Who could possibly offer Barzal an offer sheet because they have enough cap space?
- Senators
- Sabres
- Red Wings
- Devils
- Avalanche
- Florida
- Rangers
- Kings
- Flames
- Jets
- Stars
- Bruins
- Canucks
- Sharks
- Wild
- Oilers
How many of those teams are contenders/near-contenders where Barzal has a shot of winning?
- Avalanche - $22m in space, Just, Nichuskin and Burakovsky up, Makar and Landeskog up next year, maybe set at C?
- Florida - $21m in space, need 11 players for roster, Weegar due, possible internal cap, seemingly set at C
- Rangers - $20m in space (possibly more), Strome, Lemieux, DeAngelo, Georgiev, Fast all due, Buchnevich, Chytil, Howden up next year
- Stars - $15m in space, Faksa, Hintz, Janmark & Gurianov all due, need a goalie, set at center
- Bruins - $14m in space, DeBrusk, Krug and Chara up,
- Canucks - $14m in sopace, lots left to sign, Petterson RFA next year
- Oilers - $11m in space, need 8 players, including a goalie, Yamamoto, RNH and Larsson up next year
Of these, the Avs, Rangers and Floriuda seem like the most likely offer sheet offerers:
- Avs: one year deal to go all in?
- Florida: lots of room, low taxes, could someone shift to wing?
- Rangers: bright lights, young team big time winger
Do the Rangers take the chance of blowing up their salary structure for a few years of incredibly high-powered offense?
No chance Canucks do this. Already have two of the best centers in NHL and need keep big money to sign Hughes down the road. They will need to find another top D to play with Hughes and may go the trade route to get one.
Barzal will not sign OS with a divisional rival team. He got lots of close friends on the team and in the organization. Has no tie with anyone on the Rags team. If he does not sign, Isles do not need to match. The offer sheet will not work if it is only for one year so Avs is out. Florida is a budget team and already has a star center will not go wild to spend big money for a 2nd line center. The only contending team that will spend big money on a 2nd line center is a team that has trouble scoring and Florida does not have that problem. They need to spend money to improve their D core.
To mess up another team with no need to do an offer sheet will leave a bad reputation for a GM and may deter future dealings with that GM and other GMs who do not appreciate this kind of tactic. It is not like those GMs have tons of time to go around offering OS that does not work for their own team instead of using valuable time on evaluating draft picks and their own prospects, chasing big UFA, signing your own RFA, and perhaps make other deals to improve the areas they need to improve the most.
Also, a lot of these GMs have been around the league for a long time, if they have not yet submitted an OS in the past, they probably will not do it unless they really need that player for their team and there is a close relationship between the two, therefore, a good chance of getting it done.
Oh about the Rags, they got more to worry about in the Metro than Islanders. A better move for them may be saving money to go big after one of the top D (from Columbus) in Metro when one of them turns UFA in a few years or either Point or Matthews should they become UFA because UFA is much easier to land without giving up lots of future assets that can be very valuable in trades. They are a young team and already have three very good young forwards plus one star forward that takes up a lot of cap space. Why would they spend big money on the 5th forward now? It does not make sense.
Rag fans attend a lot of Isles home games. Competition is good for games and more entertaining for the fans. If you already know the results, then there is no fun in going to the games, right? Especially if the other team is totally a bore to watch or no contest. For the Rag fans, it may be more fun for them to see long-time battles between Laf and Barzy and if Laf is better, they can boast about that.