Salary Cap: Salary Cap + Roster Building | Preseason Edition (Cap Details + Links in First Post)

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DegenX

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Aug 14, 2011
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From CapFriendly
AHL thread is here. Links to 2018 draft pick threads and QO information are in the first post.
Jack Johnson signing thread is here.
Cullen signing thread is here.
Additional July 1st signing info via pens.com
Rust re-signing thread is here.
Sheahan re-signing thread is here.
Thread for Sprong, Simon and Czuczman re-signing is here.
Brassard trade rumor thread is here.
Sheary + Hunwick trade thread is here.
Oleksiak re-signing thread is here.
Grant signing thread is here.
Jarry re-signing thread is here.
 
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mpp9

Registered User
Dec 5, 2010
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Hope the Blackhawks put Saad on the market. He'd be the perfect LW for our top 6 if Kessel leaves.
 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Registered User
Sep 5, 2008
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People saying posters have "weird obsessions" with talented players who fit our style/system very well and play positions we need is getting old. And it's dumb. Don't be dumb. It's not edgy.

I mean, it's a discussion board and this a cap/roster thread. If you see something you simply can't live with reading, ignore it. :laugh:
 

Honour Over Glory

Fire Sully
Jan 30, 2012
77,316
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Holy shit Olli is still slow as molasses.

Also it irks me a lot that DeSmith slides across every save and is out of position for virtually every rebound. I'd rather the Pens traded him, got a vet backup and let Jarry be a true #1 in wbs.
 

Honour Over Glory

Fire Sully
Jan 30, 2012
77,316
42,447
That was the 2016 trade deadline offer, back when Jake hadn't established himself. We're very lucky that Sakic came back and asked for more after agreeing on the deal.

And yet Rutherford still kept trying to get Duchene.
In the end Sakic got a good return for Douchene.
 

The Old Master

come and take it.
Sep 27, 2004
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Holy **** Olli is still slow as molasses.

Also it irks me a lot that DeSmith slides across every save and is out of position for virtually every rebound. I'd rather the Pens traded him, got a vet backup and let Jarry be a true #1 in wbs.
at his price, he's just fine. the sliding can be coached out. no need to spend on a backup.
 

Shady Machine

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Aug 6, 2010
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People are really gonna realize just how good and important Hagelin is for us if/when he walks.

I think people already realize how important he is, but every role player runs their course with a team and Hagelin has seen victory and played in more playoff games than anyone (not sure if that's a fact but it's close) over the past 5 years. It would be totally understandable for him to take the most money somewhere else.
 

Shady Machine

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Aug 6, 2010
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If he takes a pay cut I'd re-sign him. He's super important to this team's style and the fact that he's a PKer and LW are not insignificant details.

If we can't re-sign him, finding a replacement should be extremely high on our to do list.

Everyone would re-sign him for a pay cut. You aren't exactly going out on a limb there
 

Peat

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Jun 14, 2016
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I think people already realize how important he is, but every role player runs their course with a team and Hagelin has seen victory and played in more playoff games than anyone (not sure if that's a fact but it's close) over the past 5 years. It would be totally understandable for him to take the most money somewhere else.

Fact, and its not particularly close either - 92 post-season games over the past 5 years, 13 ahead of Chris Kunitz in second place. Fear about that attrition level and retaining a pure athlete into their 30s does play a little into my thoughts on him.

But really, barring an unexpected turn up for the books in the salary cap department, its just going to be incredibly hard to fit in everyone we want to keep this Summer. Letting Hagelin walk is currently the obvious option to make it work. Although, on second thoughts, its not quite as cut and dried as it looks. Maybe there's a generous bump in the cap again and we pay Guentzel with that + money saved on our lower 6 centres, and keep Hagelin. Or maybe Empo's trade Maatta scenario comes about, only we do it for futures and use the money to keep Hagelin instead of getting Haula. Or a similar scenario with Rust.

And at the risk of stereotyping, Swedish players seem a lot more inclined to leave some money on the table to stay in a situation they like than North American players.
 

Riptide

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Dec 29, 2011
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Point 2 isn't to his favour and point 4 isn't all that true - most of the roughly ppg wingers cost around 6m. He costs what he should. Point 3 is irrefutable.

Just going to touch on this. Pt 4 was his cap hit and how he's on a really good one for us.

I guess the main question is when did they sign these contracts? Stone as an RFA just signed a 1 yr deal for 7.35m. JVR and Kane just signed 7m deals as UFAs. Wheeler got term and 8.25m. Zucker and Neal who are not PPG wingers got 5.5m and 5.75m. So while it would be tough to say exactly what Kessel would get if he was a UFA today, I do think it's pretty safe to say that him at 6.8m is under the market rate for a winger of his caliber - even if he is a little one dimensional.
 

