Salary Cap: Salary Cap & Roster Building - Killing time with pointless rumors

[Ugene Magic]

I just can't think of a guy on that roster I'd take out for him.

Either Simon or ZAR.

For me at least.

 

[Son Goku]

I just can't think of a guy on that roster I'd take out for him.

he’s better than Wilson

 

[LiffLaff]

he’s better than Wilson

Was'nt in the proposed lineup tho..

 

[ownal]

Is a trade final when teams send it to the NHL or when the NHL approves the trade? Could a team back out after the trade was sent to the NHL?

 

[madinsomniac]

People calling for a total rebuild are delusional... one more time, players of Crosby and Malkins caliber don’t fall off cliffs... and this is the time that their contracts become a steal for their production....

Fans want newer and shinier toys every year, but usually lesser roster tweaks and strategic changes are what teams with a solid core need, not overhauls

 

[NMK11]

People calling for a total rebuild are delusional... one more time, players of Crosby and Malkins caliber don’t fall off cliffs... and this is the time that their contracts become a steal for their production....

Fans want newer and shinier toys every year, but usually lesser roster tweaks and strategic changes are what teams with a solid core need, not overhauls

Agree here. Look at the four teams in the finals. Crosby, Malkin, and Jake are better than any three forwards on any of those teams. Letang is right up there with those teams top defensemen as well. Murray is a better goalie than any of the starters maybe minus Rask. This team needs better depth, not a complete rebuild. A few small moves, some better play by some depth guys, and time to gel and we're right back in it.

 

[Malkinstheman]

Agree here. Look at the four teams in the finals. Crosby, Malkin, and Jake are better than any three forwards on any of those teams. Letang is right up there with those teams top defensemen as well. Murray is a better goalie than any of the starters maybe minus Rask. This team needs better depth, not a complete rebuild. A few small moves, some better play by some depth guys, and time to gel and we're right back in it.

Problem is theyve dug a huge whole for themselves. My biggest worry is if JR even knows what the problem is. If we're putting out a defence with all 3 of JJ/Maatta/Gudbranson then it doesnt even matter.

 

[Gurglesons]

Problem is theyve dug a huge whole for themselves. My biggest worry is if JR even knows what the problem is. If we're putting out a defence with all 3 of JJ/Maatta/Gudbranson then it doesnt even matter.

They dug a hole for themselves through 2013-15 and we recovered.

We still can do that with Malkin, Crosby and Letang playing like they did last series. We just need to get a couple more Guentzels.

Not saying it happens, but that shouldn’t be as difficult as trying to replace Malkin or Letang if we move them.

 

[cygnus47]

They dug a hole for themselves through 2013-15 and we recovered.

We still can do that with Malkin, Crosby and Letang playing like they did last series. We just need to get a couple more Guentzels.

Not saying it happens, but that shouldn’t be as difficult as trying to replace Malkin or Letang if we move them.

Ideally (this will never happen), we just cop next year on the chin, play some fun hockey and move Johnson, Gudbranson, Maatta, maybe Hornqvist depending on how he's going throughout the year whenever we can get some value for them. We probably finish like 20th considering how bad our motivation will likely be and how thin our D will be if nothing major changes. Draft this year and hope for a lottery pick next year. Re-sign McCann and whoever else comes up. See how Kessel is doing at that point, maybe trade him next season.

Hope to god the season after next that Addison is ready to come in and that whoever we draft can play at 18 or 19 and pick up a UFA D or two. Then use whatever we have left to make some trades and hope that we can compete for another year or two before Sid and Geno completely fall off.

 

[Jules Winnfield]

The Pens aren’t going to blow another year of Crosby and Malkin to rebuild or put a huge effort in to going for it again.

Might as well get rebuild out of the mind. Sidbot would be calling Mario up so fast and asking him WTF and expecting GMJR to get the boot before the phone hangs up.

