Quoting: Daoloth
Hehe its going to cost at least 4.5M to 5M to replace Miller with a player who is lesser value... Chabot is a left shot D-man making Senators vastly better down left side compared to Vegas... Nobody I know is knocking on door wanting defensive liability in #27 or their other over paid D-man... Its like Chicago when they had money invested in Duncan Keith/Seabrock but they were actually producing... Sea was a right shot D-man putting up numbers in league with Drew Doughty... Then their contracts became issues, Vegas is already at that point without the cups... Senators picked up Zaitsev who is 4.5M cap hit not even in league with Miller as a player... Its like having Mathei Schneider on defense wondering why team is getting shelled so badly...
Gusev as I mentioned not long ago will probably be traded is suddenly in rumors/news that Vegas has to trade him
... Instead of playing him in playoffs when up 3-1 in series vs. Sharks they screwed him over only to allow him to become RFA w/ arbitration rights... So I hear he wants 2M or 4M, or 4M over 2 years... Fleury don't count as a good goalie, watch this year, will see him injured w/ GAA around 3 or 4 depending if he plays 30 or more games... Murray has a cap hit of 3.75M w/ 2 cups, having 7M locked into a dead end in net isn't going to work long or short term... DAnsk is their franchise goalie of future or Lagace
? Subban isn't anything more than a backup... VEgas has 17M+ locked up into 5 D-men that essentially all suck or are worthless except for maybe McNabb... Engellend is on pace for 6 point season after having 12 last year down about 50% from his rookie season of having like 5 goals w/ 20+ points... His career high in goals is 6 if wonder... VEgas will be lucky to get 20-30 goals from all their D-men looking at them on paper... WhiteCloud was like a -11 in the playoffs after having an inflated + rating in AHL regular season...
As bad as the Sharks are down the left side I would rather have Dillon or Vlasic over any of the trash D-men left on Vegas... Mcnabb would be only player I'd consider but he isn't going to score 10-20 goals w/ 50 or 60 points like a Miller can on right side... I can't wait to see Vegas shelled so badly their coach will get fired then GM:GM... Remember Vegas alienated entire league just about so nobody is looking to make it easy for them to make any trades or deals. Look at their first year they had 3 1st round picks, nothing to show for it... Even if think Glass is great, 5 players ahead of him are vastly better... One guy won Calder taken ahead of him, two of them are all stars... So essentially everybody taken ahead of Glass is better than him. IF Vegas got an earlier 1st pick to start as franchise they would be in better shape not having to do the bad Tatar deal or having some D-man worth playing if they didn't trade him or botch that up too...
Quick should have been traded after that second cup... He was playing w/ a broken wrist but was decent in the SCF... Kings would have won that cup a lot easier if they went with Jones... Bernier could have won the cup for them in 2013 but Quick made sure they didn't... Quick winning at 5.8M was a result of the team that carried him more than anything he did... So paying a guy 5 or 6M is the most you can expect to still win a cup... IN general its better to have a goalie on the minimal salary or making a few million if want to win a cup. You got Murray who was on minimal contract, Binnington, especially in the post lockout/salary cap era... Nobody in net with a cap hit 7M or higher is going to win the cup, odds are against it heavily. Goalies tend to get hot/lucky, I would treat them more like punters or kickers in NFL... Anytime spend big money on one it rarely works out, Cowboys had signed that kicker if recall only to have it bomb... Even drafting kicker in 1st round like Raiders never worked out for them really in Janikowski. I'd rather sign a guy from Europe like Tim Thomas or Backstrom compared to paying a goalie... Kings had Bishop they could have traded Quick then for something... Another problem is rarely get any value for a goalie even if they are worth it in a trade...
