulk makes too much for the third pairing. Cheap or not by management I agree with it. Money that should slotted elsewhere despite maybe making us a better team keeping him.

To be honest I do think TVR is better than Faulk defensively and is actually a better poised dman for the first pass at times. Over the red line into the offensive zone is all Faulk for sure but TVR is basically the poster boy for ideal 3rd pairing guy so far.

Dropped Faulk there probably devalues him as an asset even further.

I don’t think we’re getting lowballed as much as there’s still the EK issue out there. Our guys fall behind that, and maybe Patches too. I don’t think anything’s changed yet, I think it’s highly likely both are gone by camp still and Rask is probably affected by what those deals bring back.

 

[Cardiac Jerks]

Semin, Corvo, and Sanguinetti. Well, that's certainly representative of a certain era of Canes hockey.

There was one game in particular where our entire defense was brutal. I can’t remember all six but I do recall Joey Mormina and Bryan Rodney being part of it.

 

[Brock Anton]

There was one game in particular where our entire defense was brutal. I can’t remember all six but I do recall Joey Mormina and Bryan Rodney being part of it.

Wasn't it Brett Carson? I don't recall Mormina ever getting an NHL run.

 

[cptjeff]

I think Faulk makes too much for the third pairing. Cheap or not by management I agree with it. Money that should slotted elsewhere despite maybe making us a better team keeping him.

To be honest I do think TVR is better than Faulk defensively and is actually a better poised dman for the first pass at times. Over the red line into the offensive zone is all Faulk for sure but TVR is basically the poster boy for ideal 3rd pairing guy so far.

Dropped Faulk there probably devalues him as an asset even further.

I don’t think we’re getting lowballed as much as there’s still the EK issue out there. Our guys fall behind that, and maybe Patches too. I don’t think anything’s changed yet, I think it’s highly likely both are gone by camp still and Rask is probably affected by what those deals bring back.

IMO, I wouldn't count Faulk out yet. He had a bad season, no question. But in the past, he's been an excellent defender, with great angles and great recovery speed. He obviously had issues with his conditioning this year, and probably lingering aftereffects from the high ankle sprain (which also limited his conditioning last summer, leading to the current problems). But by all accounts he's aware of the issues, and I trust him to be much more mobile next season. Will he regain his top form? We'll see. But I'm wary of just throwing Faulk under a bus as worse than TVR because of one bad season. Players have bad seasons and come back from them all the time. If Faulk returns to form, and he did show flashes of it last year, he's a vastly more valuable player than TVR.

Obviously the right side is pretty crowded right now, so it may be best to move him, but I don't think that we should accept the narrative that Faulk is going to be the same type of liability next year that he was this year. I think he'll be improved significantly.

 

[Cardiac Jerks]

Wasn't it Brett Carson? I don't recall Mormina ever getting an NHL run.

Definitely wasn’t a run - he played in only the one nhl game in his whole career. I think Carson and Borer were in the lineup that night, too.

Guess I remembered incorrectly about Rodney. Wasn’t on the team that year. Whoever the six guys were it was horrible even by Hurricanes standards.

 

[bleedgreen]

IMO, I wouldn't count Faulk out yet. He had a bad season, no question. But in the past, he's been an excellent defender, with great angles and great recovery speed. He obviously had issues with his conditioning this year, and probably lingering aftereffects from the high ankle sprain (which also limited his conditioning last summer, leading to the current problems). But by all accounts he's aware of the issues, and I trust him to be much more mobile next season. Will he regain his top form? We'll see. But I'm wary of just throwing Faulk under a bus as worse than TVR because of one bad season. Players have bad seasons and come back from them all the time. If Faulk returns to form, and he did show flashes of it last year, he's a vastly more valuable player than TVR.

Obviously the right side is pretty crowded right now, so it may be best to move him, but I don't think that we should accept the narrative that Faulk is going to be the same type of liability next year that he was this year. I think he'll be improved significantly.

Oh I agree with you. I’ve just never thought Faulk was very poised with the puck under pressure in his end, and that TVR may be at a baseline better at that.

I would actually fully expect Faulk to have a better year. To be honest I didn’t think he was that bad last year, I think he’s a smarter player year to year including this last one. He just didn’t score as much putting the spotlight on the rest of his game. I think he isn’t mobile enough and that feels like a recent development. Too bulky or not healed from injuries. That can easily be overcome.

I’m not giving up I just think it’s important to have your salaries slotted as best as you can, and sometimes that means you move a guy to make the salaries work. He makes a lot of coin to be dropped a line, and TVR makes arguably the top end of what we want to pay a third pair guy now. If they chose the opposite and kept Faulk over TVR I’d hardly complain. I would just be a little surprised.

 

[Bridgeburner96]

I think they probably want to move Faulk more because it will be awkward after they strip him of the C. In addition to not playing up to expectations.

 

[Surrounded By Ahos]

There was one game in particular where our entire defense was brutal. I can’t remember all six but I do recall Joey Mormina and Bryan Rodney being part of it.

I’m looking though some old lineups. There are some truly horrific d corps. One game in particular had, in descending order of ice time:

Brett Carson
Jamie McBain
Brian Pothier
Bryan Rodney
Jay Harrison
Joni Pitkanen- played like eight minutes. He must have gotten injured.

 

[cptjeff]

Definitely wasn’t a run - he played in only the one nhl game in his whole career. I think Carson and Borer were in the lineup that night, too.

Guess I remembered incorrectly about Rodney. Wasn’t on the team that year. Whoever the six guys were it was horrible even by Hurricanes standards.

If I recall the GDT correctly, there were phrases like "worst defense ever iced in the history of the NHL" being thrown around quite a bit.

 

[Cardiac Jerks]

If I recall the GDT correctly, there were phrases like "worst defense ever iced in the history of the NHL" being thrown around quite a bit.

I must be wrong about it being the game Mormina was in. I found the game sheet and we actually beat Pittsburgh that night.