Vancouver Canucks - short term and long term cap strategy management.

[Hindustan Smyl]

On 7/4/2019 at 4:48 AM, Hindustan Smyl said:

Vancouver Canucks - short term and long term cap strategy management.   

 

While I am happy with the signings of Myers and Benn, along with the J.T. Miller trade, I am concerned about our long term cap management and strategy.    IF the Canucks are serious about being contenders, they will need to do the following over the next two years:

 

1) Re-sign Markstrom - unless Demko has a ridiculous season like Binnington and proves that he's ready to be "the guy" right from the get go.

2) Re-up Pettersson in 2 years

3) Re-up Hughes in 2 years.

 

That could easily be about $20 million dollars right there.    

 

On paper, that seems easy enough:    "Oh, we just won't sign Schaller (1.9M, Tanev (4.45M), Fantenberg (850K), Biega (825K), Benn (2M), and Edler (6M), Sutter  (4.375), Pearson (3.75M), and Baertschi (3.366M).   = 27.516 M.

 

However, from that 27.516M, even if you re-up some of the following players:   

-Jake Virtanen

-Adam Gaudette

-Troy Stecher

-Guillame Brisebois

-Ashton Sautner

-Thatcher Demko

 

What will the actual net gain of the Canucks be, in terms of their talent, even if they managed successfully managed to re-up Pettersson, Hughes, and Markstrom?   In many respects, our cap problems might become just as bad as the Leafs.

 

With all that said, perhaps you can understand why I'm a little mystified with regards to these recent Michael Ferland rumours.........and how Benning was trying to bring him.    

 

I'm not a "numbers" guy, but can someone please explain to me what would be an effective plan for the Canucks IF they wanted to

 

1) Re-up or Re-sign Pettersson, Hughes, and Markstrom.

2) Avoid cap complications.

 

Here is my stab at it:

 

2019-2020:   Sign Boeser + Sign Levio.   Bye bye Goldobin, Rafferty, Teves.   Overall cap = right at the ceiling.

2020-2021:   Schaller (1.9) + Tanev (4.45) = off the books. (6.35M).  5M goes to Markstrom.   1.35M goes to Virtanen (Virtanen new salary = 2.6 M).  Gaudette + Stecher get traded for picks.   Returning Tryamkin = trade for a pick.

2021-2022:   Baertschi (3.366) + Sutter (4.375) + Benn (2) = off the books (9.741M).   For "easy math" purposes, lets say that 9.741M goes to Pettersson.  Pearson ($3.75M) + Edler (6M) = off the books (9.75M).   8M of that goes to Hughes.   The other 1.75M of that goes to Demko.   (or, perhaps a greater percentage of the 9.75M goes to Demko while slightly less goes to Hughes.  Either way - that 9.75 M gets allocated towards Hughes and Demko).   

2022-2023:  Beagle (3M) + Roussel (3M) + Eriksson (6M) come off the books (total = 12M).   

 

2023-2024 = Canucks year?    

 

-JT Miller will still have a year left on his "sweetheart" deal.

-Horvat will still be on his contract

-Pettersson, Boeser, and Hughes will be in their mid 20's.    

-Markstrom and Demko will be here.   

-That 12 million can easily be invested into a top pairing calibre d-man.   

-Podkolzin will be entering his prime.   

-Perhaps some "surprises" like Madden and/or Hoglander will be factors.

-Between 2019-2020 and 2023-2024, the Canucks will have had likely enough time to accumulate enough prospects on the back-end to accompany what would hopefully be Hughes, Myers, Juolevi, Woo, along with another top pairing UFA defenseman that we'd sign on July 1st 2023.   

 

This is obviously a very rough sketch of how I see things possibly playing out (and I'm likely way off base here), but how do you guys see things playing out?

 

 

27.516 million

-10.450 million (we’ll need to keep Edler and Tanev or find adequate Edler and Tanev replacements

-3.5 million (Ferland’s contract)

 

=13.566 million that we’d have left to sign Pettersson, Markstrom, and Hughes (and this is assuming that we moved upcoming RFA’s like Virtanen, Gaudette, Stecher, Demko, Sautner, and Brisebois for picks or prospects).

 

Moving Eriksson’s contract will put us at 19.566 million for play money.  That, plus the difference in the cap ceiling now vs the cap ceiling 2 years from now should give us money to sign Pettersson, Markstrom, and Hughes, while also giving us enough money to either re-up Edler and Tanev on the back-end, or find suitable defensive replacements.

 

Conclusions:

 

1) I have with no life.

2) The Canucks will have to find a way to move Eriksson off the books without retention.  One of Virtanen, Gaudette, Stecher, and Demko will likely be needed to be used as a sweetener to move LE.

3) 5 of the following 6 players will be moved for picks or prospects (one of the aforementioned players from above will be used as a sweetener to move Eriksson):   Virtanen, Gaudette, Demko, Stecher, Brisebois, Sautner.

4) The Canucks should not be spending any more money on UFA’s these next two years.

 

If the above circumstances are met, I believe that the Canucks will be able to re-sign Markstrom, Pettersson, and Hughes while being able to re-up (or find the “equivalent”) of Edler and Tanev.

Edited July 11, 2019 by Hindustan Smyl