Salary Cap: Salary Cap Thread - Waiting for Goalies

[Gurglesons]

So our bottom six is okay now because it was also horrendous at the beginning of last season?

Maybe dont start the season with a crappy bottom six? So you want the guy that hates to trade draft picks and prospects to have to trade picks or prospects to fix the bottom six mid season instead of now? Oh also, he needs to find a starting goalie too.

Fast forward to next year. I’m sure glad Hextall didn’t pay those prices at the deadline! Jarry will be fine - he was an all star 3 years ago.

This is how every hockey season starts and how the cap works. I don’t know why you are purposefully so ignorant.

Have you taken a look at Tampa’s bottom six?

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

Our fan base is extremely jealous of the Penguins over the last 3 or 4 years.
-No one

Wow, Ron Hextall had a really good off season.
-No fans from the other 31 teams

You bitched bitched bitched about JR and begged for him to be gone.

You got your wish.

 

[Jacob]

Last season’s 3rd line to start was McCann - Jankowski - Rodrigues, it’s now McGinn - Carter - Heinen. Little more money, but that seems like an obvious upgrade.

 

[Pens x]

You bitched bitched bitched about JR and begged for him to be gone.

You got your wish.

I said from day 1 just please don’t hire Hextall. Going for one extreme to the other wouldn’t work out either.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I'm utterly shocked that the compulsive whiner of HFPens has issues with the Penguins off-season. No one could have seen this coming!

The Penguins could have acquired Jack Eichel for literally nothing and they'd still complain "that's going to ruin their cap structure on a bad locker room influence!"

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Wah wah wah wank wank wah

Thank you for the brief description about yourself. Unsolicited but I appreciate it.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

The confidence you have in Gaudreau is absolutely bizarre.

The idea that the difference between Gaudreau and McGinn would be enough for this team to miss the playoffs seems pretty bonkers to me too.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

I'm utterly shocked that the compulsive whiner of HFPens has issues with the Penguins off-season. No one could have seen this coming!

The Penguins could have acquired Jack Eichel for literally nothing and they'd still complain "that's going to ruin their cap structure on a bad locker room influence!"

The team clearly wasn't good enough last year and has only gotten worse.

What exactly did you expect?

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

This is how every hockey season starts and how the cap works. I don’t know why you are purposefully so ignorant.

Have you taken a look at Tampa’s bottom six?

I wonder if Tampa's top 6, blueline, and goaltending is about on par with ours.

 

[Empoleon8771]

The team clearly wasn't good enough last year and has only gotten worse.

What exactly did you expect?

I wasn't referring to you there

This team is marginally worse now than it was a year ago, which is about all they were capable of doing because of the situation with the cap and expansion draft. The only way this team could improve was making a really dumb move, whether that be "adding insane futures to Zucker in a trade", "spending assets to dump salary only to give out bloated UFA contracts" or something like that.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

I wasn't referring to you there

This team is marginally worse now than it was a year ago, which is about all they were capable of doing because of the situation with the cap and expansion draft. The only way this team could improve was making a really dumb move, whether that be "adding insane futures to Zucker in a trade", "spending assets to dump salary only to give out bloated UFA contracts" or something like that.

Well it sure sounded like me!

We'll see what Hextall does with the rest of the off-season. All I know is we need to do an awful lot more to be considered anything like a contender.

Bringing back two old retreads in Simon and Rodrigues was just the icing on the cake.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Idk, I'm not really all that mad that this team is marginally worse than they were last year (effectively the only change was downgrading from McCann to Heinen) just because I don't really see many paths available that would have resulted in the Penguins getting much better. It was a combination of the expansion draft, a lack of cap space, a lack of tradeable assets and the absolutely bonkers UFA contracts that were given out.

The team could have improved by adding a 1st and a prospect on top of Zucker, but why would you do that? That's completely a JR-esque, "trying to fix a mistake" type of trade with the small amount of assets the Penguins have left. You could have moved Zucker or Pettersson for cap space to spend in UFA, but the contracts handed out in UFA were just as bad (if not worse) than the contracts that Zucker and Pettersson already had. You could have traded someone like Rust, Guentzel or Kapanen, but you would never be able to replace their contributions at their respective cap hits, especially not Rust and Kapanen. I would have loved flipping Zucker for a pick and signing Saad, but that's not really "improvement", that's a lateral move that gives the Penguins an asset. That's kinda like what the McCann to Heinen swap was.

In addition, I'm also supportive of Hextall's general plan of "stay competitive while retaining assets", which is basically what this off-season was. That's another reason I've been so behind acquiring Fleury, he is the most cost effective option available in terms of cost to acquire of any goalie upgrade the Penguins could make right now. I want this team to remain competitive without pissing away every one of their assets every single season like JR did, Hextall has generally done that with the Penguins so far.

