Confirmed Signing with Link: [VGK] Alex Pietrangelo signs with the Golden Knights (7 years, $8.8M AAV)

[Ted Hoffman]

The quote was something to the effect of 'he is looking to get everything he wants'. I mean, who wouldn't? The implication was that he was not being flexible on any of the elements of his requirements - term, AAV, signing bonus, NMC - and that he was making demands rather than negotiating. Army was certainly not being fully flexible from his end, but if this statement has any truth to it I can't really blame him for not going further than he did when the other side won't budge.

The last offer the Blues made to the player was said to have been 8 years x $8M AAV with "some signing bonus and a partial NMC" in the final year, specifically to address his desire to have his contract "buyout proof". Who can say exactly what it looked like, but my sense was that if Army had offered $9M AAV without the full NMC he would have turned it down, just as he would have if Army offered $8M AAV with a full NMC and the same deal structure as VGK signed him to. In other words, he wanted it all. He can say that he wanted to stay in STL until he's blue in the face, but when it came time to make a decision he certainly valued staying in STL less than he did the things that he got in his VGK deal that Army wasn't offering. Maybe he regrets that now and was hoping to be able to take a market deal back to STL for one last shot, but the Krug signing pretty much made that a no-go. It happens, especially when a GM apparently feels more like they're being held hostage to a player's demands than they are negotiating.

Quick questions that come to mind just reading this:

-- What exactly did Pietrangelo want?
-- How flexible had Pietrangelo been on his requirements - term, AAV, signing bonus, NMC - since talks first started?
-- What does "some signing bonus" really mean?
-- What does "partial NMC in the final year" really mean?
-- What would have been considered a "buyout proof" contract to Pietrangelo?
-- What was the structure of the contract Armstrong had in mind when offering 8x8?

Because the answers to those questions, along with several others, are pretty important to understand where both sides were with respect to each other and who was being reasonable and who wasn't.

 

[Channelcat]

One of the biggest pluses for Pietranglelo is his durability. Thats huge.

 

[MissouriMook]

Quick questions that come to mind just reading this:

-- What exactly did Pietrangelo want?
-- How flexible had Pietrangelo been on his requirements - term, AAV, signing bonus, NMC - since talks first started?
-- What does "some signing bonus" really mean?
-- What does "partial NMC in the final year" really mean?
-- What would have been considered a "buyout proof" contract to Pietrangelo?
-- What was the structure of the contract Armstrong had in mind when offering 8x8?

Because the answers to those questions, along with several others, are pretty important to understand where both sides were with respect to each other and who was being reasonable and who wasn't.

We will likely never know for sure the answer to any of those questions. All we can do is work within the framework of the information we have been provided and the hypotheticals we can draw from that information. From someone anonymously quoted from Petro's camp (with the requisite disclaimer that we don't know how reliable the source is) the player was apparently pretty inflexible on all accounts. The team? Army disclosed far more that he normally does Friday night, which is also to say virtually nothing.

 

[seanlinden]

There was an anonymous comment over the weekend from someone in Pietrangelo's camp that I found interesting and certainly relevant. Given the volume of information coming from Carlo Colaiacovo in the last week, I suspect it was him, but with the condition of anonymity, but there is no way to know for sure.

The quote was something to the effect of 'he is looking to get everything he wants'. I mean, who wouldn't? The implication was that he was not being flexible on any of the elements of his requirements - term, AAV, signing bonus, NMC - and that he was making demands rather than negotiating. Army was certainly not being fully flexible from his end, but if this statement has any truth to it I can't really blame him for not going further than he did when the other side won't budge.

The last offer the Blues made to the player was said to have been 8 years x $8M AAV with "some signing bonus and a partial NMC" in the final year, specifically to address his desire to have his contract "buyout proof". Who can say exactly what it looked like, but my sense was that if Army had offered $9M AAV without the full NMC he would have turned it down, just as he would have if Army offered $8M AAV with a full NMC and the same deal structure as VGK signed him to. In other words, he wanted it all. He can say that he wanted to stay in STL until he's blue in the face, but when it came time to make a decision he certainly valued staying in STL less than he did the things that he got in his VGK deal that Army wasn't offering. Maybe he regrets that now and was hoping to be able to take a market deal back to STL for one last shot, but the Krug signing pretty much made that a no-go. It happens, especially when a GM apparently feels more like they're being held hostage to a player's demands than they are negotiating.

