“Hey Dallas, Kent Hughes here. What would you say about Caufield and a 1st for Robertson?”

*click*

Nothing, the answer is nothing.

You must be related to John Snow.

Coming up shortly: Harris, Slafkovsky, Guhle, Xhekaj…eventually a replacement number one goalie…

GMs have to live in the world larger than fans who only get exciting by players who score a lot. It takes more than just goal scorers to make a team. Pacioretty got traded for his personality, remember?

8 year deal at less than Suzuki’s cap hit. Smartest for all sides. PK wanted more than Price and got shipped out of town. Hopefully Caufield doesn’t make the same wrong choices.

It must be tough being a Leafs fan. I empathize with you. To a point.

Good rebuttal, just ignore the things that actual agents & GMs are going to look at (comparable player seasons at the same age) and base it on whether or not the two players would be traded for each other today.

Tell me this: you're Montreal GM for a day, and that day just happens to be the day Pat Brisson comes in to negotiate Cole's extension. He points to Jason Robertson's age-22 season and Cole Caufield's age-22 season and says he's looking for that deal. Are you going to tell him that "well Dallas wouldn't trade Caufield 1-for-1 for Robertson today so your client isn't worth that?"

Of course it takes more than a goal scorer, but I'm someone who's watched a team that, for the last 15 years, has been directly built around a goal scorer, and it works out pretty well for them. The Cap isn't going to stay the same, and getting Caufield for a Robertson esque deal will still leave them with plenty of space in the future, you can't expect the Andersons, Hoffmans, and Dadanovs of the world to continue to end up in Montreal to take up cap space. You've got two years before Slafkovsky, trends with young defensemen getting contracts (Durzi, Mikey Anderson, etc) will mean they won't get very much (especially Xhekaj).

You're worrying yourself into a corner that Montreal won't really end up being in. If a 45 goal scorer can't have space found for him in a plan for the future, I don't know how you expect to succeed, especially when the cap is projected to start jumping, leaving Montreal even more space if they choose to pay Caufield what he's worth right now.

I agree. Don't know how we went from "How much is the next CC contract" to the hilarious anti-Leafs narrative that people try to push. We can play the bad contract game all day...

Caufield is less valuable to the Habs (and more replaceable, less scarcity value) than Suzuki. So he gets a lower cap hit. Caufield needs Suzuki to be effective more than Suzuki needs Caufield.

GMs are tasked with keeping their players’ and their agents’ expectations in line with what works for the team. That is built over time, not negotiated in a day. Players who think they’re above the team like Pacioretty and Subban get traded, and have books written about them.

Agents who value dollars over all else see their players playing on teams that never (or rarely) win or even make the playoffs. Or end up on legendary regular season teams who can’t win a playoff series.

well i am very sorry for you. you are going to be crushed when he signs for 3x7.775

In the last 7 years the Habs have made it out of the first round 1 time more than the Leafs. I'm not exactly sure where you're going with all of this here, or if the Leafs hurt you somehow, but it's not as if you've won any more cups than the Leafs recently?

It’s possible. But then his fanboys will be the ones ultimately crushed after he gets dealt. Same as they were after the Subban deal.

He’s either a team player or he’s not. It’s his call.

My guess, from what I’ve seen, he’s a team first guy. Not sure what a better scenario would be for him elsewhere than St. Louis, Suzuki, and Dach.

So you'd rather put an artificial cap on *anyone* else on the team's contract because of an extension signed in a flat-cap world, despite the fact that the cap will be going up significantly in the next 2-3 years. Hockey players do tend to think of the team more than other sports, sure, but 40 goal scorers are incredibly rare and lowballing one because of some asinine "team" concept you've built in your head is the quickest way to put them in another uniform.

If I'm Caufield's agent and you're telling me this, I immediately start getting in touch with every other GM in the league. All someone has to give up is a 1st/2nd/3rd package to sign Caufield to an $8M offer sheet. Are you prepared to let him walk for that return, just because of this artificial cap you're putting in?

Asked and answered. Peace out. ✌️

Haha, I'm perfectly content cheering for TOR.

You must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. It appears as though you're looking for confrontation on a few threads. I'd suggest taking a break from CF, for your own sanity.

Have a wonderful day.

look at the contract gallagher, price or anderson got. we definitly.overpay for contract....

You do realize that, even if the cap only rises to $83.5M this summer, that an $8M AAV is less of a percentage of the cap (9.58%) than what Suzuki's deal was when he signed(9.66%), right?

This just feels like such an arbitrary line in the sand to draw, and losing a 45 goal scorer over it just seems needlessly stubborn. And bringing up Pacioretty and Subban as examples of this "philosophy" misses a ton of context:

Patches was 29 when he was traded to Vegas, in the last year of 6x$4.5M, and VGK sent back Tomas Tatar, a 2nd, and your personal hero Nick Suzuki for him.
Subban was 27 and still had 6x$9M left when he was sent to Nashville for Shea Weber ahead of his age-31 season - but both had been perennial Norris candidates for several years before the trade(Subban even won one, as I'm sure you remember.)

Montreal got value back for their veterans as they were getting towards the end of their prime. Yet you're here saying you'd give up a 22 year old Caufield for a 1st/2nd/3rd from any team in the league after a potential 40+ goal season?

8x8. Do it, coward

The agent is going to look out for Caulfield's interest and his own. I just looked up who the agent was and all I have to say is gl to Hughes: it's Pat Brisson. Should check out his puckpedia if you don't already know who he represents.

I will say though that Kyle Connor is a good comparable for Hughes, he got 8.96% on a 7 year deal, so that's ~7.5m for 86.5m cap. However, Caulfield has 40G and 70 pts in 100 games, Robertson had 58G and 124P in 125G. So, so far the goal rate is 0.4 vs 0.46 and pts are 0.7 vs 0.992 both in Robertson's favor. Connor's numbers when he signed were 0.376 G rate and 0.719 pts rate. So, Hughes should be able to offer more than 7.5mx7/8 (Connor's hit adjusted for 86.5m cap), and less than Suzuki even if Brisson argues that Caufield is better than Connor. However, I think Brisson will push for a 7-7.5mx4 deal with the final year being 9m+ in salary so that he has a 9m+ QO just like he negotiated for Robertson.

Edit: I took way too long to type this out, looks like some of this stuff was mentioned already.

Maybe I'm not worth the time/effort/headspace trying to reason with the unreasonable, but in my reality, this is how I process :

https://www.capfriendly.com/signings/all/all/forward/1-15/7000000-14500000


Caufield is worth 8.0+ M$

It's not guaranteed that he tries to get the absolute maximum but if that's what he wants, his agent would suck at his job to not get it.

Interesting three players you chose:

Second contract for Gallagher, 6x$3.75mm.
Price 6x$6.5mm.
Anderson 3x$1.85mm.

All excellent deals. All team first guys. All still with the team. What a coincidence!

UFA deals and RFA deals are not the same animal.

If he wants more than Suzuki, he can probably get it somewhere. Won’t be in Montreal.

Why not? He's quite dangerous in the offensive zone with the puck on his stick

When you have good players you need to sign them, like they did with Suzuki

If the Habs were short sighted, and kept Caufield on a line with a center not named Suzuki, and Caufield’s production this season was lower, would that make him worth less?

Answer: no.

Overvalue short term statistics at your own peril.

Yep, you need to sign them to deals that work for the player and the team. If Caufield thinks he’s more valuable to the Canadiens than Suzuki, then we don’t want him. Same reason why we traded Subban and Pacioretty.

Personally, I think (and hope) that Caufield is smarter than that (and most of the short sighted “fans” among the capfriendly commentariat).