At no point did San Jose ever have Prime Erik Karlsson. That was in Ottawa

Lol... that's an insane offer for a defenseman on the wrong side of 30

LMAO, what? San Jose have almost 0 leverage. EK wants out, San Jose are rebuilding, and there are other RD options including, oh hey look Brett Pesce!. If San Jose want any major return for him at all, they're eating half his contract, and they sure as hell ain't getting Nikishin

Canes don't give you that Niki is gonna play his first game a cane no chance we do that. Niki is a top 25 prospect

But how much of that return is for retaining 5+ mil x 4 years. Seriously, take EK and the rest out of it. What is the market value to retain 20mil+ over 4 years? Now whatever answer you came up with, deduct that from SJS return.

NYI paid CHI a 2nd rd pick to dump Bailey 1yr x 5 mil. In the trade scenario above, deduct the equivalent of four 2nd round picks. What do you have left?

Given his age and his price point, it would probably be something in the realm of a good prospect, a first and another high-round draft pick.
So basically for retention, they are asking for one the best defensive prospect in the leauge and a NHL roster player

You didn’t answer my question though. What’s the cost for any given team to retain 5mil per year for 4 years. What does that cost?

this is why i just can’t see how a trade makes sense. the asset cost to retain the money necessary to make a trade happen at all, and then to get someone who is still a very good player, is likely so high that it doesn’t make sense at all. either SJ has to bite the bullet and takes the best offer they get now (because they likely won’t get a better karlsson season than this) or hold onto him.

For the record. I think if SJS retains 3.5mil, EK65 at 8mil x 4yrs brings back a good return.

Probably a very good prospect and multiple 1sts or 2nds

Ok, so above, SJS gets:
1st
2nd
Pesce
3rd rd prospect (Nikishin)
2nd rd prospect (Trikozov)

But now delete the “ very good prospect and multiple 1sts or 2nds”.

(1st, 2nd, Trikozov - GONE for retaining 5mil x 4 yr)
Pesce + Nikishin for EK65 @ 4 yr x 5mil is what’s left.

^this still a massive overpay? For Christ sake, Pesce comes with 1 year term

I think the Sabres would do that
Might even throw in a forward prospect of Pesce agrees to an extension with us

Nikishin is way better than a "3rd-Round prospect" would suggest he just had one of the highest-scoring seasons by a defensemen in the history of the KHL. For four years of a defenseman (Even at 50% retained), that's due to declining massively during part of that contract... yah that seems like quite a huge price to pay

Teams have gotten a 1st for retaining 1 year of $5-6mil
So it would at least be two 1sts + another pretty good asset,
I would think anyways

Seems to me that the price would be so high that a deal like that wouldn’t get done

I mean to me it isn't just the price for retention but who they retaining on... a guy who's in his early 30's primed for regression and they are asking us to give up our best prospect in the process.

Retention for a negative value contract has no additional cost.

For example: A team won't need to pay more for Chicago to hold 2mil back for Perry's deal at the deadline. Thats the pre-req for any trade.
The same is true for EK

Meh, it’s still the KHL brother. Doesn’t necessarily translate to the NHL 1for1 everytime. He had 20 pts the previous combined 95 games prior to last season. A lot of guys had strange years in the KHL last year.

Looking at COL alone:
Kamenev had 40 pts last year but never broke 18 prior
Kovalenko had 54 pts last year but never broke 21 prior

Canes just say no then. It’s too much to give up with the amount of risk tied to EK. He had a phenomenal season and is a game changer when healthy. The problem is the 3-4 years before last year he wasn’t healthy or very effective.

I completely understand the cost to retain long term is high. However the sharks don’t have a ton of leverage with only one other team reportedly still interested and the pens can’t come close to the canes in an offer. They’ve got to dump cap and they don’t have much in the way of blue chip prospects. So it becomes, does SJS want the best offer they’re gonna get? Or do they hold out if nobody is willing to give them this type of offer and just keep ek?

I’d imagine the best offer would be pesce (or a first and a prospect flip for him) + a very good, but not great prospect (most prospects avail outside of Nikishin morrow nadeau) + Philly second + another second with conditions to become a first. So that’s 1 first, 2 A-/B+ prospects, 2 seconds (with potential to become a first). If that’s not enough than just ride with pesce as our own rental.

But it does have value if the retaining team retains cap in excess than what they need to in order to balance the negative contract.

Above EK65 is retained 50%, but after retaining +/- 20%, his contract is no longer a negative, and the payment is owed for the additional 30% over and above

Evaluating prospects is always a crapshoot but the KHL seems like it's a lot more on par with what you're going to get in the NHL than other feeder leagues. I'm just not a huge fan of dealing for EK in general for a few reasons

Oh boy. I don't know about that. I guess it only takes one GM but the entire league is capped out right now - and frankly I don't have a huge amount of confidence that EK can hold 8.whatever of value over the rest of his deal.

Personally, I'd take him for free at 50%. Or maybe a return like what they got for Burns (basically nothing).
I don't think he holds value

My guess is that the return will basically be what it was for Burns

Lmao, free at 50% ?? For EK65?

Essentially SJS retains 50% of EK65 and trades to you for future considerations ? Lol

Burns isn’t the comparable here and you know better. Burns was 37 with a deal that carried until he was 40. EK65 just won the Norris and his deal ends just after his 37th bday

I'd agree but I think EK forcing the deal to a good team (and all of them being capped out) means the ret will need to be closer to 50% to even get that.
But again - never underestimate the stupidity of GMs so who knows

Yeah, I don't think you're valuing the proper things correctly here.
Very much in line with what a dumb GM would do IMO.

As I said, I don't think EK has any real trade value. Or at least he shouldn't