Would anyone be interested in Anton Stralman this offseason to come in and mentor the young defenseman we have?
Don't know if they can afford him in Tampa, but he also miht want to go to a contender. We could probably offer him $5 X 2-3 years and it would mean we don't have to rush Brannstrom, Wolanin, Lajoie, etc, as well as play them on their off wing.
Another candidate is Tyler Myers, but even then I really liked Gonchar and what he provided for Karlsson in terms of mentoring and leading a PP, that it could be similar as Stralman has great positioning in the D zone he could input to the young D
That's something I thought about when looking up who the upcoming UFAs are. The thing is, I think you're way off on what Stralman's market value is. Look at Beauchemin a few years back getting 4.5M x 3 years under a much lower cap. Beauchemin probably was not seen as being as good as Stralman at that point either.
While I highly doubt the talk about us being a player in the UFA market is legitimate beyond us signing a few overpriced 3rd/4th liners on 1 year deals, if we are actually going to be a player, Stralman would be a great target.
Overpay him on a 2 year deal. In typical Sens fashion, backload the contract so that if we trade him next year the other team pays most of his salary.
It depends on what the market is for him, we'd probably have to pay him something in the 2 year 8-9 million range for it to make sense. I'm guessing he'll get 5M-6M from other teams with 4+ years of term. Teams are typically less worried about defenders dropping off. There's also no way he is taking a 3 year deal from anybody because then he is stuck trying to negotiate his next contract as a 35+ player.
A 2 year deal would be perfect for Stralman, because when it expires he'll still be 34 years old (won't be 35 until August of that year) so he won't be stuck limiting his marketplace by having to sign a 35+ year old contract. 35+ year old contracts stay on the books regardless of whether a player is bought out, so it limits the market for players that age.
It could be structured like....
2 years, 8M AAV
2019-20: 6.87M Salary (Full NMC)
2020-21: 9.13M Salary (Full NMC until December 31st 2020/10 Team No Trade List opens January 1st 2021)
Because the Sens will almost certainly deal him to a contender at the deadline, and the contract is backloaded, they only really pay him about 6.5M or a little less on season 2. So even know he gets an 8M AAV, it's more like the Senators are paying him in the 6-7 million range depending on how early they deal him.
An 8M AAV for an ageing #3D sounds like a lot, but that's the kind of contract we're going to have to table to get someone with options to come here. Stralman is going to get plenty of interest from other teams, as are any other decent top 4 options. UFAs already get overpaid, so we have to present a contract that looks better than ones that are already overpayments....