There were definitely moves I would have liked to see this off-season. Pettersson for a depth forward to give POJ a spot, and then signing someone like Haakanpa, was something I threw out multiple times. Trading Zucker for assets to sign Saad was another idea I really liked. I threw out Foegele as a guy I really wanted to sign when I thought he wasn't going to be qualified by Carolina. But I don't think those really move the needle much. "Moving the needle" to me would be something like "trading for Jakub Voracek", which just wasn't reasonable.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

I think another year of age and inevitable injury is going to have a bigger effect on this team's chances than replacing McCann and Tanev with McGinn and Heinen. In the end, the latter doesn't really move the needle too noticeably, imo. On paper, sure, but people gotta stop giving a shit about on paper. An entire era of Sid/Geno hockey taught us "on paper" means f*** all.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Idk, I'm not really all that mad that this team is marginally worse than they were last year (effectively the only change was downgrading from McCann to Heinen) just because I don't really see many paths available that would have resulted in the Penguins getting much better. It was a combination of the expansion draft, a lack of cap space, a lack of tradeable assets and the absolutely bonkers UFA contracts that were given out.

The team could have improved by adding a 1st and a prospect on top of Zucker, but why would you do that? That's completely a JR-esque, "trying to fix a mistake" type of trade with the small amount of assets the Penguins have left. You could have moved Zucker or Pettersson for cap space to spend in UFA, but the contracts handed out in UFA were just as bad (if not worse) than the contracts that Zucker and Pettersson already had. You could have traded someone like Rust, Guentzel or Kapanen, but you would never be able to replace their contributions at their respective cap hits, especially not Rust and Kapanen. I would have loved flipping Zucker for a pick and signing Saad, but that's not really "improvement", that's a lateral move that gives the Penguins an asset. That's kinda like what the McCann to Heinen swap was.

In addition, I'm also supportive of Hextall's general plan of "stay competitive while retaining assets", which is basically what this off-season was. That's another reason I've been so behind acquiring Fleury, he is the most cost effective option available in terms of cost to acquire of any goalie upgrade the Penguins could make right now. I want this team to remain competitive without pissing away every one of their assets every single season like JR did, Hextall has generally done that with the Penguins so far.

There were definitely moves I would have liked to see this off-season. Pettersson for a depth forward to give POJ a spot, and then signing someone like Haakanpa, was something I threw out multiple times. Trading Zucker for assets to sign Saad was another idea I really liked. But I don't think those really move the needle much.

I've liked what Hextall's done here in general.

I agree that there weren't a lot of needle movers (among forwards) available this summer outside of Landeskog, who ended up back with Colorado anyway.

I just hope we have enough cap space to make quality additions to the team when they become available.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

I've liked what Hextall's done here in general.

I agree that there weren't a lot of needle movers (among forwards) available this summer outside of Landeskog, who ended up back with Colorado anyway.

I just hope we have enough cap space to make quality additions to the team when they become available.

This is why I was hoping they'd move Pettersson and his salary. Having that kind of cap space available is more important to this team than whatever "upgrade" Pettersson provides versus the cheap alternatives like POJ, Riikola or Ruhwedel.

 

[madinsomniac]

Look, once the season starts they can get as close to the cap as possible then ltir Malkin and make some cap trades and they should be able to mold the team midseason to whatever they think they need…

 

[Empoleon8771]

I've liked what Hextall's done here in general.

I agree that there weren't a lot of needle movers (among forwards) available this summer outside of Landeskog, who ended up back with Colorado anyway.

I just hope we have enough cap space to make quality additions to the team when they become available.

The only moves this off-season that made me think "damn, I wish we would have done that" were:

1. Signing Saad for $4.5 million, even though him getting a NMC is disgusting.
2. Signing Haakanpa for $1.5 million
3. Trading a 3rd liner and a 2nd for Buchnevich
4. Signing Grubauer for $5.9 million
5. Fleury for nothing

But realistically, how many of those could the Penguins have done? 1 is definitely doable had they flipped Zucker, which I completely think they could have done based on the contracts handed out in UFA. Even if you had to retain a bit on him, you could easily justify it with that Saad contract. 2 wasn't possible because Haakanpa picked Dallas because of the amount of Finns the Stars had. 3 wasn't possible because there's no way NY would have sent him in the Metro (although I do have questions about Drury's sanity after some of these moves). 4 was possible but I think a lot of people here wouldn't have liked that. 5 didn't work with the cap, although I don't think that door is officially closed yet.