 

[Freeptop]

Was his first the 2014 or 2015? In any case, those are the only two where we're beginning to know. And 2015 has yielded two 100+ game NHLers from 4 picks without a first rounder, which is a solid A+ grade for drafting imo. I suspect the yield from 2016/2017 might be a little ropy due to the "intriguing" dmen drafted then, but there's still hope, and the early indications on 2018 couldn't be more promising.

JR's first draft was 2014. He drafted Kapanen (1), Lafferty (4), Angello (5), Lindo (6) and Taylor (7).
2015 was Sprong (2), Simon (5), Tiffels (6) and Pavlychev (7).
2016 was Gustavsson (2), Bjorkqvist (2), Hall (3), Jones (4), Almari (5) and Masonius (6).
2017 was Lauzon (2), Phillips (3), Drozg (5), Olund (5), Palojarvi (6) and Reilly (7).
2018 was Addison (2), Hallander (2), Almeida (5) and Gorman (6).

Only one first rounder in the lot in Kapanen, but at least he's pretty clearly an NHL player.
For all that people complain about him, getting Simon in the 5th round is pretty good.

Really, though, it's just too early to really judge the full impact of any of those drafts yet, considering only a few of them have even made it to the AHL yet.

 

[Kristopher Letang]

People calling for a total rebuild are delusional... one more time, players of Crosby and Malkins caliber don’t fall off cliffs... and this is the time that their contracts become a steal for their production....

Fans want newer and shinier toys every year, but usually lesser roster tweaks and strategic changes are what teams with a solid core need, not overhauls

Amen.

 

[cygnus47]

The Pens aren’t going to blow another year of Crosby and Malkin to rebuild or put a huge effort in to going for it again.

Might as well get rebuild out of the mind. Sidbot would be calling Mario up so fast and asking him WTF and expecting GMJR to get the boot before the phone hangs up.

Rebuild isn't the same as retool though. Making some trades and having a thin team for a year would probably be fine with Sid as long as there was a team in place. If we don't do that, then nothing will change and we may as well get nostalgic about the 3 cups he and Malkin won in their careers.

 

[Peat]

For me, the talk of whether we have the roster on paper to do it is kinda missing the point. Both of the last two years, we were loaded for bear on paper, probably stronger than we were either year we won it. But we got nowhere near. And in both of those years, we looked nothing like contenders save for 2-3 months. First year, when everyone was tired and we got a bunch of injuries in the play-offs, people got (although they had suspicions). This year? Just unacceptable.

This team isn't a true contender until it is willing to play the safety first maximum effort hockey that wins Cups. If the whole team brought into that tomorrow, it'd be a cup contender with very minimal changes (although a far better cup contender for a few more). But they're not going to.

The question is how many players (and coaches, and maybe even front office guys...) do you have to remove before what's left and the replacements buy in? Where do you get your Kunitz/Daley/MAF/Cullens that helped set the tone in the locker room that's gone missing and how do you integrate them into a locker room that's still tight from 2 cups? That's where things get messy.

JR's first draft was 2014. He drafted Kapanen (1), Lafferty (4), Angello (5), Lindo (6) and Taylor (7).
2015 was Sprong (2), Simon (5), Tiffels (6) and Pavlychev (7).
2016 was Gustavsson (2), Bjorkqvist (2), Hall (3), Jones (4), Almari (5) and Masonius (6).
2017 was Lauzon (2), Phillips (3), Drozg (5), Olund (5), Palojarvi (6) and Reilly (7).
2018 was Addison (2), Hallander (2), Almeida (5) and Gorman (6).

Only one first rounder in the lot in Kapanen, but at least he's pretty clearly an NHL player.
For all that people complain about him, getting Simon in the 5th round is pretty good.

Really, though, it's just too early to really judge the full impact of any of those drafts yet, considering only a few of them have even made it to the AHL yet.

Ah, merci.

It is mostly too early, but at the same time, we've got a lot of feedback and predicting the future based on it will probably be more accurate than not.

Rutherford's drafting record for his first pick of the draft looks solid. Lauzon's the only real "You what mate" there.

