AROUND THE LEAGUE - 26-27

[Meds]

So apparently the off-season exit interviews in Edmonton went something like this.....

Bowman: Connor.....errr.....Mr. McDavid, what are your thoughts on how we move forward?

McDavid: Well Stan, I'm pissed. Jack (Eichel) won before I did!

Bowman: Well in fairness to the organization, Jack did have to go to another team for that. We'd like to avoid that.

McDavid: I don't care. I want to win.

Bowman: Well what would you suggest.

McDavid: Well for starters you can send Darnell to San Jose to make sure that Celebrini doesn't win before me too.

[donlever]

Apparently (allegedly) Bowman had a deal in place with Sweeney.

Nurse for Zadorov but Nikita said fuck that BS and nixed it.

[Aaronp18]

Hilarious that a team has two of the top players in the league and guys aren’t willing to waive their NTC to play there.

Having a fun time with a buddy of mine who’s a big Oiler fan.

“so you guys know you can only have one goalie in the net at a time right?”

[Megaterio Llamas]

Looks like Connor Bedard has injured his shoulder again out in Burnaby. It looks pretty serious.


https://x.com/BlackhawksFocus/status/20 ... 50398?s=20

[Cornuck]

McDavid: Well for starters you can send Darnell to San Jose to make sure that Celebrini doesn't win before me too.

[UWSaint]

I guess the board crashed on FA day? So much happened, and so much forgotten.

Crazy to me to see the Sharks play everything pitch perfect through the draft (including a bread and circuses pick in the 7th round, why the hell not) and then make such bizarre moves. I don't mind Trouba for their situation, and I don't care much about a guy getting overpaid so long as you've got a plan for what your locking up the guys coming off ELC's during that contract term. But trading Moo-ka-ma-doo-lin for Nurse is such a face palm. There's criticism about the lack of retention -- sure, but again, money matters most when it is keeping you from doing other things you need and I am not sure they are backing themselves into a corner. The bigger concern (to me) is that they failed to leverage the Oilers (forget retention, how about sweetners), and even traded some value (a suspect 5-7 who is young enough that maybe he can become a 4-5). They are a division rival. You should enter the season thinking you are their equal, and will be fighting them for home ice (or even a division title). And the trade helps you a little, and helps them a lot. The comparative benefits don't matter as much when you are trading out of division (or better, out of conference), but they matter here.

And then Marchment. I've seen a lot of positives about this signing, but I don't love it. They've used their quota of slow guys, and Marchment isn't a guy (IMO) who brings consistency to the table. I like some of the other attributes that he brings, but I just think the Sharks would have been better off looking for it elsewhere. And while the have some cap room and can figure it out, once they added Trouba *and* Nurse *and* Marchment all at some term, you are starting to collect a number of decent-but-just-complementary overpayments and so you are making the future a bit harder.

[donlever]

Yeah UW, I agree and it's all a bit bizzare.

After killing pre and draft day Grier tosses a couple of hanging curve balls out there to take the gleam of his prior accomplishments.

I think Nurse will be better in SJ than he was in Edmonton but he also "is what he is"....

A first pairing of Nurse Trouba with that forward group??

One of these things is not like the other.

For shits and giggles how much could RJ and the Twins have kick started our rebuild by dangling Hronek in Griers face?

A more experienced and street savvy GM (or an intellectual like Gold) perhaps rapes the Sharks on that (theroertical) deal.

[dbr]

I think they're at the right place in their rebuild to make moves like the ones they did, but the devil is in the details and I think it's more than fair to be asking questions about the quality of the guys they got. Adding $24m+ in players over 30 is pretty crazy, and while their cap situation is fine for getting all their kids' second contracts done they may not be in a position to go get another handful of veterans. Next time around they'll probably have to pay through the nose to get better vets on better contracts.

Celebrini is so good it probably won't matter much, but it'll be interesting to see how they fare as a team with all their young forwards arriving so quickly while the defense part of their rebuild is on a very different schedule (lots of project players, other than Dickinson their best prospects might be the ones they took this year).

[Cornuck]

I'm still not getting the Nurse trade at all. Sure they get a vet, overpaid 'just a bit' - but could they not have gotten a better dman at a much lower price? They bailed out Edmonton big time - almost to the point of thinking it's blackmail. But I can't think of any good reason for that trade.
And giving up 2 young dman? WTF? Didn't they have a spare bag of pucks laying around?

[Topper]

San Jose's top pair defense earns more than Colorado's

[UWSaint]

To add on the Sharks a few more points.

(1) When you acquire a UFA, you are paying at the top of the market. There are some "destination franchise" exceptions to this, but by and large -- this is the case where there's a rising cap. A rising cap means (a) more buyers as more cap strapped teams get relief in the delta, and (b) guys under contract who signed their deals at 7% of the cap now have their deals at 6%, but the equivalent player is looking for the new 7%.

(2) The upside of UFA shopping is you don't have to part with existing assets. There's a danger to your pipeline getting dry; what good does it do to solve your forward depth problem to create a defensive depth problem, etc.

(3) But the San Jose Sharks are flush with assets -- they are kind of team that should be dissuaded the least by having to give up something to get something. They've been nearly universally acknowledged as having the best prospect/best under 22 pool the last couple of seasons, and they'll probably get that designation again. And if they managed every pre-draft/draft day period like this year, they could hold that title infinitely. Because they can continually turn recently graduated high level prospects (Eklund) who develop reasonably (but not at the upper end of the curve), couple them with a B-tier prospect with modest but meaningful upside (Haltunnen), and turn it into another A tier prospect (Verhoeff). Look ma, the system is way better because we have Verhoeff and not Haltunnen. But what good is this title year after year? You can't keep exchanging potential energy for potential energy. I mean you can, but you are running in circles.

