Noble 6

Myers is definitely a good candidate to try and dump in Expansion, but I still think Markstrom will be the biggest factor in determining what we do for that. Assuming we re-sign him at a 6 million dollar cap hit for around 4 years, I think it would probably make more sense to offload him instead for the following reasons: There is an established precedent for this kind of move: Pittsburgh paid Vegas a 2nd rounder to take Fleury (the older goalie) instead of Murray (the younger goalie). We shouldn't have to deviate far from that baseline at all. We would get the same amount of cap relief. We would likely lose less assets paying for Seattle to take someone who is still good (Markstrom) rather than someone who is clearly overpaid (Myers). Assuming Demko has proven he's worthy of an increased role by this point, losing a backup hurts our team less than losing a defenseman. The regular market for defensemen is stronger than the market for goalies normally, so we should take advantage of the special circumstances of the Expansion draft to dump a goalie instead. This is all assuming that we re-sign Markstrom at the previously mentioned contract and Demko shows he deserves an increased role. If one or both of those things don't happen, then dumping Myers is probably the better choice.

Dahlin is younger than Hughes right now.

Nice straight line speed from Juolevi on the back check.

Pearson is a UFA we likely won't be able to keep next year and I'd like an upgrade on Eriksson for Horvat's RW, which Podkolzin can fill. We have more than one line that needs wingers.

At this point Boeser's inability to play a full season is a concern, but we still have time to see if he can heal thoroughly. If he can, his healthy seasons will absolutely be worth keeping. If by the end of his current bridge deal that hasn't happened, then maybe we make a decision before we commit a large amount of cap space to him long term.

I don't understand why the Devils would simply help the Canucks out by giving them a more experienced 3rd string option but I'll take it. Maybe they felt bad for making us listen to Simmonds rumours for a week.

Tanev should not get more than this. Muzzin is more durable, better offensively and had a championship pedigree. The only advantage Tanev has is that he's right handed. Based on this, I would expect the maximum for a Tanev extension to be around 4 years at 5.25 million per.

I'd rather have Suter on my bottom pairing than Eriksson on my top line. With that being said, Suter is still considerably more valuable right now.

Imagine gettin slapped with a 19 million dollar cap recapture.

Podkolzin's play since the WJC has been very, very encouraging. I figured his minutes would increase as the year went on, but I expected him to earn the coaches trust defensively and be used in a defensive role. Instead, he has shown some offensive ability and proven that he can be effective at both ends of the ice. I wasn't expecting any real offence until next season, so this is definitely welcome. At this rate he definitely looks like he could step right on to a line with Horvat at the end of next season.

Hughes is scoring at essentially the same rate as Chabot was before he signed his 8x8 deal. If the team and the player are both willing to get a deal done this summer and want to go long term, that's the best comparable you can get. Chabot signed that deal after 2 years in the NHL though, whereas Hughes only has one. I would assume the team would like to get a deal done this summer, but Hughes' camp will probably want to wait until next summer.

I'm surprised that the Bruins didn't have to add more to the deal to get it done. Kase is a pretty good young player who is on a cheap contract and cost controlled. Add in the fact that they are throwing in Backes' contract and I thought the price would have been significantly higher. This is encouraging for dealing with Eriksson though. We don't even need to land a young player like Kase back, if we just return a 7th but dump Eriksson's contract it would be a huge win. This is where I would have loved to have used Madden as a piece.

That's how I felt about Madden too, but bringing in Toffoli with Boeser injured is much more reasonable than bringing in Simmonds/Wood.

It makes sense, but do you believe that's what Benning is doing right now, especially after the Toffoli trade? After giving up futures for the Playoff push he's going to trade someone who will contribute to said Playoff push? I doubt we'd be looking at an upgrade, although our name as been somewhat attached to Martinez. If it's an upgrade it makes sense, but I doubt we could find one. The only one on defense I've seen our name attached to is Martinez, but he's supposed to be going to Vegas already. Not to mention we'd almost certainly have to give up more futures to get him. All of those other options are considerably inferior to Stetcher if you're looking to win games down the line.

It would surprise me if it happened before the deadline, but not if something happened in the summer. There's been a lot of talk about keeping our depth for a Playoff push and now we're going to trade a reliable 3rd pairing guy?

I think this is a pretty good trade, nice idea. The only thing I would say is that our team is full of wingers already, so with this deal it would make sense to move someone like Roussel. If we could make that work then this works out well. I have also been thinking about targeting Palat from the Lightning in the offseason. A lot of things would have to go right for us cap wise to even consider making that kind of move (Eriksson retiring, letting UFAs walk, moving contracts, etc) but I think he'd be a great fit in our top 6. He doesn't have too much term left as well.

The Canucks talk about playing with size. Guess it's time to dump Pettersson and Hughes

According to CapFriendly: IR: Motte, Fantenberg and Graovac LTIR: Boeser, Leivo, Ferland Having those three players on LTIR gives us an additional 10.875M in cap room. We have already used 4.945M of that, so we have 5.59M in cap space due to placing those 3 players on LTIR. I don't think the Canucks asked for Boeser to be injured the same way the Blackhawks didn't want Kane injured in 2015 (during a Hart trophy caliber year). They just made the most of the situation.

In no particular order: 1) Podkolzin 2) Hoglander 3) Lind 4) Juolevi 5) Rafferty 6) MacEwan 7) Woo Based on how long Demko played in Utica, I don't think Benning was including him in his 7 players count. Those three wingers at the top of list likely replace the likes of Leivo, Pearson and Roussel over the the specified time frame. MacEwan can hopefully be groomed into our 4C to replace Beagle. Rafferty replaces Stetcher for next season and Juolevi starts out (eventually) replacing Fantenberg/Benn and hopefully Edler at some point down the line. Woo could be our Tanev replacement way down the line.

You misunderstood everything I was saying about the Leafs.

Even moving one contract and buying one out let's us just barely break even cap wise assuming re retain our UFAs (because if we don't our team becomes considerably weaker). You're going to have to do better than that. Regarding the Leafs, that's exactly what I'm saying. I don't want to be in a position where Pettersson and Hughes' next contracts hamstring us like the Leafs have been this year. In order to do that we need to save as much as possible, like say 1.5 million.

I think I can conclude that you're trolling.

Bumping them year to year doesn't solve any problems; it creates problems in those years. If we want to cover our bonuses for next year we're going to have to be under the cap, which means letting at least one of our UFAs walk (Tanev or Markstrom) and/or paying assets to move a contract. Tell me how that's a good thing? It's too late for this year. We'd have to dump 5+ million in cap to cover the bonuses for this year. Next year is where we really have to save. I'd rather not mess around when we have to re-sign our two franchise players. That will be a pivotal point for our organization just like how this past summer was pivotal for the Leafs. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that the price we would have to pay to fix this problem (moving assets to offload contracts) would not be worth freeing up around 1.5 million in cap space. So I ask you then, would you simply absorb the dead cap space?

Sorry that I'm interested in the long term cap stability of the team.

You can't just bump bonuses as far down the line as you want. They will count next year whether you want them to or not. They will also count the year after that no matter what. With Pettersson and Hughes, the maximum amount of overages there could be is 3.7 million if Pettersson hits some league wide targets (top 10 in league scoring, etc.). The least it can be is 1.7 million if we don't bank any cap space all year. That's not insignificant. Again, if it's avoidable, why is having dead cap space at a time when cap space is extremely importance not a bad thing?