2014 will look good if one of Lafferty/Angello hit and not otherwise. 2015 is already a success. 2016 is a clowncar show with 1/3 of the prospects already busted, but could still look like solid drafting depending on Gustavsson/Bjorkqvist/Almari. 2017 too early to say but people will be unhappy if this year's picks look like that, 2018 too early to say but people will be happy if this year's picks look like that.

 

[cygnus47]

JR's first draft was 2014. He drafted Kapanen (1), Lafferty (4), Angello (5), Lindo (6) and Taylor (7).
2015 was Sprong (2), Simon (5), Tiffels (6) and Pavlychev (7).
2016 was Gustavsson (2), Bjorkqvist (2), Hall (3), Jones (4), Almari (5) and Masonius (6).
2017 was Lauzon (2), Phillips (3), Drozg (5), Olund (5), Palojarvi (6) and Reilly (7).
2018 was Addison (2), Hallander (2), Almeida (5) and Gorman (6).

Only one first rounder in the lot in Kapanen, but at least he's pretty clearly an NHL player.
For all that people complain about him, getting Simon in the 5th round is pretty good.

Really, though, it's just too early to really judge the full impact of any of those drafts yet, considering only a few of them have even made it to the AHL yet.

Lindo, Hall, Lauzon were such obvious stupid choices. Let's go for people that can't even score in juniors! They'll fit an uptempo system, definitely.

 

[Peat]

Lindo, Hall, Lauzon, Phillips were such obvious stupid choices. Let's go for people that can't even score in juniors! They'll fit an uptempo system, definitely.

Phillips shouldn't be on that list

 

[JackFr]

Either Simon or ZAR.

For me at least.

No point in rehashing the Simon argument so I won't touch that but I will say that I strongly disagree

 

[WayneSid9987]

Can I quietly say that Ruhwedel is a perfectly fine defenceman and I would be perfectly happy to see him play on our bottom pair.

Dude is very solid defensively and has surprisingly great analytics. This year he was our lowest PDO player by far at 94%, and it wasn't his fault that he was out there for goals against. His expected GF% was +5.4 and he ended up at -28.6% - it's not like he was allowing brilliant chances against. But of course this forum evaluates defencemen exclusively by how often the puck ends up in the net behind them and how fast they can skate so he got a horrible rap around here this season.

I would be honestly curious to see how he would do with Marcus Pettersson if Gudbranson falls back to earth. At the very least I really hope they resign him as the 7D.

Ruh does this thing where he'll be great for 5 games then either really meh or suck.
He's sorta like Clendening was for CBJ this last season.
I'm fine with him as the #7 tho.

I dunno if it’s 5 or 6. More like 2 or 3 best players. I think the team is potentially 3 pieces away, and one of those is simply addition by subtraction. They definitely need new Sheary and Rust’s though.

Hypothetically if they were able to get a Nyquist + a Donskoi or Hathaway and either a Subban or Spurgeon OR the equivalents of the Cole/Daley(2 players) combo of '16/'17. They'd be...pretty ok.

Two biggest spots is making a heck of a second pairing and getting a bonafide top 6 winger that helps on the forecheck. Why i like Nyquist so much. He probably won't end up here but he'd be great here and can play either side.

Ideally (this will never happen), we just cop next year on the chin, play some fun hockey and move Johnson, Gudbranson, Maatta, maybe Hornqvist depending on how he's going throughout the year whenever we can get some value for them. We probably finish like 20th considering how bad our motivation will likely be and how thin our D will be if nothing major changes. Draft this year and hope for a lottery pick next year. Re-sign McCann and whoever else comes up. See how Kessel is doing at that point, maybe trade him next season.

Hope to god the season after next that Addison is ready to come in and that whoever we draft can play at 18 or 19 and pick up a UFA D or two. Then use whatever we have left to make some trades and hope that we can compete for another year or two before Sid and Geno completely fall off.

Gotta move Phil now imo.
Well him or Letang.
A re-tool requires piling up some assets or exchanging a piece like Phil for an awesome piece towards making that great 2nd pairing we need. Phil should get you something decent to kick off a re-tool.

