dtsdlaw

Rangers are over the cap and still need to re-sign RFAs Buchnevich and DeAngelo. Rumors are starting to pop up that Shattenkirk is on the block, since Trouba now basically makes Shatty superfluous. Shattenkirk has a $6.5M cap hit for two more years and is coming off a tough season for a team that was in full tank mode, but hear me out here.... The Ducks clear cut #1 need is a RHD who can run the power play. Shattenkirk can absolutely do that. And while his cap hit is $6.5M x 2, his total remaining salary is actually $10.6M. So a reasonable trade could be Shattenkirk for Eaves + conditional 3rd + 5th, with the 3rd becoming a 2nd if Shatty hits certain performance markers (like 10G or 40pts), and the Rags retaining $3M ($1.5M/season). For the Ducks, that gives us a legit PP QB for the next two years for only $2.3M/season in salary added to the payroll (with the Eaves $3M offset this coming season). And with the retained salary, we’re looking at $5M in cap hit, which we can certainly afford given that we’re going with a youth movement. Shatty’s contract also expires after the 2020-2021 season, so his NMC will not require ED protection. We could also do Fowler-Shatty as a 2nd pair, which would be similar to the Fowler-Vatanen pair that had Fowler playing the best hockey of his career (even got him to the all-star game!) For the Rags, they would move out $5M in cap hit and can just bury Eaves on LTIR, giving them plenty of cap space to sign their RFAs. They also get more picks for their rebuild. They’d also get to send Shatty out of conference. It’s a win-win. I don’t think GMBM would ever pull something like this off, but I really wish he would.

Perry regular season: 17,901mins / 372G / 404A / 776pts Pavelski regular season: 18,182mins / 355G / 406A / 761pts Perry playoffs: 2,152mins / 36G / 53A / 89pts Pavelski playoffs: 2,747mins / 48G / 52A / 100pts Pavelski (7th round, pick # 205) was also drafted 177 spots later than Perry (1st round, pick # 28) in that infamous 2003 draft. Great careers for both guys though.

Dallas has In-N-Out too...

Yes, he's played a lot of center. But he turns 35 on July 11th. Are the Stars really expecting a 35-year-old Joe Pavelski to center a 2nd line behind Seguin?

Dallas just signed Pavelski for 3 x $7M too. I can't figure out why Pears would want to go there with Pavs also going there. They have poor center depth behind Seguin and Pears now has a crowded RW depth chart with Radulov and Pavelski. Doesn't seem like a very ideal situation for him to hit his bonuses.

LOL! Perry to Dallas on a cheap 1-year deal is basically trolling Bob Murray as payback for bringing in Garnett and Robidas. Wonder how Stars fans are going to take this too. Pears has been less popular in Dallas than he has been anywhere else in the league.

Kane played one season with the Knights - the same season Perry was hoisting the Stanley Cup. They were never a 1-2 punch, and never will be.

Depends on the guy coming back. Ristolainen = Ritchie and a pick (preferably the 2nd rounder or later). Zaitsev = Larsson + a pick (Toronto can't really take any salary back for a forward) Ceci = I suggested in another thread that Ottawa would be a good place to ditch Eaves' salary since they need to hit the cap floor, so maybe something like Eaves + Shore/Ritchie + 2nd to entice them to give us Ceci and to takes Eaves off the books

I'm hoping it means he's active in the trade market, especially at the second-pair Right-D spot. Ristolainen, Ceci, Zaitsev are all on the trade block and each of them would add some oomph to the defense. It's also possible he signs a depth center or LW on the cheap to add some sandpaper. Ritchie is was our toughest, meanest forward, but he turned into a pussycat last season (compared to his previous seasons). And I'm sure GMBM noticed when the Kings specifically tried to bully Terry in that March 23rd game at Staples and the only one who stood up for Terry was Holzer. We do need a forward or two who can protect the youngsters. We can't rely on just Manson and Holzer (if re-signed) to do it all the time. +1

Can’t help but wonder what the reaction from Ducks fans will be the first time he “accidentally” falls on Gibby’s leg.

It's not about whether he CAN play 4th line minutes, its about whether he wants to play 4th line minutes and whether that's how the fans want to see him go out. Fisix nails it here: Perry still thinks he's the second best player on this team. He's not, and it never goes well when a player who thinks he's better than he is does not get to play as much as he thinks he deserves. Remember Selanne's very public tongue-lashing of Boudreau for taking him off the #1 PP unit during his final season? Everyone but Teemu knew he didn't belong there any more, and it was a rough exclamation point on an otherwise incredible career. As a fan, I don't want to see Perry go down that same path of resentment due to a diminished role.

Nailed it. Sad to see a franchise icon move on, but I don't think watching Perry get 4th line minutes for the next two seasons would have been much fun for the fans or for Perry either. Hopefully he finds a good situation with a team who needs his skill set in a top-6 role. Buffalo still makes the most sense to me. It would be cool to see him get a shot on a Skinner-Eichel-Perry line. Regardless, this move is the best for Pears. We'll see him again for the jersey retirement ceremony.