Peat

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Jun 14, 2016
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Just going to touch on this. Pt 4 was his cap hit and how he's on a really good one for us.

I guess the main question is when did they sign these contracts? Stone as an RFA just signed a 1 yr deal for 7.35m. JVR and Kane just signed 7m deals as UFAs. Wheeler got term and 8.25m. Zucker and Neal who are not PPG wingers got 5.5m and 5.75m. So while it would be tough to say exactly what Kessel would get if he was a UFA today, I do think it's pretty safe to say that him at 6.8m is under the market rate for a winger of his caliber - even if he is a little one dimensional.

I didn't check when but I'm guessing most of them were a few years back. I agree that the market is moving north and if he signed his contract again today it would be bigger (and we'd have no retention), but that's true of Gaudreau, Forsberg etc.etc.

Its true that if you moved on from Kessel, you're not getting another winger with that sort of overall production from elsewhere for his cap hit... but at the same time, he's not so under the current market value as to be a wowing bargain.
 

AverageJoeFan

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Feb 15, 2018
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I wouldn't call him core, but I think he's an exceptionally important support player because of his style. To me, core means irreplaceable in terms of talent/position--guys that are gonna carry the bulk of production on the way to wins. Hags isn't that, but his skillset and position make him extremely important.

I didn't take umbrage with your post specifically. I just see a lot of "Hags is gone, who cares" type of stuff flying around. He's a really, really good and important player for this team. If he walks, we're gonna need to put in the effort to find a younger replacement.
It's a huge problem, to try and replace him as it has been for years. His speed and tenacity isn't exactly common. His next contract will be the last one that is real as far as $$. I just think, unless he says f*** it I'll stay here, he is going to get more term and $$ somewhere else.
 

AverageJoeFan

Mad cat
Feb 15, 2018
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Pittsburgh
I didn't check when but I'm guessing most of them were a few years back. I agree that the market is moving north and if he signed his contract again today it would be bigger (and we'd have no retention), but that's true of Gaudreau, Forsberg etc.etc.

Its true that if you moved on from Kessel, you're not getting another winger with that sort of overall production from elsewhere for his cap hit... but at the same time, he's not so under the current market value as to be a wowing bargain.
Maybe. If he puts up 90+ this season again, I think he will be a steal for someone if the Pens decide to move him. Now if he moves back to 70 pts, he'll just be a good value.

Honestly, unless Kessel pees on MS's Wheaties I doubt he goes anywhere.
 

Peat

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Jun 14, 2016
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Maybe. If he puts up 90+ this season again, I think he will be a steal for someone if the Pens decide to move him. Now if he moves back to 70 pts, he'll just be a good value.

Honestly, unless Kessel pees on MS's Wheaties I doubt he goes anywhere.

If he stays at 90 points then, yeah, its a different story. But I'm not betting on it.
 

Riptide

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Dec 29, 2011
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Well it's really hard to agree when you call Phil Kessel a "superstar". He was a superstar in Toronto, but now? Unless you think Arvidsson is a superstar too...

Kessel is a luxury on this team if Sprong can replace him on the powerplay, that's just a fact. He brings middle of the pack 1st liner offense at ES, a really good PP option on the right wall and consistent playoff production (usually). He's not a PPG player unless your powerplay is aburdly good in a year. He brings literally nothing outside of his offensive game. He causes problems with the rest of the lineup, because he doesn't play well with any other centers on the team and forces a better RW option to LW.

Kessel and Arvidsson are on completely different planes - regardless of what their ES or overall numbers are.

And while I agree that you can replace Kessel's production by committee (PP by player A, ES by player B, etc), at the end of the day Kessel's biggest asset is the fact that he's skilled enough to drive his own line. If you're replacing him by committee, you're not getting players who can drive their own line. Which means at the end of the day you're (hopefully) getting something like the Malkin/Neal situation, where a pair mesh really well together. The downside to that is that odds are the winger isn't good enough to create on his own and thus it allows the other team to focus mostly on the center... which more times then not kills the production from that line.

I've seen comments recently about resurrecting KCD v2 (mostly in reference to HMH)... and if we trade Kessel without getting back a high skilled winger in return (unlikely), that's a very realistic possibility. As recently as last season we were loaded with pure skilled wingers with Kessel, Guentzel and Sheary. And while I have zero issues moving on from Sheary, if we move on from Kessel as well without a high skilled replacement who can make plays just as well as they can shoot, we're asking for trouble.
 

Empoleon8771

Registered User
Aug 25, 2015
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I honestly don't get the myth that Kessel can carry a line while no other winger can. Not only has he mostly not done that with the Penguins (mostly because he has in small samples), it's grossly underrating a ton of other wingers who can be a line driver. People here act like finding a winger who can drive a line offensively is as rare as a unicorn, not something that's just uncommon.

