Waived: Sam Gagner Waived (Cleared)

[WEMCHUD]

What are the rules again on how a player qualifies to get their name on the cup? Did gagner play enough regular season games? Or can he play a game in the playoffs and qualify or does it have to be a finals game to qualify?

 

[DavidHasselhoffsFist]

What are the rules again on how a player qualifies to get their name on the cup? Did gagner play enough regular season games? Or can he play a game in the playoffs and qualify or does it have to be a finals game to qualify?

40 reg season or 1 game in the finals and unfortunately Gagner has only played in 27 for the Oilers this season.

 

[TB12]

What are the rules again on how a player qualifies to get their name on the cup? Did gagner play enough regular season games? Or can he play a game in the playoffs and qualify or does it have to be a finals game to qualify?

To get their name engraved, a player must have played at least 41 games for the championship team during the regular season or played in at least one game of the Stanley Cup Finals.

A team can also petition the league to include other team members.

 

[bucks_oil]

Well, Connor, like any human may have preferences for certain types of individuals, personality types and a lot of this in humans operates unconsciously. Gets into the very meat of who we dislike, like. Best people in their fields are not immune to these types of influences and can often be unaware of them.

Next, familiarity is a major bias with humans. We tend to like that which we know including which people we know, or have known. This features very much in orgs, bureaucracies, teams etc and can lead to the kinds of hiring practices that are commonly viewed as nepotism, for lack of more accurate terms. Where this leads is that often in orgs, teams etc best person known maybe end up being hired over best available person. We tend to see this a lot in the Oilers org historically. Connor is not unique in this, he's just the latest to have this kind of influence and personal bias.

This leads to basic examination of whether known familiarity and preferences is really servicing best available team work. People tend to be at best while being challenged, even challenged by others as you are doing in this post. But this is helpful, and its my belief we all require this. Its a very important feedback mechanism. Indeed some of our learning can come painfully from confrontation. I've worked in such realms.

When I hear the Oilers talk specifically about team concept its very common to hear "he fits in real well" "players are real comfortable with him" "good in the room" and so on. This not being isolated to the Oilers but exists in a lot of teams. However I've read a lot of hockey bios and coach bios and historically it isn't always the team that is comfortable, or friends, or going out with each other etc that achieves excellence. It can often be teams that feature discord, for instance the challenging and very direct to a point leadership of say Mark Messier. Many past coaches also could be very confrontive, painfully so. But the thing is such interaction can be hard, difficult,. It can feel threatening, in the moment divisive, result in lots of emotions.

I'm sure you've had work experiences where you disliked somebody or a manager, coworker and later found out that the persons input, style, while uncomfortable may result in positive gains, different outlooks, varied perspective etc. This Oilers team, not for the first time but chronic with this org, has had dives into these comfort and familiarity patterns. The org has even recognized this and hired some shake it up people at times that were direct. The intention being to increase difficulty, even going as far to do a "bootcamp". (to me poorly executed and conceived) I could write a lot more on this due to it being around my wheel house. But its far over and above discussion on a hockey forum. if you wanted I could go into much more depth. Suffice now to say though that the major overview is not blame of McDavid for this, he just falls into patterns humans invariably can feel. He's in an incredibly challenging environment. The comfort of familiarity and having some people around from less stressful times would be like a drug. Not his fault. Perhaps the org is sensing the value in that and looking off Browns specific performance.

But for Connor Brown my view is different. One has to know when one is done. I had this voyage myself so I'm not speaking out of turn here or on something I don't know of. The first person to look at self and know that they can no longer meet challenges of a very stressful work environment or occupation ultimately needs to be oneself. I could have continued to make good income in my field. I got out when I should. Thats honest, and its best practice for all involved. Connor Brown is not just failing on ice, he's failing in his cognitions of present performance. Not sure if you've seen the two articles but Matheson and I think it was Spector, but they had extensive articles with Connor Brown where Brown himself is saying such things as He's still got it, all it takes is for a goal to go in, that everything will just come then. It is denial at this point.

But thank you foremost for challenging me. Now, and almost always.

cheers

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you above "the last word"

I jest, of course. And I appreciate the post, I know you have a lot of experience in organization behavior and the like.