Personally, I think if the st. Louis 8x8 offer had a full NMC and at least some bonus money, it would have been signed.

The problem was -- AP wasn't interested in talking about contracts that didn't include a full NMC, while Armstrong was only willing to discuss partial NMCs.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Personally, I think if the st. Louis 8x8 offer had a full NMC and at least some bonus money, it would have been signed.

The problem was -- AP wasn't interested in talking about contracts that didn't include a full NMC, while Armstrong was only willing to discuss partial NMCs.

I keep coming back to "what does some bonus money" really mean? Is that $30 million? Is it $20 million? Is it $12 million paid 0 + 2x6 + 0? Is it $3 million, paid 0 + 1x3 + 0x4? All of that can be interpreted as "some" depending on how loosely you want to use that word, and at least two of those are probably nowhere close to what Pietrangelo was looking for.

I also keep coming back to "what does a partial NMC" really mean? Is that a full NMC for 5 years of the 8 + full NTC for the other 3? Is it a full NMC for 3 years of the 8 + full NTC for 4 of the other 5 + partial NTC in the final year? Is it 3 years of NMC but it's the 3 years after '20-21 so Pietrangelo could be exposed to Seattle and nothing after '23-24? Is it a year of full NMC and then some NTC years in there, with conditions late? All of those can be considered "partial NMC" and not be anything close to what Pietrangelo wanted. Hell, even if he said "I want a full NMC" but would have taken 7 years of NMC + the 8th year merely being a full NTC, all those illustrations of "partial NMC" wouldn't have come close to what he was wanting.

 

[seanlinden]

I keep coming back to "what does some bonus money" really mean? Is that $30 million? Is it $20 million? Is it $12 million paid 0 + 2x6 + 0? Is it $3 million, paid 0 + 1x3 + 0x4? All of that can be interpreted as "some" depending on how loosely you want to use that word, and at least two of those are probably nowhere close to what Pietrangelo was looking for.

I also keep coming back to "what does a partial NMC" really mean? Is that a full NMC for 5 years of the 8 + full NTC for the other 3? Is it a full NMC for 3 years of the 8 + full NTC for 4 of the other 5 + partial NTC in the final year? Is it 3 years of NMC but it's the 3 years after '20-21 so Pietrangelo could be exposed to Seattle and nothing after '23-24? Is it a year of full NMC and then some NTC years in there, with conditions late? All of those can be considered "partial NMC" and not be anything close to what Pietrangelo wanted. Hell, even if he said "I want a full NMC" but would have taken 7 years of NMC + the 8th year merely being a full NTC, all those illustrations of "partial NMC" wouldn't have come close to what he was wanting.

I think "some" bonus money would be looking at Josi (just less than half), Carlson (just less than half), Karlsson (close to 2/3 in bonus money); and figuring somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3 in bonus money would be fair/reasonable. In terms of structure, the strategy would be to minimize the total compensation this year and next, subject to all of the variance restrictions per the CBA.

As for the NMC discussion, to me that's much more cut & dry -- the desire was a full NMC, hard stop -- full length of the deal. Never any risk that he would wake up one morning packing his stuff -- if he was ever going to move on that contract, it would be on his terms. Toews got it, Kane got it, Tavares got it, Stamkos got it, Karlsson got it, Seguin got it, heck even Jeff Skinner got one.

The problem is - Doug Armstrong's template for long term deals to veterans is a 5 year full NTC (but the threat of being able to waive you if you don't cooperate, see Tyler Johnson), followed by 2 years with a 15-team NTC. I'm sure Armstrong was willing to flex on that template, first couple of years NMC, maybe it's a 5-team list, but he was not going to give AP full hard-stop control for the next 7-8 years -- and as a guy with 4 kids, I don't blame AP at all for "dying on that hill".

