jd22
Registered User
No Sam Lafferty thread yet? If so, I couldn't find it.
Acquired for a 5th rounder from Toronto, acquiring this right winger has been an excellent move by Allvin. At his current cap hit of 1.15m, he has been an excellent player up and down the lineup.
He hits UFA next year, at age 29. This is an interesting conundrum for the Canucks. At his current scoring rate (8g, 7a in 28 games) he deserves a raise and will undoubtedly get one in UFA. Yet we have seen the winger glut in the NHL where wingers are worth next-to-nothing in the current flat cap environment.
I think the Canucks are going to have to gamble on Lafferty as a cheap utility top six winger, a la Burrows when he was running on that sweet 2 mil aav / 4 year contract. The Canucks, as has been pointed out, are now going to have to try to win while paying Pete, Hughes, Hronek, Miller - and now maybe Boeser, too - top dollar without any significant ELC talent on the way, save perhaps Willander - but one ELC is not enough to balance out the cumulative cap hit of 35-43 mil from those five players. Not to mention Kuzmenko's future in doubt, as he is not playing at a 5.5m rate.
Hence the need for two utility forwards. Hoglander, hopefully, will be one of them, longer term. But can/should Lafferty be another one? If Allvin / Lafferty could agree on a 2m x 2y / 1.8m x 3y deal, I would bite with caution.
It's a simple fact of the league that winning teams have players overperforming their cap hit. And without the inbound ELC's in strength, Canucks will have to maximize that cap efficiency elsewhere. As we have seen, ELC contracts counterbalancing paying your stars market value is the way to extract the most cap efficiency from your lineup. Canucks don't have those ELC's coming en masse, though maybe Lekk and Willander are a good start. Not sold on anyone else being a difference maker. So should the Canucks gamble and extend Lafferty for 2 or 3 years?
Acquired for a 5th rounder from Toronto, acquiring this right winger has been an excellent move by Allvin. At his current cap hit of 1.15m, he has been an excellent player up and down the lineup.
He hits UFA next year, at age 29. This is an interesting conundrum for the Canucks. At his current scoring rate (8g, 7a in 28 games) he deserves a raise and will undoubtedly get one in UFA. Yet we have seen the winger glut in the NHL where wingers are worth next-to-nothing in the current flat cap environment.
I think the Canucks are going to have to gamble on Lafferty as a cheap utility top six winger, a la Burrows when he was running on that sweet 2 mil aav / 4 year contract. The Canucks, as has been pointed out, are now going to have to try to win while paying Pete, Hughes, Hronek, Miller - and now maybe Boeser, too - top dollar without any significant ELC talent on the way, save perhaps Willander - but one ELC is not enough to balance out the cumulative cap hit of 35-43 mil from those five players. Not to mention Kuzmenko's future in doubt, as he is not playing at a 5.5m rate.
Hence the need for two utility forwards. Hoglander, hopefully, will be one of them, longer term. But can/should Lafferty be another one? If Allvin / Lafferty could agree on a 2m x 2y / 1.8m x 3y deal, I would bite with caution.
It's a simple fact of the league that winning teams have players overperforming their cap hit. And without the inbound ELC's in strength, Canucks will have to maximize that cap efficiency elsewhere. As we have seen, ELC contracts counterbalancing paying your stars market value is the way to extract the most cap efficiency from your lineup. Canucks don't have those ELC's coming en masse, though maybe Lekk and Willander are a good start. Not sold on anyone else being a difference maker. So should the Canucks gamble and extend Lafferty for 2 or 3 years?