Having said that, I think you are overanalyzing this a bit. My bulleted take is this:

• On McDavid and personnel decisions:
  • To the extent that McD is involved in some player decisions based on his past experience, it's fine... it really is his team and he has "legitimate power" and expertise
• On Brown's injury:
  • McDavid got this one wrong, and that's fine... Brown had what for many is a career ending ACL injury. He's clearly lost a step and that's all it takes to go from a difference maker in this league to a nobody. He may never recover, but
  • He may still, anyone who's ever had an ACL repair can tell you it can take a while (or admittedly never) to fully recover. I had the same injury at the same age and it took me a full two years
• On Brown's performance & future
  • You argue that Brown should hang them up, but nobody EVER does that mid season. That's just not how a pro athlete is wired. If he's seeing too much ice time, that's on the coaches
  • He doesn't think he's done, and he might end up right because:
    • He's 8th in ATOI but 6th in shots on goal... he's getting more looks per min than a guy like McLeod... so he's finding the time and space to get shots... and
    • His on-ice goals against is among the lowest on the team, so he's not getting skated out of the rink... he's just not generating any meaningful offense
• On Waiver risk vs Gagner (the point of the thread)
  • Well Holland was ultimately right, Gags didn't get claimed
  • On risk of loss:
    • Gags is a utility knife, but we just traded for a better one... in terms of offensive roles, he becomes less likely to be of consequence to us (despite being a nice guy, and "familiar")
    • Goal suppression, the only thing Brown has been good at, is something we still need and a popular trait other GMs scoop up... it's not at all crazy to think that Brown was a larger risk to be scooped up.
    • Fans like offense, GMs are much more agnostic... this explains the disconnect in Brown's perceived value between fans and management

Anyway, hoping both Brown and Gags make us eat our words and score big goals for us this playoffs

 

[Drivesaitl]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you above "the last word"

I jest, of course. And I appreciate the post, I know you have a lot of experience in organization behavior and the like.
On Brown's performance & future

• He doesn't think he's done, and he might end up right because:
  
  • He's 8th in ATOI but 6th in shots on goal... he's getting more looks per min than a guy like McLeod... so he's finding the time and space to get shots... and
  • His on-ice goals against is among the lowest on the team, so he's not getting skated out of the rink... he's just not generating any meaningful offense
• On Waiver risk vs Gagner (the point of the thread)
  • Well Holland was ultimately right, Gags didn't get claimed
  • On risk of loss:
    • Gags is a utility knife, but we just traded for a better one... in terms of offensive roles, he becomes less likely to be of consequence to us (despite being a nice guy, and "familiar")
    • Goal suppression, the only thing Brown has been good at, is something we still need and a popular trait other GMs scoop up... it's not at all crazy to think that Brown was a larger risk to be scooped up.
    • Fans like offense, GMs are much more agnostic... this explains the disconnect in Brown's perceived value between fans and management

Anyway, hoping both Brown and Gags make us eat our words and score big goals for us this playoffs

I'll give you the last word.

 

[alanschu]

I'm curious, how much cap space did it give us by having Gagner clear waivers?

I don't know enough about capanomics, but even with retention I was surprised that we had as much space as we did to bring in 3 players and figured Gagner would only get us a pro-rated $700k or something?

 

[bucks_oil]

I'm curious, how much cap space did it give us by having Gagner clear waivers?

I don't know enough about capanomics, but even with retention I was surprised that we had as much space as we did to bring in 3 players and figured Gagner would only get us a pro-rated $700k or something?

In general, the most you can bury in the minors (per player) is 1.5X the league minimum so $775K x 1.5 = $1.1625M

So for Gagner, you can bury his full $750K in terms of annual salary (AAV).

To your broader question, it's important to know that cap is calculated daily (186 days) over the regular season. So if you save your money throughout the year, and lets say you are $1M actual dollars under the cap at the deadline and you want to spend that on a single player, well then you don't have $1M purchasing power, you have more because you only have to pay for the remaining days of the season.

Also worth understanding is that you can execute “paper transactions” for players who aren’t waiver eligible so that on non game days they aren’t “on the roster”. This can save you money since 1/168th of their salary is not counted against the cap.

The rule of thumb is that every $1 saved becomes $4.50 at the deadline (since so much of the season is already finished).

In our case, as of today we have $226K in actual dollars available, but $1.032M in purchasing power.
Edmonton Oilers Salary Cap, Draft Picks, and Player Contracts - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

Also worth noting (as I'm sure you noticed) Henrique (25%) and Carrick (50%) came at discounted cap hits because of retention.