 

[Ted Hoffman]

I think "some" bonus money would be looking at Josi (just less than half), Carlson (just less than half), Karlsson (close to 2/3 in bonus money); and figuring somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3 in bonus money would be fair/reasonable. In terms of structure, the strategy would be to minimize the total compensation this year and next, subject to all of the variance restrictions per the CBA.

I think you misinterpreted the angle from which I was asking those questions, but I can work with it.

Pietrangelo's "some" could have meant what you describe; Armstrong's "some" could have meant $5 million total because ordinarily he'd do $0. Even at say $8 million, that's certainly not Josi/Carlson/Karlsson type signing bonus money.

Pietrangelo's might well have wanted a full NMC, full stop and Armstrong was offering a "partial NMC" as I outlined. Even if Pietrangelo was willing to do a "partial NMC" it could have been a nearly full NMC like I described.

It's why I keep saying it's not accurate to hear Armstrong say "I offered some signing bonus" without details and think he was offering close to what Pietrangelo was asking - just like it's not accurate to hear Armstrong say "I offered a partial NMC" and think he was offering a nearly full NMC that was almost what Pietrangelo wanted. Details matter.

 

[Reality Czech]

Will we ever find out the full story? Likely no. Will we ever get some details? Likely. Will it be enough to connect all the dots? Probably not, but maybe it will connect just enough.

In the afterglow of June 12, 2019 I don't think Armstrong already knew he didn't want Pietrangelo here after '19-20, just like I don't think Pietrangelo already knew he was going to leave after '19-20. I think at some point, one or both of them decided a split was going to happen unless a deal got done on their terms, and they started planning accordingly. When that happened and why, we don't know. [Yet. Maybe we'll find out.] There's a lot of words and phrases being used by both sides that are subject to interpretation because they lack details or context. Until we get that, it's difficult to make a good evaluation of where each side was and who was being reasonable and who wasn't.

Perhaps the best analogy to right now is 2005, when Pronger got dealt to Edmonton and everyone swore to God that Larry Pleau was a f***ing moron who needed to be run out of town before the next mode of transportation showed up. It wasn't until months later when we learned that Dick Thomas was calling shots behind the scenes with the permission of Bill Laurie, and Thomas decided Pronger's career was shot due to the wrist surgery he'd had and he wasn't worth anything near $9 million, and Pronger needed to be traded ASAP before everyone else figured it out - but Pleau was told what he could take back in return, not to negotiate about it, and had one offer he was going to accept rejected by Thomas. Meanwhile, Bill Laurie was fully engaged in the "burn everything in the Blues franchise down" reign of terror, pissed that he'd lost money over the years and so he was going to ruin as much as he could as he went out the door. When we realized those things, we discovered it wasn't Pronger demanding to leave, or Pleau just being a dumbass and f***ing up an obvious trade: it was a goon squad hell-bent on tearing everything down while proclaiming themselves geniuses along the way. We can - and still do - disagree on whether Pleau should have flipped the bird and left, but it still wouldn't have changed the outcome: Pronger was getting dealt for a pittance, and that's what Thomas and Laurie wanted, and they liked it.

No, I'm not saying management/ownership f***ed this time up too. I'm saying we know what's happened, we lack a lot of information to understand precisely why, and we're all grasping at straws to explain it.

Yep, you nailed it. There are some puzzle pieces missing from this situation and those missing pieces are probably where the truth would be found.

 

[Xerloris]

In a half season that was ended early due to a pandemic.


Without Binnington St Louis would have gone nowhere in the playoffs or won any cup.

I didn't know 70 games is considered half of a 82 game season.

You are correct though that without a stable goalie we would not have won but there are several other players I would argue were just as important as Binnington that run but not one of them is Pietrangelo.

 

[GoldenSeal]

I think "some" bonus money would be looking at Josi (just less than half), Carlson (just less than half), Karlsson (close to 2/3 in bonus money); and figuring somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3 in bonus money would be fair/reasonable. In terms of structure, the strategy would be to minimize the total compensation this year and next, subject to all of the variance restrictions per the CBA.

