Provost

It is about cap space and him only having one year of club control left. If they don’t think they can sign him, do they just let it ride to the end of the year and watch him walk for nothing? Do they stand pat and wait to see where they are at the trade deadline? Do they move him now for a more cost controlled player? Do they want to get rid of a possible season long distraction? Any of those are possible. It is not purely an on ice transaction as there are a ton more variables to it. Boeser for a year of an older pending UFA Is not a reasonable swap in any universe.

I was explaining this exact thing in another thread. I don’t know if any of them get picked up even if you waive them. The teams with cap space don’t have the actual dollars to afford it. I could see Buffalo picking up one, maybe.... but who else? Even Buffalo maybe not since that would tie up cap for multiple years and they need to spend lots of money to re-sign D after this season. No one in the East is likely interested in bailing out Tampa and letting them rebuild on the fly. Teams would rather see them lose their RFAs or all their picks and prospect as sweeteners.

This is the lesson that we need to impart on Petterson and Hughes. Do you two want matching $8 million x 8 year deals, or so you want to push for $10 million and probably be a bubble team for most of your career because we can’t build around you (see also Toronto and Edmonton examples). Not sure what Toews is on about, they are basically a cap team once the flesh out their roster... it isn’t like they have torn the whole thing down.

... but the report from the agent was that the offers from Montreal kept getting smaller as they signed two other RW players, until the talks completely broke off. The state of things two weeks ago isn't very relevant to today in that context. A deal can still get done, but if Montreal spent all that money in the intervening time... maybe they aren't willing to go nearly as far to re-up Gallagher as they were a couple weeks ago. That is actually what the agent is saying. Why would Gallagher agree to ever reducing offers if he is a pending UFA? If his agent just says they will go test the market, what does Montreal do? Do they let that happen or are they proactive and move Gallagher for a decent return? Either possibility is reasonable, so it can't be dismissed as just posturing.

You are moving your goalposts. You dismissed as a real possibility to discuss by saying it as JUST a negotiating tactic and he is really planning on signing with Montreal. That is a distinctly different argument than the agent trying to put pressure on the team by making the actual true state of negotiations public. Those are different positions.

I didn’t say there was no chance of a deal. I said it isn’t just a negotiating ploy. It is what is happening with the negotiations. The agent isn’t going going to outright lie as a way to think he is going to get a better deal. Both sides know the truth so it wouldn’t help at all.

If he is trying to get a deal done he wouldn’t trash the relationship entirely. They don’t outright lie, they present the truth (or part of it( in a way that puts their side In a positive light.

That doesn’t really hold water. The agent said that their offers have been getting smaller since signing Anderson and Toffoli... that makes it pretty clear that Montreal is making other plans. The agent isn’t going to publicly lie, he might use the media to put pressure on a team, but he isn’t going to make stuff up. No reason at all for Gallagher to sign there if he is a pending UFA and they are lowballing him.

That is Dhaliwal and Moj saying that he made it clear he would like to come home. Take that for what it is worth, but he has been a regular guest on 1040 and I think he has played in the Moj charity golf tourney... so they clearly know him fairly well.

Not if we don’t know the price for extending him. He would have to be paid market price and that is too much for a year until free agency. At that price, I probably get a 1st for one of Tampa’s spare forwards than give up a 1st for Gallagher. He is a nice piece, he wants to come back to Vancouver. Worth looking into if he really wants to be here and is willing to extend here for a good value. If he would take a discounted $5-$5.5 million x 4-5 year term to play in his hometown, I would pay a decent sweetener on top of Virtanen to bring him here.

Ya, you have to know the price for extending him.. but that also increases his trade value of that is already established. Signing him at a $5.5-$6.0 x 5-6 years is probably a reasonable price point. It means you probably walk away from Pearson next year and shuffle the top 6 a little... but it certainly improves your team for a little bump in salary compared with him. Make it buyout friendly in the last couple years to mitigate risk.

This was just discussed on 1040 who spoke to Gallagher and his agent. Apparently since Montreal signed Anderson and Toffoli, the offers for a Gallagher extension have dropped significantly to the point where it is pretty clear there isn’t a chance of making a deal. He is a UFA in a season and the thought is they might be moving him instead of losing him for nothing. I would see him as a remarkable line mate for Petterson and Miller. Net front presence like we don’t have in the lineup. We would need to clear out a little space, but I would absolutely swap out Virtanen plus a significant piece for him. Not much more cap hit than Virtanen this year, but we absolutely would need to know we don’t have Eriksson in 2021-22 as Gallagher is due a pretty decent raise. https://www.prohockeyrumors.com/2020/10/canadiens-working-on-extension-for-brendan-gallagher.html

People keep saying this... Nate Schmidt has had two career NHL fights it looks like and none since 2016. Tanev had a fight this year. You aren't upgrading our "toughness" with Schmidt at all. You are downgrading defensive play for upgrading offensive play. The upgrade is that Schmidt is better defensively than Tanev is offensively.