If there was something obvious, then yeah, I wanted them to do it. But so far, I've just seen a bunch of stupid contracts in free agency and stupid trades. I don't really mind Hextall replacing Tanev and going with a lottery ticket 3rd liner this off-season, just because there wasn't really any good things happening this off-season.

 

[madinsomniac]

You really have to wait until the moment is right to make trades… try to cap dump right before ufa or the deadline and you are paying premium prices to do that

There should be a sweet spot right around seasons start when teams don’t know if they are contenders or not and have perceived holes to fill where they might take a petts or Zucker and pay to do so

 

[Empoleon8771]

To add, the Penguins also got what looks like a downright elite goalie prospect in Lindberg to sign on day 1 of free agency as well. I don't want to hype him up that much, but you don't put up those kind of numbers in the NCAA without being a legit goalie. I can't think of a goalie who put up those kind of numbers only to not pan out in the pros.

Hell, even go back to his junior days and his numbers are still great. I genuinely have no clue how this guy was only drafted as a 7th rounder at age 20. I don't want to get too excited about a prospect, but I just genuinely don't understand it. He was putting up around a .930 save% in the Finnish U18 league for 2 years and a .925 in the Finnish U20 league for one year, and then came over to North America and put up a .935 in the NCAA for one year. Only then he was drafted.

 

[The Old Master]

I've liked what Hextall's done here in general.

I agree that there weren't a lot of needle movers (among forwards) available this summer outside of Landeskog, who ended up back with Colorado anyway.

I just hope we have enough cap space to make quality additions to the team when they become available.

With geno on lti we could be in that rare group of teams that will be both sellers and buyers at the trade deadline.

 

[Peat]

I wonder if Tampa's top 6, blueline, and goaltending is about on par with ours.

You know the answer.

But why complain about the bottom 6 then when it's not the problem, unless you think it's radically inferior to Tampa's? Like, I know you're unhappy that we're spending money on it that could be spent on the top 6, but it's not like we're cheaping out on our top 6 or spending some insane amount on our bottom 6.

Unless you think we should be constructing a bottom 6 that can cover for the playoff misfires we've seen from Crosby and Malkin, but I think you know that's impossible.

 

[chethejet]

All the talk of getting bigger and tougher went out the window. Not sure any moves can be made that address that. With very few RD left although I wouldn't mind Gudbranson if that is a move that is somewhat left in the barrel. With Angelo and Lafferty one way contracts now, I give both a good chance to play on the 4th line. Pens can still be a team that can play a physical game with the three names above. But how many posts have been made to move Petts for picks or prospects to have cap room. I think Hextall will move someone like Petts when he can but really that was needed weeks ago before the ED and the draft as well.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

2. Agree on getting Carter on PP1 (he said staring nervously at ATOI for a 2000 year old). Not sure about Zucker/Matheson ahead of Rust/Guentzel.

I bring up Zucker because of fit, rather than being a higher tier player.

Rust is a right shot. He shouldn't be on the right wall. And I can think of no one better on our team to play net-front on the PP than Sid. He's strong, he'll screen, he'll win rebounds, he'll deflect pucks. So that leaves the right wall open, which we need a left shot for, for one-timer compatibility.
Zucker's shot is much harder than Guentzel's. He can score from the wall.
The Tampa model works. Two powerful shooters on each wing with handedness facing the middle of the ice. It opens up options.

And then as for Matheson, that's only a case of not having anyone else to play the point with Malkin out.
Kapanen? His slapshot's underrated but I feel he'd be awkward there. It's not gonna be Rust. He doesn't even one-time pucks on the PP when in wing position.
Marino was awful on PP2. Pettersson is meh. Dumoulin has no offensive talent. POJ? Who else?

It can only be Matheson.

Incidentally, I hated what I saw of Kapanen there. Maybe things change at the second bite, but I'm not counting on it. Heinen's the guy who I see breaking up GCR if anyone.

Wasn't that an extremely small sample size with Sid?

 

[SEALBound]

We need size, skill, and the sort of physical play that actually takes a toll on the opposition.

I'm open to any deal that adds those components. Any trade has risks, but there's a greater risk of staying content with easy 1st round exits.

That's not good enough. There's a limited number of those types of players available. Every available player like that, people balk at here. So no, if you're going to complain to the extent that you are, you can at least propose something...ANYTHING...of what you believe could actually be done. And retreating into something like "Durrr...we can't cuz JR n stuff" is low IQ shit.

 

[Gurglesons]

The idea that the difference between Gaudreau and McGinn would be enough for this team to miss the playoffs seems pretty bonkers to me too.

I think it’s more the difference between NHL talent and a player that had 10 good games in between missing out on around 80+ with no injury.