Salary Cap: Pittsburgh Penguins Salary Cap Thread - Marc my words, they'll get him signed

[Louis Hensler]

Circling back to this - to me this seems to be two separate arguments:

1) We've got too much depth and it may hurt the team/individual players

2) The price for this depth has hurt the team and wasn't worth it.

1 - This team has been overloading its depth since Rutherford got here and by and large, it's gone well. There's maybe been the occasional case of stalled development, a couple of cases of bruised ego and confidence, but by and large it's benefited from having a lot of options and not lost much from the mishaps. As such, I'm all for it. ZAR's level of experience means I don't think he's going to kick up, which is the main issue, and the forwards will be stronger for it. And I think once trades and injuries happen, things'll sort themselves out quick - too quick. It won't be long before we're worrying about who's more ready out of Lafferty and AJ rather than who plays out of ZAR and Simon.

2 - Well, aye, mebbe. Not too happy about 22 players, but generally when I complain about this sort of thing in sports teams, it ends up well enough (famous last words). Would I rather Pettersson on a long term contract? Now that we're here, I like the one year bridge. I like being loaded up for our last year with Murray for cheap and lots of cheap good RFAs (well, maybe we've got it next year as well). Next year is uncertain in so many ways; maybe saving a million or so on Pettersson won't even matter. But I think that saving will be big this year. And who knows? He isn't so sure that we mightn't have regretted going straight to the big contract.

Reality is we don't know if this hurts us for a while yet. I get people being uncomfortable with the gamble.

But the prospect of ZAR or Simon sitting some games? That's the sort of depth I like. If only we could be sitting a LD as good as them!

I like the forward depth, but balance is the problem. The Pens have so many serviceable forwards that good players will have to sit, but they can't roll out six competent defensemen. I like Tanev, but we needed a defender.

 

[Louis Hensler]

JJ and a 2nd for clown man

JJ and Rust for Clown man and a 3rd

JJ and Rust for Honka and Oleksiak.

 

[Khelandros]

I like the forward depth, but balance is the problem. The Pens have so many serviceable forwards that good players will have to sit, but they can't roll out six competent defensemen. I like Tanev, but we needed a defender.

Why can't they roll out 6 competent D-men? Pick your six:
Letang
Dumoulin
Schultz
Pettersson
Gudbranson
Johnson
Ruhwedel
Rikkola
Almari
Marino
Warsofsky
Addison
Joseph

You all make it sound like the Pens have 2 D-men and then a bunch of trash. Might as well give up on the season now.

 

[Riptide]

From DK.

"Rutherford declined to speculate on when space-clearing moves could be made, saying only that it will happen “prior to Opening Night."

 

[Empoleon8771]

From DK.

"Rutherford declined to speculate on when space-clearing moves could be made, saying only that it will happen “prior to Opening Night."

Their whole cap situation just confuses me right now, so I'm not going to bother trying to understand it. If you still have to make a cap clearing move, why did you not sign Pettersson until the day before training camp?

 

[The Old Master]

From DK.

"Rutherford declined to speculate on when space-clearing moves could be made, saying only that it will happen “prior to Opening Night."

did he say what year?

 

[Speaking Moistly]

Their whole cap situation just confuses me right now, so I'm not going to bother trying to understand it. If you still have to make a cap clearing move, why did you not sign Pettersson until the day before training camp?

Hopeful to the bitter end... or he means they’ll be waiving some players like Trotman, Jarry and another D.

 

[Gurglesons]

I still get a feeling it’ll be Bjugstad moved out.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Baseless speculation time: I think they're trying out Tanev in the top-6 to see whether they can afford to move Rust or not.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I still get a feeling it’ll be Bjugstad moved out.

Baseless speculation time: I think they're trying out Tanev in the top-6 to see whether they can afford to move Rust or not.

What the hell, dudes?!? Tell me what to think, here!

I feel like they'd have to be really confident in McCann's ability to play pivot all year on L3 if the former is the case.

 

[Andy99]

Hopeful to the bitter end... or he means they’ll be waiving some players like Trotman, Jarry and another D.

Exactly...this doesn’t necessarily mean a trade...could just be waiving Jarry, Trotman, Ruh, etc...

 

[Gurglesons]

What the hell, dudes?!? Tell me what to think, here!

I feel like they'd have to be really confident in McCann's ability to play pivot all year on L3 if the former is the case.

I mean, they’ve said as much. One of Rust or Bjugstad makes the most sense to move without any cap coming back.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I mean, they’ve said as much. One of Rust or Bjugstad makes the most sense to move without any cap coming back.

Oh for sure... it must be one of those two.

Though personally I think that it will be nothing until they are absolutely, positively forced to do something. With MP clocking in at a sub-900K contract can't they just make the appropriate waiver transactions and be super uncomfortable but compliant?