I genuinely can't imagine walking into that locker room again as the most overpaid guy. Every one of his team mates would know that he is costing them the chance to win and already cost them losing some of their friends who we couldn't afford. Walk away now by mutually terminating, maybe try to sign somewhere else at a minimum type salary to see if he can find a better fit or retire back in Sweden and run his restaurants. He isn't even making $5 million more over the next two years. He loses 30% this year so will only get $700k. Next season at best he will earn around $3.2 million in real dollars with escrow, maybe worse if the players are forced to put more money into deferral if HRR is still in the tank. Take away agent fees and taxes and he is probably looking at a take home pay of a little more than $2 million for two years.

This is such great news for him. I know some of his close family, and retiring a Shark is where he should hang them up. Kind of like a Linden for us, only belongs in that jersey.

That is how it stands at the moment. I would hope that we can just assume Eriksson is buried and can add a “project” player like Athanasiou for $1 million. I think Leivo in a similar deal should be an add. We need to shed cap as it stands, so maybe Gaudette is a casualty in order to get that done, but n which case you just slot Sutter in there. Maybe Rafferty is who goes, Benning has neglected to say his name a few time’s when mentioning young D who are ready for the NHL. If we were to make any fancy moves I can see him as an attractive trade chip to either a cap strapped team who needs a cheap prospect or a budget team who wants to a sweetener to take on a contract. Miller-Petterson-Boeser Pearson-Horvat-Athanasiou Roussel-Gaudette-Virtanen Motte-Beagle-MacEwan Leivo-Sutter Edler-Schmidt Hughes-Myers Juolevi-Benn Chatfield

We can maybe squeak under as it stands, but hopefully money gets moved out so it isn’t that tight. Bury Eriksson and Baertschi and that is $2.15 free plus the $2 million we have now and 19 guys on the roster. Sign Virtanen around $2.75 and that is two minimum salary guys to fill out a 22 man roster. That isn’t enough for Leivo and Gaudette... so one would hope that someone goes out.

Haha wouldn’t that be something... at this point we would probably need them to take both Eriksson and Beagle back so we have enough cap in 2021-22 to extend Hughes, Petterson, and Demko.

Unfortunately Cernak needs to agree to sign the offer sheet. I suspect there have been some tendered, but their RFAs are being a little patient to see if they can stay in Tampa. If it becomes clear that money can’t be moved out, I can see offer sheets. it gives the RFAs some control over their destination compared with getting their rights traded. We didn’t have the luxury of time on our hands to wait for that process the shake out. We had a half AHL defence.

I wonder if something else is in the works aside from ditching a little salary... Beggars can’t be choosers, but I would see Schmidt more of an Edler partner than complementing Hughes. Hughes-XX Edler-Schmidt Juolevi-Myers Maybe those Weegar rumours have something behind them, or maybe we just take what we can get after all the other plans fell through.

I didn’t think they would have to give a sweetener... the proposals here suggested it. As I said, our need was dire enough that we couldn’t play around playing hardball. I think I did make a joke a few days ago that we would happily take Theodore off their hands in exchange for al their picks (that offer is still on the table).

Definitely a sigh of relief! Folks here were thinking that Vegas would have to add a sweetener to get rid of Schmidt. We didn’t have that kind of leverage, we needed a top 4 D as badly as Vegas needed to get rid of cap. A 3rd is a reasonable price to pay all the context considered.

Solid D man... great news. A bit pricey cap hit in this market, but considering the alternatives we couldn’t have hoped for much better. Ditch Eriksson still somehow and take one of Tampa’s forwards for a sweetener, then I can rest pretty easy for a “summer”. This totally landed into Benning’s lap, I was assuming Schmidt would go East and there could be a shuffling that ended up with us hopefully getting a D man, I didn’t think it would be direct. I think people are getting carried away with anointing him a #2D. He is a good 2nd pairing guy who has struggled when put in a top pairing. An upgrade on Tanev... more Sami Salo or Erhoff than the Edler or Myers comparisons to me. (Salo was one of my favourite Canucks or his era). I get the excitement though, since it was pretty bleak. If Tryamkin is allowed to join us partway into the season it could be a solid defence. It kind of makes Rafferty a little disposable as he brings the same skill set as Schmidt, but not in the same league. I could see a Juolevi-Benn 3rd pairing if we can’t find another guy for the right side.

Keep polishing, not shiny enough!

Well we didn’t far exceed projections in the past two seasons at all. We were terrible two seasons ago and that is how we got a good pick. This past season we were projected to be a bubble team and we were. We won a playoff round and then bounced by a team that was subsequently bounced. Having the cap space instead of Eriksson would have had immense value. We could have re-signed Toffoli, we could have made an OEL deal without having to send that much cap back, we could take on a good Tampa forward with a massive sweetener, there are innumerable things we could have done because so many teams were trying to dump cap. Now we have neither the cap space or the roster players... and so far, not even a hint of a rumour that we have some sort of sneaky plan to turn things around. We have just been connected to gradually worse and worse defensive options and even failed to get those.