I don't see Dansk as their future starter. I don't know enough about him but I never thought he was supposed to be their future starter. I've never heard anything about that until now. I don't get why you don't think Fleury is good. Forget about his contract. He is a very good goalie. They'll need to figure out their cap situation but they're not going to trade him. It's likely that they try to move Clarkson's contract. They'll have to give up some picks but maybe someone will take it if they have the cap space for him. It's only one year. The price shouldn't be too crazy to move him. Maybe something like a 2nd+5th+Clarkson for a prospect unlikely to make the NHL. Or maybe Clarkson+3rd+decent prospect for a prospect unlikely to make the NHL. Something like that maybe. I don't know exactly what the price will be. They could put Clarkson on LTIR but there are some problems with doing that. If they can't get under the cap in any other way they'll do that, i guess. The problem with Clarkson is that he can't even play with his injuries. If you're trading for a 1-year bad contract like Jonathan Ericsson in Detroit as an example, last i checked he's healthy and can play in 2019-20. If you're trading for Ericsson, part of what you're getting for taking the contract is the player. It would cost more though. I wouldn't take him for future considerations (aka nothing) because he does have a pretty bad contract. But at least with a guy like that you're getting an NHL player. With Clarkson you're just getting a contract. I don't think he's played since 2015-16. So, that makes the price a bit higher. In a no cap league I wouldn't give up much for Ericsson anyway, but that makes the price to move him a little bit lower.
I think you're underrating the Golden Knights' defence. They have Schmidt, Theodore, and McNabb on the left side. Those guys are all pretty good. I don't know why you seem to think Schmidt is so bad. They're bringing Engelland back, too. Their right side isn't good enough, but at least they have Engelland. He doesn't bring much offensively but he's a good defensive defenseman. Not a top 4 guy or anything but he can play in your top 6, that's for sure. I agree their defence is a problem. It's not good enough. But I think it's betting than you're saying it is. That's just my opinion. The problem with their cap is Gusev and Schuldt. Both need to be signed. I have no idea what Schuldt will be signed for. Maybe he gets traded. I could really see Gusev being traded. I just don't think they can sign him. And he hasn't even played in the NHL, so you don't know what you're getting with him. Normally i'd be fine signing him for 3M or whatever, but with their cap problems why not get something for him? He's definitely a guy they can get something for. Like i said, moving Clarkson's contract would help, but it depends if they can find a team to take it. I think they probably could, but it depends how much they're willing to give up to move his contract. Like i was saying, unlike some bad contracts, any team trading for him isn't even getting a player. It's just a contract signed to a guy who will never play in the NHL again. Ottawa would be a good place to move that cap hit. The problem is that Ottawa doesn't seem to want to spend much money. They're not making that much money with ticket sales, but if they spent more money to get a good team, they might have more fans buying tickets. They do need to get to the cap floor though. They can definitely fit Clarkson into their cap without even needing to put him on LTIR. Then in a year when his contract is up all you've done is gotten some picks, and I doubt Ottawa will be a playoff team in 2020. I think they're a few years away from the playoffs. So, taking short term bad contracts could really help them. And with Clarkson, they have a chance to take a bad contract to only 1 year and get something for taking it, because Vegas needs cap space now. And then again, maybe Vegas puts him on LTIR, but i assume they'd rather not do that.
