They have to be smart about how they spend imo. I want this team to make the shift to taking on bad contracts for assets once the tear down begins. Though that ship probably sailed once the cap started to jump again--much easier to weaponize cap space like that in a flat cap situation.
Yeah, I am no fan of the WBS dudes by any means, but even as someone who has zero hope there's an impact guy in this organizational coffers--there's no reason not to run a mostly WBS forward corps moving forward. If they're fine with playing shit players--and they have been for years--play *cheap* shit players who may have some upside, albeit miniscule. /shrug
You are not factoring in how Sully bullied his GM's to get this soft, one trick pony roster. He sabotaged JR and owned hextall. It's looking the same thing currently with Dubas.
It's common sense though to an extent. EK has 4 years left at $10mil. Are they wanting to retain 50% for 4 years? No probably not. $1mil for 3 years if it gets you a 1st? Maybe. Looking 3 years ahead, we don't have anyone that would make sense to retain on.
I do not think it will matter. I think Dubas will make the deals he wants to make regardless.
Yeah, I don't think they are retaining $3mil for 3 more years and I think that is absolutely independent and irrelevant of what people in the league think his value is. When was the last time a playoff-hopeful team retained that much on a guy like EK?
I'd be really surprised if this team retained the 50% they'd need to in order to get anybody legitimately interested in EK. One GM--Dubas--was any sort of interested in trading for him this summer, and that was after the whole world knew he wanted out of SJ and following a 100pt season. Without 50% retained, and again, I have no faith in this team taking it on the chin like that, the line of suitors for EK is probably nonexistent. Particularly after a season of Sullivan "fixing his game" or whatever the f*** stupid shit he said after the team got gifted EK.
Which is why they would likely keep EK next year and likely the next. Then at summer before his last year or at the TDL, then sure, retain whatever you want to get value from the last bit of the contract. But that's a different situation.
I'd be really surprised if this team retained the 50% they'd need to in order to get anybody legitimately interested in EK. One GM--Dubas--was any sort of interested in trading for him this summer, and that was after the whole world knew he wanted out of SJ and following a 100pt season. Without 50% retained, and again, I have no faith in this team taking it on the chin like that, the line of suitors for EK is probably nonexistent. Particularly after a season of Sullivan "fixing his game" or whatever the f*** stupid shit he said after the team got gifted EK.
Made it home just before midnight, roads have been awful, had about 2 feet of snow in the last 48hrs. Leaving the dome is always a mess, now there is mass construction on top of it.
It's his contract. That's the reason nobody was interested this summer beyond Dubas. Dubas could make it work because the team had roughly the same cap hit in deadweight/bad fits, he just had to find a taker for a lame Jeff Petry. The Canes were "call us if everything else falls through", and nobody else was interested beyond casually kicking the tires.
EK's still an extremely good skater and very good playmaker, imo. His first handful of games everyone was laughing at how absurd he was out there, and how dumb we all felt for comparing Letang to EK in terms of transition and offensive ability. Then, he settled into trying to fit into the system and coaching, and within a month people hated the dude.
EK's fine. He just ended up on a dogshit team with a coach who has his head up his ass. /shrug
Yeah, if/when EK asks to be traded--and hopefully that happens in the next 6 months, for all parties involved--you're gonna have to retain 50% if you want anything of value back. SJ refused to retain much and everybody knew that, so only Dubas was interested because it just so happened that he inherited enough of Hextall's trash to equal out to EK's cap hit. I still don't think this team retains enough to get anything for EK though, hope I'm wrong.
And not to continue to be a broken record, but this is one of my biggest issues with Sullivan and why I can't stand the guy. Instead of ever playing a player to their strengths, he tries to "fix" them and it results in the player being a much worse version of themselves.
I think EK's value is gonna plummet the longer he sticks around in this organization, and hanging onto him, you run the risk of his injury woes popping back up.
Sullivan is just the refined essence of all that sucks about NHL coaching. There's this obsession with "play 'em to a draw" style and dumbing things down to the most boring level possible. This league hates flow and creativity because it comes with risk.