I think the issue here is that people think that a guy has to be able to drive a top line to be a "line driver". Brassard can carry a line offensively, he just can't get it to as high as Kessel (supposedly) can. And I say supposedly because I think people are giving him way too much credit for what he can individually do. He put up elite numbers in Toronto while playing with a 2nd line center and a top line winger, by the way people talk about him, you'd think he used to play with Sheahan and Stempniak
 
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Riptide

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Dec 29, 2011
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Hornqvist isn't just a part of that, the PP drops to like half of it's potential success-rate when Hornqvist is out. He's the main part of what makes the PP work. Kessel's been great, but Horny drives the PP bus.

I think the biggest part of that aspect is that we have zero Hornqvist replacements. Not just stylistically, but in terms of an effective (or even semi effective) net front presence. As much as Kunitz was hated here, he was still half ass decent in front of the net. When Hornqvist went down and our PP cratered I think a huge part of why was because we had no one to replace what Hornqvist did in front of the net. You have even a Kunitz level player there, and while we'd still see a drop, I don't think it would be anywhere near as drastic as it was.

This is like saying JVR drives Toronto's PP. Hornqvist is great at what he does, but what he does is effectively stand in front of the goalie while everyone else on the PP literally does everything else, like actually set up the plays. You could replace Hornqvist with some other player who is willing to stand in front of the net and it would still be effective, probably not AS effective but effective. The guys who are making the plays in the zone during the PP are literally driving the bus.

Yes and no. It takes more than just a willingness to stand in front of the goalie to be effective there. So while I think you could replace Hornqvist with someone, it can't just be any old body. We tried it with Guentzel who's infinitely more skilled then Hornqvist and the drop off was massive. Being an effective net front guy is more than just blocking the goalie sight and knowing your angles - if it was that easy, more guys would be good/great there.

So while I think you could replace Hornqvist there... you need the right body to do it, and last season anyway we didn't have that body.

Absolutely, for example when Hornqvist got big PP with Nashville from 09-14, their average PP rank was 16/30. Penguins finished top 5 in PP% 5 of 8 seasons prior to Hornqvist.

And who was Pittsburgh's net front guy those seasons? Not going to look it up, but I imagine that Kunitz played a lot of that role. And while he had his faults, he was decent there.
 

Riptide

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Dec 29, 2011
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Sure, if he doesn't price himself out of town. I thought he was just fine for a guy coming from a tire fire franchise to this one, having to learn a completely different system/style, adapt to a bunch of different linemates, and all in the push down the stretch and into the playoffs where he ultimately got injured to boot. I don't think Sheahan's the caliber of player we want as a 3C, though I think he's capable of being a 3C on many teams in the league. I just think Brass is much better, and his style is much more suited to ours.

I think Brassard is a fantastic player and a great option for our 3C moving forward. I think his play this season will be much better than what we saw.

There's not a chance in hell Brassard signs on to stay as our 3C. He was already complaining of a lack of icetime, and he was only here for 2 months. Why do you think there's been talk of him moving to the wing? This is Sullivan/Rutherford's attempt to placate him with more minutes in a bigger role. We're fortunate that we have another 3C caliber player behind him in order for that to be an option. But realistically the only way Brassard signs to stay in Pittsburgh is if it's to play on the wing going forward, and given that wingers are typically paid less than centers, even that isn't all that realistic.

I think people already realize how important he is, but every role player runs their course with a team and Hagelin has seen victory and played in more playoff games than anyone (not sure if that's a fact but it's close) over the past 5 years. It would be totally understandable for him to take the most money somewhere else.

It's true. 92 PO games in the past 5 years. Next is Kunitz at 79 then Crosby and Brassard at 78.
 

EightyOne

My posts are jokes. And hockey is just a game.
Nov 23, 2016
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I'd trade Brassard as soon as practical if he's not gonna be signing next year.
 

Peat

Registered User
Jun 14, 2016
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I'd trade Brassard as soon as practical if he's not gonna be signing next year.

Define practical? Do you think you'd need to add players or see certain players perform at certain levels before making the trade, or is simply a case of meeting the right value and nothing more?
 

Andy99

Registered User
Jun 26, 2017
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Hags and Brass should stay thru the year unless 1) it’s clear we’re missing the POs or 2) they’ve sucked *** all year or are dogging it, neither of which is likely to happen....
 

EightyOne

My posts are jokes. And hockey is just a game.
Nov 23, 2016
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Define practical? Do you think you'd need to add players or see certain players perform at certain levels before making the trade, or is simply a case of meeting the right value and nothing more?

It's dynamic.

It's possible next week. Maybe TDL if he's still middling. If he's lighting it up, f*** it, practical goes out the window for a Cup.
 
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