As for the NMC discussion, to me that's much more cut & dry -- the desire was a full NMC, hard stop -- full length of the deal. Never any risk that he would wake up one morning packing his stuff -- if he was ever going to move on that contract, it would be on his terms. Toews got it, Kane got it, Tavares got it, Stamkos got it, Karlsson got it, Seguin got it, heck even Jeff Skinner got one.

The problem is - Doug Armstrong's template for long term deals to veterans is a 5 year full NTC (but the threat of being able to waive you if you don't cooperate, see Tyler Johnson), followed by 2 years with a 15-team NTC. I'm sure Armstrong was willing to flex on that template, first couple of years NMC, maybe it's a 5-team list, but he was not going to give AP full hard-stop control for the next 7-8 years -- and as a guy with 4 kids, I don't blame AP at all for "dying on that hill".

And yet a lot of Blues fans want to blame him. I hope he wins the Conn and helps you boys win the Cup.

 

[Spektre]

And yet a lot of Blues fans want to blame him. I hope he wins the Conn and helps you boys win the Cup.

I don't see how blame is the right word for either side. There are some things from the Pietrangelo/Newport side that seemed disingenuous. Leaking things to the media like the Blues offered a contract with no structure in it, Pietrangelo saying he was "caught off guard" by the Krug signing, Pietrangelo saying there was still hope of signing with the Blues after free agency opened, are a few examples.

Has there ever been a high profile NHL player to hit UFA and then sign with their original team? The fact is Pietrangelo and Army worked on a deal for at least a year off and on. Pietrangelo met face to face with Army and Stillman perhaps a week before UFA and that meeting did not go well. There's absolutely no way Pietrangelo was truly caught off guard by the Blues moving on. No responsible GM is going to sit on their hands while UFA is rolling and wait on a player to be courted by other teams before making a decision when they've had over a year to get a deal accomplished.

I don't blame Pietro and I don't blame Army. It's business but certainly some questionable comments/leaks from Pietro's side.

I'm Pietro's out. He was a big part of the Cup run so there will always be memories. He's on Vegas now and I'll cheer if Blues players knock him around.

 

[seanlinden]

Yep, you nailed it. There are some puzzle pieces missing from this situation and those missing pieces are probably where the truth would be found.

I think there's enough details out there, along with some reasonable deductive reasoning, to know what happened.

There was likely a brief discussion between Armstrong & Meehan, sometime in June about what it was going to take to get AP resigned -- maybe not even involving AP himself, as Meehan's job isn't just to do what the player wants -- his job is to do what is in the player's best interests -- and many players simply trust their agent to do that.

Meehan wouldn't have even needed to consult AP on this to be able to say -- well Drew Doughty got $11m and Karlsson got $11.5m, Ekman Larsson got $8.25m and Carlson got $8m; so somewhere between Doughty & OEL on an 8-year deal; with the following parameters:
- 1/3 to 1/2 of the contract in bonus money, as is the norm with these deals.
- Generally a frontloaded deal, with a dip in contract value for 2020-21 due to the potential of a lockout; again as is the norm for these kinds of deals.
- A full NMC for the duration of the contract -- that's what the top guys get, and as a guy with 3 kids, something it is my responsibility as an agent to stress the importance of to him.

Armstrong said in his presser that he's completely opposed to that last point, on a philosophical level, so likely realized very early on that signing AP just wasn't going to be realistic. Armstrong went on his way to preparing for the loss of AP.

Each one of those moves likely stung Meehan/AP, because it became clear that he wasn't being given "the keys to the city" like Jonathan Toews & Patrick Kane were, or even Steven Stamkos in Tampa -- and that's where the feeling of disrespect factored in.

If Army had simply gone in and said "I'll give you the bonus money and NMC no problem, but I need you to work with us on the cap hit / a hometown discount to keep this group together" -- that's a much easier pill to swallow for AP than "let's talk total money", then we'll figure out just how much NMC protection and bonus money you get.

I can almost guarantee that the NMCs contained in Stamkos, Kane, Toews, Tavares, etc. deals were probably less than a 5-minute discussion. The GMs knew they were giving them up front the start, and did so as a tactic to try and get the player to think less money right off the bat.

