I don't have the same confidence. His old man would, without a doubt, and it's what saw the franchise values for the Tigers and Wings increase by leaps and bounds. Watching how he controls the checkbook with the Tigers, where being willing to spend can have a far greater and more immediate impact on a club, doesn't give me great hope for how he'll spend on the Wings.
I'm not sure you need so much elite talent now. I've already talked elsewhere about how Cup winning and contending teams are seeming to become more and more pedestrian, and that the way the draft lotto works makes being awful really not worth it. The elite players on those Pens teams were drafted nearly 20 years ago now. same with the Hawks. Ovi was drafted nearly 20 years ago.
Truth is we might not get that elite talent, unless we sign it (like Pietrangelo?). And waiting around for it to happen, and then for it to coincide with other pieces popping up in free agency, and then being able to afford those pieces, or able to deal for them...I've said it before, but you're asking to end up being in that area where you're always waiting for the perfect moment with the perfect player.
One year. Eight million. To play in Buffalo.
We didn't put a claim in on Johnson despite needing a 2C, instead going cheap on a TB retread in Namestnikov.
The one cap dump we pick up is a guy whose salary is $1.5m lower than his cap hit, of which $1m was a signing bonus that I think was already paid by NYR.
Abdelkader was bought out despite its effect on our cap number being negligible, though the amount of actual money being saved was $3m.
Bertuzzi is having to take the organization to arby to get a contract done.
Rumors of Mantha's deal is that the organization is seeking a shorter, cheaper deal.
And how much do you want to bet that we stash a bunch of guys in Europe for the whole season, pushing back their next contracts in Detroit or seriously hampering their bargaining stance?
You want to know how I know the Wings didn't aggressively pursue any good UFA? Because Yzerman's been cutting corners all summer. Do I want to pay good players to come to Detroit? Yes, because good players make the players around them better. Get rid of Ryan and Namestnikov, spend $13m on Hall and Johnson. Or even just the $8m on Hall because he allows us to shift Bert/Mantha down to line two, and they can carry one of our mediocre choices for that center spot. And that knocks other guys down to line three, and takes pressure off other kids coming into the lineup.
We have plenty of picks. We have plenty of players to deal for picks. What we don't have is enough good players. And, yeah, there comes a point where having more players in the system doesn't help you. You run out of contracts. You run out of places to put therm where they can still get playing time. You lose the ability to assess all of them and develop them properly. And second round picks aren't exactly horribly valuable.
Go back five years to 2015 draft and Sebastian Aho is the only 2nd rounder to put up more than 100 points in his career. In fact, he's the only player outside of the first round to do it. The 2016 draft, Debrincat is the only 2nd rounder to break 100 points. Jesper Bratt is the only other player outside of the 1st round to do it. From the 2017 draft, the highwater mark for production outside of the first round is...20 points. If we go all the way back to the 2014 draft. we finally start seeing multiple players break 100 points when drafted outside of the first round...five of them. There have been 17 players from the first round break 100 points. same in 2015. Just six in 2016. Only two from 2017, but 12 players have bested that high of 20 points leading rounds 2-7.
So, yeah, it'll be nice to have three picks in the second round again. In three years, one of them might score 20 points for us. In five years, if we're absurdly lucky, one might break 100 points for his career. So, you want another reason to overpay on legitimately good players? Because they will likely have higher value if we want to deal them later, too. Give Taylor Hall $12m this year. Or Pietrangelo. And promise to do whatever you can to facilitate a trade to a contender 2/3 of the way through the season. And you likely get at least a 1st out of it, and a lot higher likelihood that you then draft a guy who will put some decent numbers on the board for you in the next five years.
This is a long post and I know it goes off on a bit of a tangent, sorry about that, but stockpiling picks in the 2nd and 3rd rounds is worse than playing the lotto. Even if we're overpaying better players to just come here for 2/3 of a season before being dealt, we're likely getting a far better return and a leg up on the rebuild than spending less on guys like Ryan, Namestnikov, and Merril. And whoever that guy from Vancouver is (I'm not trying to knock the guy with that, I really just can't remember his name).
Wow there is a lot to unpack here.
I'm going to attempt to make my points simple because I don't want to write an essay lol
Ok so your opening statement regarding Hall: "One year. Eight million. To play in
Buffalo."
We can't bash any other team really, Detroit was putrid last season.
He also gets to play with Eichel, who is much better than Larkin.
His contract has a NMC & NTC so he decides if, when and where he is moved. That can hurt value come TDL.
As for giving Hall 12M this year, no. That sets a bad precedent for all future UFAs.
Wanna get overpaid by 4M? Talk to Detroit, they'll pay.
As for Tyler Johnson, Yzerman did not claim him. Why? I don't know, I thought he would have. I was also hoping that he would. I can speculate on reasons. Perhaps TJ did not want to wave for Detroit and Yzerman didn't want to pick up a 5M dollar cap hit on a 5'8 C who is regressing and doesn't want to be here.
The guys he did sign all seemed genuine in statements about wanting to be here despite the rebuild.
PR? Perhaps, but it seemed legit to me.
As for having plenty of picks, we have 2 extra 2nd round picks and 1 extra 3rd round pick in 2021. 3 extra for that draft.
In 2022 we have 1 extra 4th round pick. 1 extra for that draft.
That 4 total extra picks for the next 2 drafts. That's not plenty in my eyes, thats a few.
We have to have assets that can be sold. What if no one wants to buy Helm or Flipper? Well we have Ryan and company we can sell too. Diversifying your product is good.
I don't really think the 2nd round pick breaking 100 point things is a fair argument.
The only stats that are genuine there are when you went back to 2014 because of course guys drafted outside the first round take longer to develop. That's ok because we are picking higher in the first. Those first rounders will see time sooner and we can build up a good stable of prospects that need time to develop with later picks.
We also have to consider the very real possibility that the guys you feel we should have signed simply would not play for us. Yes, money talks but drastically overpaying UFAs is just not a good idea for more reasons than 1.
I also think COVID is playing a very big part in this offseason and I just don't see the corner cutting from Yzerman that you do.