Can't tell you how it's gonna end up but thats how i'd kick it off...

 

[Shady Machine]

The thing about trading Letang is that he is, for all intents and purposes, irreplaceable.
That's not to say there aren't players who are as good as him, because there sure are, but you're most likely not gonna be able to get them. Unless Montreal absorbs his entire cap hit and you spend the cap space from Letang and Kessel on EK65 .

The re-build might take three years, sure, but at the end you're hopefully better suited for contending than you'd be otherwise.

Problem is you can't re-build a roster by trading all your "bad" or overpaid players and expect to not have to take back other bad or overpaid players in the process. I'm sure every team in the league has a list they'd like to shed and replace with younger cheaper players with higher upside. It just doesn't work that way unless you have the patience to build through the draft and this team really doesn't with the age of their core.

 

[wej20]

Phillips shouldn't be on that list

Lindo either, he went in the 6th round. Lauzon is a hard one, he obviously had good pedigree though questionable offensive upside and poor guy has gotten a double dose of the Pens injury curse.

 

[Ugene Magic]

No point in rehashing the Simon argument so I won't touch that but I will say that I strongly disagree

I don't care to go down that road either. Trust me.

But I don't trust either to bring about consistent play and offense on their own accord enough that I am giving them permanent spots. I feel AJ brings more to the table to keep plays alive and enough to get back to cover. Two big issues with this team.

 

[Andy99]

Interesting listen with points you may agree or disagree with...Pens portion starts around 19:00


1) Pens should trade the 21st pick because it’s too late for them to balance new prospects with a win-now mode in the last three years of the window—go for broke these last few years

2) trashing of JR and Sully forthcoming for the reasons many people here have cited many times over

3) if Phil is traded, it should be for a hockey trade, not futures...suggests something like Phil and Schultz for Subban + ...

What Can the Penguins Do?

 

[Gurglesons]

Interesting listen with points you may agree or disagree with...Pens portion starts around 19:00


1) Pens should trade the 21st pick because it’s too late for them to balance new prospects with a win-now mode in the last three years of the window—go for broke these last few years

2) trashing of JR and Sully forthcoming for the reasons many people here have cited many times over

3) if Phil is traded, it should be for a hockey trade, not futures...suggests something like Phil and Schultz for Subban + ...

What Can the Penguins Do?

All those points sound dumb.

With the way 1st round picks have been going the last three years we could very well have a 60 pt center in 2022 if we get lucky.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Interesting listen with points you may agree or disagree with...Pens portion starts around 19:00


1) Pens should trade the 21st pick because it’s too late for them to balance new prospects with a win-now mode in the last three years of the window—go for broke these last few years

2) trashing of JR and Sully forthcoming for the reasons many people here have cited many times over

3) if Phil is traded, it should be for a hockey trade, not futures...suggests something like Phil and Schultz for Subban + ...

What Can the Penguins Do?

JR: "Locker room cohesion was an issue. They didn't seem to really come together as a team and played as individuals."

Solution: Add PK Subban.

 

[Peat]

Interesting listen with points you may agree or disagree with...Pens portion starts around 19:00


1) Pens should trade the 21st pick because it’s too late for them to balance new prospects with a win-now mode in the last three years of the window—go for broke these last few years

2) trashing of JR and Sully forthcoming for the reasons many people here have cited many times over

3) if Phil is traded, it should be for a hockey trade, not futures...suggests something like Phil and Schultz for Subban + ...

What Can the Penguins Do?

1 and 3 have the same answer.

If the exact right hockey trade is out there, hell yeah you pass on the futures and get it done.

But is it out there this summer? Answer - probably not. At which point, it is better to take the futures because you can spend them later to get the right hockey trade as long as you don't badly mess it up and if you get a bit lucky, you do find one of the few guys out there who'll be ready in a year at 21. They exist.

And Subban simply is not the right hockey trade. Not unless you think Rutherford is absolutely wrong on locker room cohesion, and that the inconsistency had nothing to do with locker room cohesion, etc.etc.