 

[Pandaman11]

Wild signed Talbot for 3 years at pretty substantial sum. Anybody who signed a goalie this offseason is not in on Fleury. Goalie market is almost set now. It's why Fleury is still in Vegas because nobody was willing to take him under conditions Vegas was willing to accept.

Right, I totally forgot about Talbot... Maybe another team.

 

[GoldenSeal]

I don't see how blame is the right word for either side. There are some things from the Pietrangelo/Newport side that seemed disingenuous. Leaking things to the media like the Blues offered a contract with no structure in it, Pietrangelo saying he was "caught off guard" by the Krug signing, Pietrangelo saying there was still hope of signing with the Blues after free agency opened, are a few examples.

Has there ever been a high profile NHL player to hit UFA and then sign with their original team? The fact is Pietrangelo and Army worked on a deal for at least a year off and on. Pietrangelo met face to face with Army and Stillman perhaps a week before UFA and that meeting did not go well. There's absolutely no way Pietrangelo was truly caught off guard by the Blues moving on. No responsible GM is going to sit on their hands while UFA is rolling and wait on a player to be courted by other teams before making a decision when they've had over a year to get a deal accomplished.

I don't blame Pietro and I don't blame Army. It's business but certainly some questionable comments/leaks from Pietro's side.

I'm Pietro's out. He was a big part of the Cup run so there will always be memories. He's on Vegas now and I'll cheer if Blues players knock him around.

Lesser players got an NTC/NMC over Pietrangelo. Lesser.

Army is GM, HE makes the decisions. Pie would have signed but Army wouldn’t budge and forced Pie out. Pie is a -player-, all he can do is take it or leave it and as a dad, as team Captain of a Cup winner, as being a legit 1D/top 10 DMAN who is one of the teams scorers on a team with an LTIR Tarasenko who might not be what he was, decided on family and security. ANY other team in the league would have fallen over themselves to give him an NMC and guarantee his cash. Not Army. Not the team that he Captained to a Cup.

Blues let him down and insulted him at the same time.

 

[BlueKnight]

Will we ever find out the full story? Likely no. Will we ever get some details? Likely. Will it be enough to connect all the dots? Probably not, but maybe it will connect just enough.

In the afterglow of June 12, 2019 I don't think Armstrong already knew he didn't want Pietrangelo here after '19-20, just like I don't think Pietrangelo already knew he was going to leave after '19-20. I think at some point, one or both of them decided a split was going to happen unless a deal got done on their terms, and they started planning accordingly. When that happened and why, we don't know. [Yet. Maybe we'll find out.] There's a lot of words and phrases being used by both sides that are subject to interpretation because they lack details or context. Until we get that, it's difficult to make a good evaluation of where each side was and who was being reasonable and who wasn't.

Perhaps the best analogy to right now is 2005, when Pronger got dealt to Edmonton and everyone swore to God that Larry Pleau was a f***ing moron who needed to be run out of town before the next mode of transportation showed up. It wasn't until months later when we learned that Dick Thomas was calling shots behind the scenes with the permission of Bill Laurie, and Thomas decided Pronger's career was shot due to the wrist surgery he'd had and he wasn't worth anything near $9 million, and Pronger needed to be traded ASAP before everyone else figured it out - but Pleau was told what he could take back in return, not to negotiate about it, and had one offer he was going to accept rejected by Thomas. Meanwhile, Bill Laurie was fully engaged in the "burn everything in the Blues franchise down" reign of terror, pissed that he'd lost money over the years and so he was going to ruin as much as he could as he went out the door. When we realized those things, we discovered it wasn't Pronger demanding to leave, or Pleau just being a dumbass and f***ing up an obvious trade: it was a goon squad hell-bent on tearing everything down while proclaiming themselves geniuses along the way. We can - and still do - disagree on whether Pleau should have flipped the bird and left, but it still wouldn't have changed the outcome: Pronger was getting dealt for a pittance, and that's what Thomas and Laurie wanted, and they liked it.

No, I'm not saying management/ownership f***ed this time up too. I'm saying we know what's happened, we lack a lot of information to understand precisely why, and we're all grasping at straws to explain it.

Yeah I definitely would like to hear the full story and connect the dots but doubt we'll ever get one.