Speaking of the Senators, they have a better defenseman than any of Vegas's d-men, but their 2nd best d-man is Zaitsev. Vegas has a few defensemen i'd consider better than Zaitsev. Ottawa's defence is horrible for the NHL. Worse than Vegas's IMO. Vegas's isn't one of the better defences in the league, and is definitely below average, but I wouldn't say theirs is the worst. The Rangers' defence was pretty bad for the NHL but now we have Trouba and Fox, which could help out our defence a lot. Right now, Vegas has 5 d-men signed, but it sounds like Engelland is coming back, so they should have 6 even if they don't sign Schuldt. So, Vegas has a top 6 of Theodore, Schmidt, Engelland, McNabb, Holden, and Merrill. That list isn't in any particular order, but that's not horrible. Ottawa's top 6 is probably Chabot, Zaitsev, Hainsey, DeMelo, Jaros, and Wolanin. I'd take Vegas's top 6 over that. I wouldn't be surprised if Borowiecki is the 7th D. That's likely all he is anyway. Ottawa should take some short term bad contracts and get picks for taking them. Like i was saying, they have a perfect opportunity to get picks for taking Clarkson from VGK. They're the perfect team for Vegas to move him to. Obviously, the goal for the Senators' players this year is the win the Stanley Cup. But the management needs to look at it differently. Realistically, it's very unlikely that the Senators make the playoffs this year. They should take some bad contracts because it doesn't do much to the team now. They're not going to need all that cap space at the deadline to trade for rentals whatever. At least i don't think they will. Even if they are looking like a playoff team, which is very unlikely, then they'll still have lots of cap space. And if they go up just below the cap by taking 1-year bad contracts, which is unlikely they'll be able to do (because lots of teams who don't need the cap space now will just keep the players and let their contracts expire without needing to give up picks), then maybe they can't add to their team without moving out cap, but there's nothing wrong with letting the team do what it's been doing. If they're playing well, they could just keep doing what they're doing and go with the same roster for the playoffs.
Gerard Gallant is a very good coach. I don't know why you think he'll be fired. Forget about how much Fleury is making, because he's a really good goalie and they're not trading him. Just because he's making 7M that doesn't mean he can't win them a cup. I don't think they'll win the cup in 2020, but i'm just saying that the cap hit usually doesn't change the goalie's play. Other than that, they have a pretty good team (other than their defence). Their forwards are pretty good and their defence isn't great, but Fleury is a really good goalie and i get what you're saying. You're saying it takes away from the rest of the team. But we don't need to add it all up. We know where they're at with the cap and CapFriendly does it for us
... They have cap problems, but Fleury isn't the guy who will be traded. Once they fix those cap problems, we'll see how they play. I think i'm explaining this well. It's kind of hard to explain but i think you get what i mean. I don't think there's anything to that thing you mentioned about the teams winning the cup with their goalies on smaller contracts. I think it's just happened to turn out that way. Remember Vegas went to the final with Fleury. I don't remember if his current contract had started yet, but i'm pretty sure we've seen goalies making 6-7M go to the final with their team. And at that point, nobody cares about the cap hits. It's all about hockey by then. Not money, salary cap, cap hits, etc. Yes, maybe the goalie contracts mean something, but they don't mean too much IMO. It really depends how good the rest of the team is. That's all the goalie contracts really change. If you get other guys on good deals it should make the goalie contract not a big problem. If you even just have one star player on an ELC while the goalie is making more than he should be, then as long as the goalie is playing really well, that's just like having both guys on good contracts, probably even better.
At this point I'm not sure if i think Vegas will make the playoffs or not. I will make some full predictions soon, but i don't know what i'll pick for them. After free agency, it looks harder to predict. Other teams have been getting better, but they're not in the East, where it's even harder to get in. Calgary, San Jose, and Arizona are in their division, maybe Vancouver could get in. Then in the Central there are lots of really good teams. It seems like a lot of the better teams have gotten worse and a bunch of not great but not too bad teams have gotten better. I'm not going to look into it all right now but that's just what it seems like. So, it seems like there are lots of teams who could get in but not many who are basically "for sure" to get in. There are a few, like Tampa Bay, Boston, Toronto, Washington, Calgary, and maybe a few others, but not as many as it usually seems like. Maybe i'll even surprise myself and have one of those teams miss, i'm not sure. I haven't thought about it too much but i'll think about it more when i make my next predictions (probably sometime in the next week or so). It looks like there are a lot of people predicting very different standings. Lots of mixed opinions about a bunch of teams. Lots of people have Winnipeg missing the playoffs, but lots of people have them making it, too. Lots of mixed opinions on teams like Pittsburgh, NY Rangers, New Jersey, etc. There are a lot of teams in the East who will likely be debated a lot. It will be interesting to see what happens. It looks like this year is harder to predict than a lot of years for the reasons i mentioned. I'm just waiting for the next 3 months to go by now lol.