Habs fan coming in peace: I got thinking about how KK could have looked under a coach like St. Louis and I want to know what's the deal with Jesperi Kotkaniemi?

He is having a career year (2.2 P/60 and 11 goals already, his rookie season with MTL he had 1.9 P/60 and 11 goals total), yet his average icetime is a career low, 12:07.

I know Carolina has a deep team, but it still doesn't explain to me why a player that is performing this well (and a player that is young and still improving) is 12th in ATOI for forwards, not to mention Carolina invested a 1st, 3rd, and $6.1M (7.5% of the cap, 3rd highest on the team) in this player. So what's going on? Is this a tactic for a contract negotiation, is Carolina trying to limit KK's value? Does Rod not like him as a player?

What is the plan for KK after his one year deal expires?

They did this to purely stick it to the habs and it clearly worked you went from a stanley cup finalist to worst team in the league…..lol

I think the loss of Danault was huge too

From what I heard since he left and it was from Stephane Waite who coached all the years KK was here (Goalie coach but still in the lockeroom) he is really stubborn and does not really listen what the coaches are teaching him. If its true there is no coach in the NHL that will give more ice time to a player with this kind of attitude no matter the stats.

I think there are a lot more factors that go into that than losing KK, the team has a .555 point % under St. Louis and are 5 - 1 - 0 in their last 6 games... which included a 5-2 spanking of the leafs by the way.

I'm looking for some feedback from actual Canes fans not leafs trolls, I could go all day with you on how Toronto just got blown out by Buffalo (losing to a 40+ year old goalie for the first time since a Zamboni driver beat them) or how they almost blew a 7-2 lead to Detroit, or how they don't have a playoff series win since 2004... but that would be getting off topic so let's stick to the discussion on KK please

Which makes me wonder what he'd be like under St. Louis, since he isn't like most coaches. He doesn't put players in "boxes" with systems, as long as they stick to his "non-negotiables". It would have been interesting to see, it's sure made a significant difference for Caufield (and every other player on the roster).

I think it's way too soon to analyze the "St-Louis effect" because it's just normal and prooven that à confidence boost can be seen when somebody New arrive now matter who he is. A 5 game stretch is impressive but way to small of a sample. If St-louis concepts and philosophy proves to be solid over a long stretch than yeah KK is the exact type of player who could benefit from it.

I don't know, I think when a team goes from the worst season in franchise history to a .600 point % with a 6 - 1 - 0 record in the last 7 games (after St. Louis had a week of coaching) then the coach deserves a lot of credit.

This team is playing some really good hockey - they went from "unwatchable" to "must see". I'm already sold on St. Louis, an outstanding hire by Hughes.

Excellent question. They’re not trying to limit his value. I’m sure they wanted him to have a break-out season so that they wouldn’t have to think twice about making him a qualifying offer this summer. I believe the plan was to use him on the wing this season and hope he could move into the #2 center spot next season with Trocheck likely to leave as a UFA. They tried him as a top 6 winger early in the season, but it wasn’t working out, so when Staal and Aho were out with covid they moved him to center and he began to thrive. However, with Aho, Trocheck and Staal firmly entrenched as the top three centers and wanting to keep Kotkaniemi at the position where he’s had the most success, he ended up on the fourth line, which is actually not a bad line. His usual wingers lately have been Jarvis and Lorentz. Derek Stepan – the guy who was supposed to center the 4th line – rotates in occasionally but he’s usually the healthy scratch. Like you said, it’s a deep team.

I think that’s the second-biggest off-season question that keeps Don Waddell up at night. (The biggest is what to do with DeAngelo, given the risk that he could earn big money in arbitration.) I’m sure they’d like to keep Kotkaniemi, not because they gave up a lot to get him – they would cut their losses if they thought they’d made a bad decision – but because of what he’s shown this season and the fact that he’s young enough (21) that he may still have more upside. The problem is the qualifying offer. They knew they were overpaying him when they signed him – Waddell referred to his $6.1M salary as “acquisition cost” – and although he has shown that he belongs in the NHL, I don’t think he’s shown (yet) that he is or ever will be worth more than $6M per year.

Carolina may have a Plan A and a Plan B. I’ll talk about Plan B first. Plan B would be that they qualify him and request arbitration. This would probably lead him to accept the qualifying offer, because he isn’t likely to get $6M in arbitration (somebody told me that the arbitrators don’t consider the qualifying offer – they only look at the contracts of comparable players), so Carolina overpays him for one more season – Waddell would probably call it “retention cost” this time – to see if he can grow into his salary and be a solid #2 center with Trocheck leaving as a UFA.

I’m calling that Plan B because I think Carolina would prefer not to have it get to that point. My Plan A would be to try to sign him to a multi-year extension at a lower AAV before they have to decide whether to make him a qualifying offer. Teravainen is at $5.4M AAV so I think they’d like to get Kotkaniemi under that. That could also help with the Necas negotiations because Necas could argue that he should be paid more than KK. Why would KK take a pay cut? Because if they don’t qualify him, he becomes a UFA but the $6.1M that he’s making now means nothing. He’ll get whatever he’s worth on the open market, which is not going to be as much. Even if he thinks that they are going to qualify him, accepting the qualifying offer would give him another one-year contract with no guarantees after that. He might prefer the security of a multi-year contract to the uncertainty of going year by year.

Looks like they are going with plan A, KK is reportedly going to be extending to an 8 year × $4 - $4.5M deal with the Canes.

If this is true I don't get this at all from KK's camp, why would a 21 year old not be betting on himself? He's performed extremely well in a limited role for Carolina, he is on pace for 35 Pts playing 12 min / game, if he got 16 / min a game he could be on pace for 47 pts (maybe even more with better quality linemates). 50 pts for a 21 year old is pretty good, it's worth $4M. So why would KK's camp already be prepared to sign an 8 year deal at that AAV? Just seems off to me that KK and his agents don't think his game has more potential.

You may right. But maybe 38m is worth more than "two in the bush"

Exactly. I’d never fault a player for taking the bird in the hand. As a player you only have one career and you never know what might happen.

The team is still taking a risk here. At 21 there’s a good chance he’ll continue to develop, but he’s not there yet.

I think that contract will end up being a steal for Carolina if it is signed. At worst KK is a good 3rd line C (which is worth ~$4.5M). Best case scenario he becomes a good 2nd line C, which would be a total win for Carolina.

I really see no risk here, I've always believed in KK's game though.

I was thinking you’re right, but I’m concerned that he didn’t do much in the playoffs this year. I thought he looked ok in the playoffs for Montreal though, so hopefully this year was just an anomaly.

Revisiting this, after letting Trochek go and not replacing with another center, it now seems clear the Canes are looking at him as the 2C this season, so we will find out how this contract looks pretty quick. I hope you are right Shanesaw9 - if he makes a leap this year and looks like a legit 2C at 22, this deal will be a massive value for the team. And if that happens, we could be previewing a long run for a Canes "perfection" line with Svech and Jarvy on either side of KK....

I thought he was looking good before his injury late last season. Career lows in icetime but best season in terms of P/60... he should get his shot this year.