 

[BlueKnight]

Lesser players got an NTC/NMC over Pietrangelo. Lesser.

Army is GM, HE makes the decisions. Pie would have signed but Army wouldn’t budge and forced Pie out. Pie is a -player-, all he can do is take it or leave it and as a dad, as team Captain of a Cup winner, as being a legit 1D/top 10 DMAN who is one of the teams scorers on a team with an LTIR Tarasenko who might not be what he was, decided on family and security. ANY other team in the league would have fallen over themselves to give him an NMC and guarantee his cash. Not Army. Not the team that he Captained to a Cup.

Blues let him down and insulted him at the same time.

I can't like this post enough. He got slapped in the face after everything Petro did for the Blues and the community, he deserves better than that.

 

[Blueston]

Lesser players got an NTC/NMC over Pietrangelo. Lesser.

Army is GM, HE makes the decisions. Pie would have signed but Army wouldn’t budge and forced Pie out. Pie is a -player-, all he can do is take it or leave it and as a dad, as team Captain of a Cup winner, as being a legit 1D/top 10 DMAN who is one of the teams scorers on a team with an LTIR Tarasenko who might not be what he was, decided on family and security. ANY other team in the league would have fallen over themselves to give him an NMC and guarantee his cash. Not Army. Not the team that he Captained to a Cup.

Blues let him down and insulted him at the same time.

I would like to be insulted by being offered richest deal in franchise history.

 

[BlueKnight]

I would like to be insulted by being offered richest deal in franchise history.

It wasn't structured the way he wanted

 

[Blueston]

It wasn't structured the way he wanted

Cry me a river. Not structured the way he wanted doesn't mean it was insulting. What is insulting is him continually saying how much he wanted to stay and then asking for contract he knew Blues couldn't/wouldn't do and acting like he is hurt when they moved on from him.

 

[GoldenSeal]

I would like to be insulted by being offered richest deal in franchise history.

Cry me a river. Not structured the way he wanted doesn't mean it was insulting. What is insulting is him continually saying how much he wanted to stay and then asking for contract he knew Blues couldn't/wouldn't due and acting like he is hurt when they moved on from him.

Oh, so that’s why lesser players got an NMC/NTC over Pie?

 

[BlueKnight]

Cry me a river. Not structured the way he wanted doesn't mean it was insulting. What is insulting is him continually saying how much he wanted to stay and then asking for contract he knew Blues couldn't/wouldn't due and acting like he is hurt when they moved on from him.

What insults me is the way Armstrong/Blues were treaing him after everything thing he did for the organization.

But I guess we'll agree to disagree then.

 

[WeWentBlues]

Both sides were too entrenched in their positions. It sucks.

In defense of AP, just give him the damn NMC and signing bonus.
In defense of Army and the Blues, they don't have a track record of buying out players in their twilight years. We do have a recent history of trading players for a variety of reasons and maybe that is what concerned Alex the most. In his tenure with the Blues, he has seen alot of teammates traded. Chronologically, this includes Allen, Edmundson, Fabbri, Berglund, Sobotka, Stastny, Lehtera, Reaves, Shattenkirk, Elliott, Oshie, Cole, Polak, Stewart, Halak, Perron, Crombeen, Bishop, Boyes, Eric Johnson, Jay McClement, Eric Brewer (stopping here).

After going down memory lane, that has to be the biggest sticking point. Army likes to make trades and Alex didn't want to possibly be traded at some point in the future.

 

[Blueston]

Oh, so that’s why lesser players got an NMC/NTC over Pie?

Army offered protection to him. But Petro wanted more. More protection, more bonus, more money. He just wanted more.

 

[grapes55]

Army offered protection to him. But Petro wanted more. More protection, more bonus, more money. He just wanted more.

Idk I think it's pretty much a given that premier players get full no-move clauses as UFAs. I think Petro is fully within his rights to ask for what his closest comparables got. Even Nashville didn't do NMCs but still gave one to Josi

 

[Rabid Ranger]

What insults me is the way Armstrong/Blues were treaing him after everything thing he did for the organization.

But I guess we'll agree to disagree then.

Man, you're all over the place. How are you going to feel tomorrow? This evening?