Modifié 1 août 2022 à 15 h 7
My take on Bratt and the arbitration info that dropped today:
Devils are in a weird position were they don't have an excess of cap space.
With Bratt, Wood and Zetterlund yet to sign, it's gonna be pretty tight.
I currently view it as the Devils having signed 11F (McLeod included, for now), 7D and 3GK (the third GK being Bernier) accounting for a cap hit of 73.75m (dead cap included).
Then, allowing for the assumption of signing Wood (2.975m) and Zetterlund (900k) brings the cap hit to 77.63m.
If Bratt comes in at anywhere above 4.85m, the Devils will be over the 82.5m limit, provided that Bernier spends no time on LTIR and aiming at a 21 man roster.
Now, Bernier will most likely spend a significant portion of this season on LTIR, but if he's cleared in Nov / Dec with Bratt signed at 5m+, the Devils are gonna be forced to make a bad trade for cap relief.
Given how little Patches and Björkstrand returned, I shudder at the thought of how a Johnsson or Tatar trade will have to go down for the Devils in season.
Anyway, this may partially explain why Bratt isn't extended long term already.
There is no doubt in my mind that signing Bratt to as big a contract as an 8x8 today, would be a major steal.
A lot of us Devils fans (and others in the community) have been going with the assumption that Bernier's 4.125m cap hit will be a non factor throughout the season.
This recent arbitration info suggests otherwise, to me anyway.
Also, Kuokkanen's buyout makes a lot more sense from this pov as well (pls come back Janne I miss you )': )
Thank you for attending my TedTalk.
edit: frikk it, will make this into an AGM to spread my gospel for and wide