 

[Empoleon8771]

I'll also throw out this possibility, trading ZAR and replacing him with Johnson may get the Penguins to cap compliance with a 23 man roster. Capfriendly has a $132.5k bonus overage from last year on the Penguins cap for this year, without that the Penguins have $100k in cap space with ZAR traded for picks and Johnson, Riikola and Ruhwedel as the extras. I don't think capfriendly's numbers are 100% set in stone, they may not be entirely correct with that.

I don't know where those bonus overages come from, so I'm not 100% positive they're even real. Capfriendly doesn't get into details when it comes to that it seems like.

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

Read that article and I took his quote to mean waiving some guys just as much as a potiential trade imo. Think he’s just saying they need to get cap compliant before the season.

 

[Andy99]

No, it’s not pretty....

Five-Year Forecast: Your 2023-24 Pittsburgh Penguins - TheHockeyNews

 

[K Fleur]

No, it’s not pretty....

Five-Year Forecast: Your 2023-24 Pittsburgh Penguins - TheHockeyNews

I mean everything in that article should be pretty obvious. But THN generally sucks, and their predictions definitely suck.

 

[AjaxTelamon]

Read that article and I took his quote to mean waiving some guys just as much as a potiential trade imo. Think he’s just saying they need to get cap compliant before the season.

Waiving JJ should allow us to carry a 23 man roster, though with only maybe 40k to spare, if Capfriendly is accurate right now. Though if they went with 22 by sneaking down Trotman too they should have some added breathing room.

From the way JR has talked about things, it certainly seems like sending down JJ is a possibility if JR doesn't get a positive value trade offer for him, just because there aren't many other ways to get compliant with the current roster without losing a useful player.

All in all, I'll be impressed if they manage to get to opening night with this forward depth, it's pretty ridiculous.

 

[Louis Hensler]

Why can't they roll out 6 competent D-men? Pick your six:
Letang
Dumoulin
Schultz
Pettersson
Gudbranson
Johnson
Ruhwedel
Rikkola
Almari
Marino
Warsofsky
Addison
Joseph

You all make it sound like the Pens have 2 D-men and then a bunch of trash. Might as well give up on the season now.

My point is that the Pens will have to scratch a forward every night who is better than all but four of the defensemen. Or to put it the other way around, two defensemen will take the ice every night who are worse than a forward who will be watching from the press box. I see that as a balance problem.

 

[Louis Hensler]

Their whole cap situation just confuses me right now, so I'm not going to bother trying to understand it. If you still have to make a cap clearing move, why did you not sign Pettersson until the day before training camp?

Maybe hoping a trade would crop up that would allow them to lock up MP long term?

 

[Riptide]

I'll also throw out this possibility, trading ZAR and replacing him with Johnson may get the Penguins to cap compliance with a 23 man roster. Capfriendly has a $132.5k bonus overage from last year on the Penguins cap for this year, without that the Penguins have $100k in cap space with ZAR traded for picks and Johnson, Riikola and Ruhwedel as the extras. I don't think capfriendly's numbers are 100% set in stone, they may not be entirely correct with that.

I don't know where those bonus overages come from, so I'm not 100% positive they're even real. Capfriendly doesn't get into details when it comes to that it seems like.

I think that's unlikely. I know some on here are not big Reese fans, but I think Sullivan and the rest of the management team think a lot higher of him then most here do. I also think that with the changes we can all see coming over the next 12 months that there's little chance JR moves someone who's signed to 1m for the next 2 seasons.

 

[Freeptop]

JJ and Rust for Honka and Oleksiak.

The problem with that is that it would mean in a year we'd end up bringing JJ back when JR completely reverses the trade...

From DK.

"Rutherford declined to speculate on when space-clearing moves could be made, saying only that it will happen “prior to Opening Night."

"Moves" don't necessarily mean "trades". As others said, this will likely just be sending a couple players to WB/S. Just moving Trotman and Riikola down would leave them with 13 forwards, 7 defensemen and 2 goalies, and would have them be cap compliant (by only around 500k, granted).

 

[K Fleur]

Didn’t ZAR have a bit of interest from a few other teams when he was coming into the league? Has to help his stock a bit with Sullivan/JR that he chose Pittsburgh.

 

[Riptide]

No, it’s not pretty....

Five-Year Forecast: Your 2023-24 Pittsburgh Penguins - TheHockeyNews

Of course not. Crosby is entering his 15th season... not really a surprise that 5 years from now things won't be all that great given that our prospect pool is meh.

 

[Khelandros]

My point is that the Pens will have to scratch a forward every night who is better than all but four of the defensemen. Or to put it the other way around, two defensemen will take the ice every night who are worse than a forward who will be watching from the press box. I see that as a balance problem.

Every team in the NHL scrathes a forward for every game that is better than their bottom 2 D-men.