Yep, fabulous plan if you can convince Pinto to take a huge discount + force a third line NHL player to play in the minors.

Ain't no way Pinto is signing that.

Sens need Pinto more than Pinto needs them. Sens need a strong start. Norris is coming back from shoulder surgery. Greig had issues playing a full NHL season, and looked liked he needs time in the AHL. Without Pinto, Sens are screwed and don't have a lot of cap space to get a replacement, or account for depth. Sens can't use the excuse of "well, we don't have the cap space" when they just signed a luxury winger to 5M. Not to mention a GM and coach who say how important he is to this team

So yeah, Pinto has all the leverage. Burying Joseph in the minors doesn't accomplish enough cap relief

Pinto has ZERO bargaining power. He is ineligible for an OFFER-SHEET so no one can offer him one and the ONLY tewam Pinto can even make a call to is Ottawa. Secondly $1.1M is low, but a 1-yr $1.75M is more in line with compareables. Morgan Geekie close to same age, points $2M/yr which would be the high spectre. Jake Evans who is also roughly the same age, and slightly less stats at $1.7M but similar minutes and less top 6 minutes unlike Pinto who actually is a 3rd line center who got to play 2nd line cenrter all season long but only recorded 35 points. Yes Pinto is a huge part of the team moving forward, but if you're bridge-dealing Pinto? You're not going to overpay and force your QO to be too high.

I'm not saying he deserves 8x8, but he deserves a contract that at least starts with a 2. None of the comparables you brought have a 1M contract, and are close to/at 2M. And as you brought up, he's already played the role of 2C.

Pinto has plenty of leverage. GM and Coach need immediate success. I mentioned it, you mentioned it, Pinto is important to this team. You think if he decides to sit out, or go play in Europe/KHL, the team won't blink first? He's not risking injury playing on a 1M contract with a pinky promise to a better contract next year. Team can't sign a decent replacement with the remaining cap space. they don't have a proven in house replacement.

The only logical solution here is to trade Joseph and probably Brannstrom, sign Pinto to a bridge deal that makes sense for both parties, and focus on winning those early games

Dellendrea literally signed for $900K and only scored a few points yes, while being better 5on5.

Dellandrea only got 900 000$ and had more ES points than Pinto and without looking, I doubt he played with 1st liners all season

Pinto has no arbitration rights, it should be quite feasible to convince him to take a 1 year cheap bridge

It's better to bet on himself anyway and get a better long term contract next year



Weird comment, Greig was 20 y/o, playing his first pro season, he was never supposed to play the whole season in the NHL. Plus he had injuries

And while he's not a finished product by any means, he had some of the best 2-way metrics on the team in his 20 games sample size. He's already quite good, his hockey IQ helps him to pretty much always make the right decisions, be at the right place, etc

Dellandea had 9g. It's a little bit less than 20g. Do non-5on5 goals not count? Hardest thing in the game is scoring goals, and players get paid for that more than assists. I don't know if he plays center too, but I looked at the most recent acgms on this site for Dallas, and their fans seem to have him at 3/4RW. So Pinto gents more there too because he is 2c/3c.

What argument are you making to convince him to sign a 1.1? His leverage is that they NEED his services, which he can withhold until he gets a contract he likes. Sokolov has no leverage, Pinto does. Are you saying to him to sign cheap and you'll pay him more next time? What if he gets injured or GMPD gets fired taking that "next deal" with him? This is a situation of their making. They had the cap space to sign him, amd decided to sign tarasenko instead. They could have sign Pinto and a cheaper winger, but they didn't.

My comments about Greig were to illustrate that he's still young and has not proven he can play a full 82 season. So he can't be counted on being a pinto replacement yet. I'm sure his metrics are nice and all, but you know how you win? By scoring goals, which Pinto does.

Yeah but goals are only 1 factor. 5 of Pinto goals were on the PP, which I'm sure Dellandrea could have scored if he played 168:48 PP minutes with the likes of Claude Giroux, Alex DeBrincat and Derick Brassard

We can agree that Pinto will become the better and more important player but as of now, he doesn't have much leverage, no arbitration rights and could take a discount to help the team fit under the cap. If he is promised a big fat contract next year, why not? This is what happened with Labanc

But I understand that maybe he won't want to take that small risk, that could be offset easily if he has a good season and then plenty of leverage to get a better contract.

All that being said, the best solution for Ottawa might actually be to trade Dominik Kubalik because thanks to his contract, he is valuable and would return a decent asset. Dorion made the choice to sign Tarasenko so they're going all in with this


Actually, you win by outscoring the opposition. Pinto's line got DESTROYED 5v5 last season.

I was not talking about Greig replacing Pinto (which he could and frankly would do better, I have been higher on Greig for 2 years now)

I was entirely commenting based on what you said "Greig had issues playing a full NHL season", which I still have no idea was based on what