(4) There is such a thing as having too many prospects in your pipeline, too many good players on ELCs now who when they get paid, they all get paid at once. There's only so many players that can be part of a core, etc. Its a good problem to have, to be sure, but what's going on when your prospect/young player cluster is too big is that the "best use" for more and more of those players some of those assets is going to be to move them. You are moving some now or later, if you are pivoting to be a playoff team? That's a damn good time to use them, because that's the time where getting the players you want (and not just picking among the flotsam that went to UFA), and this is the critical time to move you up levels. And the Sharks, unlike many other teams, don't even have to use all of their gas to get to the next destination.

(5) When you abstractly take a step back, it is a wildly talented group of young players in San Jose, with one who is a bona fide superstar already. (Doesn't matter what else happens as long as you have Macklin C.? Ask the Oilers). And to those young forwards, its a very nice group of complementary veterans. But on the blue line? Absolutely they've improved -- but it is still a very underwhelming group. And that's because while they had *all* of their defensemen last year playing above their ideal station (in terms of roles and ice time), they are merely getting some second pairing or 4-5 guys (Trouba, Kesselring (maybe a 4-5--has been there before but last year sucked), Nurse) so that they have okay depth. And while a true #1, a 2-3, and two top 4s is better than a committee of 5 top 4s that includes one (or the 6th is one) PP QB, you can survive and maybe even make it with a committee group that looks like the Canucks in the peak WCE or Sedin eras. But the Sharks have neither, and I'm not sure that they get to either with the moves they make, and by the time the prospects are ready to be part of a committee (if not leave), all of these present solutions are gone.

(6a) If you have a choice (which you don't usually have), man it is better to start with the D because those forwards get effective and expensive so much sooner. If Kane and Toews had been drafted before Keith and Seabrook, instead of the other way around, they don't gel at the same time. I love the Sharks draft -- I think it is very likely (as likely as it can be for new D draft picks not named Schaeffer) Verhoeff AND Lin become quality top 4 D in the league, that at least one becomes at least a 2-3 (e.g., though not a perfect analogy, Verhoeff becomes Hronek, Lin becomes Hamhuis). But that's not happening for 5 years. But can they turn into that guy via trade? To a team looking to add futures, yes. To a team with a 2-3 thinking one of these guys has a chance at being a #1 overall, yes.

(6b) This is why I thought the Canucks really should have gone with a D with the #3 pick. The next set through #9 were all in one tier, all could be "BPA." All have possible core player upside, no one an absolutely sure thing. I thought Reid was the best, but what do I really know. The Canucks are fortunate that their highest upside U-22s are defensemen, and that they have a couple others without the high upside but with 4-5 or even second pairing potential. It a good, but not sufficient head start. And the relative value of adding another defenseman into rebuild is greatest now, will be second greatest in 2027, but when you start getting to '29 draft area, its like the Sharks getting two of their three defensive draft pick jewels now, as the stud future (and current) forward start are burning through their ELCs.

The problem of too many defensemen hitting, of "saving room for DuPont"? Bowen Byram was just traded for the #4 overall pick. MP3 just got traded for a first that's better than a deadline deal first. That's my answer. That math problem is easy to solve, because there are 128 slots for top 4 D in this league and at any given time, there are about 80-90 guys in the world who *effectively* play 20+ NHL minutes a night in at least one special teams role and who you aren't trying to keep off the ice when McDavid is on it.

[donlever]

Yeah Topper...took note of that as well.

Makar will soon sign something that eclipses Trouba and Nurse combined methinks.

Great post UW.

Nothing to add.

Except maybe Grier is less than he appeared to be a week ago.

Still on the job learning to do.

It is somewhat intriguing that Tom Holy, one of Griers Capos, spent near a decade with Nill, so you'd think he might have given it the old woah there boss.

Apparently not.

[Cousin Strawberry]

Grier caught helping a brother out?

[Meds]

Holy SHIT!

Flyers offer sheet Leo Carlsson to the tune of $18M x 5 ($90M). If Ducks don’t match they get a quartet of 1st round picks.

They just traded McTavish, they can’t also lose Carlsson, or they are in a bind down the middle. But $18M for a guy that has not scored at even a 1.0 ppg pace is a brutal overpayment. Philly just fucked themselves and Anaheim in one move.

[Lancer]

San Jose is setting itself up to become the next generation’s McJesus Oilers. Maybe Grier’s banking on the kids he just drafted being ready by the time the Nurse and Trouba deals are done. If they arrive earlier, maybe he can trade his recently-signed - except Nurse still has his NMC (does it get voided seeing Ashe waived it to go to SJ?) and Trouba has a modified NTC.

Vancouver’s management made the moves folks expected them to make with a team entering a rebuild. Vets with character and leadership to mentor the kids and set up the room culture properly. No stupid money was spent. Hopefully this is the trend the next couple of summers while the roster resets.

Briere making sure Anaheim doesn’t just sit on their vast cap space. $18 million AAV is going to take a bit out of that. I wager Verbeek is a miserable enough bastard to have identified upcoming opportunities to do the same to Briere, and Michkov is due for a new contract next summer.