Jovanovski said he got the idea to make a comeback from Mike Sillinger, who had a similar procedure done in 2009 at age 37, and was apparently playing beer-league hockey completely pain-free after he retired from the NHL. There have been elite athletes in other sports who have made a comeback too, just not in any of the four traditional major US sports.

The cap will be at $86M by 2020-21, they'll be one season away from shedding Perry's $8.65M cap hit, and the Ducks will have no major contracts to give out between now and then to current players. This team will not be handcuffed in any way shape or form... IF GMBM wants to wade into the UFA market for a big fish.

You mean based on what YOU know about Kesler's hip. Jovanovski had the same injury/condition, had the same surgery performed by the same doctor, and has had extensive personal discussions with Kesler about his hip. I honestly don't know what more you would need to lay a foundation for the credibility of Jovanovski's statement

(1) That’s not how the cap calculation works. They won’t need to clear a whole $6.75M. (2) Remind me who GMBM traded when Pears came off LTIR this past February. And don’t say Montour because he was traded 3 weeks after Pears was activated, so the team was already cap compliant when Monty was moved. (3) GMBM’s recent comments about LTIR give the impression that we probably won’t be near the upper cap limit anyway, so the team will likely be accruing enough season cap space to allow Kes to return after the deadline, if he’s ready and still wants to give it a go, without doing anything significant to the rest of the roster.

(a) This isn’t a trial. (b) If it was a trial, that’s not even a valid objection to the substance of testimony. lol.

^^ Also, in the comments section for this article, Eric Stephens says that Kesler's contract is insured. So factor that into whatever whining some people here want to do about Kesler's contract eating up the team's internal budget.

Another great article in the Athletic by Eric Stephens regarding Kesler today (I highly recommend a subscription). Lots of great quotes from Jovanovski, Bob Murray, and Kesler's agent in this one, but the money quote IMO is from Jovanovski: See you next Spring, Kes!

Hip replacement would have been the end of Kesler. He elected to go with hip resurfacing so he can try to play again. Same doctor who did Ed Jovanovski's hip resurfacing procedure did Kesler's too. Jovanovski has his procedure done in April 2013 and his first game back after the surgery and recovery was nine months later in January 2014. Chances are the surgery and recovery plan have advanced by leaps and bounds since then too. I don't think Kes is going to try to beat the timeline, but he certainly knows what the expectations are since others have gone through it. You're welcome to bet against Kesler in this. I'm not. He's Ryan Friggen Kesler. He'll be back. And he'll win the Masterton in 2021. Count on it.

^^ Great post. Couldn’t agree more.

No chance he retires and forfeits the money. More likely he’ll tape all of these messages to the walls of his home gym and use them as motivation to prove everyone wrong next season. That’s just who Kes is.

Nah, just starting physical therapy a few months early to be ready to start 2019-2020. Or, if you like conspiracy theories, its a ploy to make sure he doesn't get bought out in June. If he's determined by team doctors to be unfit to play now, how do they change that diagnosis in June when the buy-out window rolls around? It'd be darn near impossible. Whereas if he finished the rest of the season, they could say that he was still healthy enough to play at the end of the season so he'd be healthy enough to be bought out. Knowing what a warrior Kesler is, I think it's the first sentence I typed, but this conspiracy theory is not that far-fetched either.

I would stop watching the NHL if this happened. I don't want players making a business decision as to whether they will step in front of a shot to block it or chase a puck into a corner because it might cost them money if they get injured. If you're going to financially penalize players for trying hard, you might as well go back to the flat-bladed stick and make them play by collegiate rules to keep them all safer on the ice. That would result in a much worse on-ice product. IMO, players should be able to play their games to the best of their ability without worrying that their income will be affected by an on-ice injury. And speaking of on-ice injuries, your bus driver's "sick day" analogy doesn't work here. Hockey injuries are typically work-related injuries (unless you're Patrick Eaves or Dustin Penner) and would be eligible for worker's compensation claims in the real world (if sports were actually the same as the real world, which they're not). In most US states I think worker's comp pays something like 2/3 of the salary for workers injured on the job who are unable to keep working. And you know how injured workers get the rest of their lost salary? They sue. Do we really want players suing the NHL, teams, coaches, and each other every time they miss games due to injury? That would also be terrible for the game (and also for us fans, because litigation ultimately just makes everything more expensive for the end-users/consumers). Finally, there's also that specter of concussions. What you're suggesting here will cause players with significant head injuries to return to the ice before they are ready due to fear of losing thousands or even millions of dollars in lost wages because of missed games. These players are human beings, not gladiators, and we should be thankful the NHLPA exists to make sure they are treated as human beings and allowed to heal their significant injuries according to their own body's timeline. So IMO, guaranteed contracts exist for both the good of the game AND the good of the player. The onus should instead be on the GMs to make sure that a team is built properly within the salary cap rules. That is their job. And if they can't do their job well, ownership should find some else to do their job.

First, the team is who puts a player on LTIR. The player doesn’t make that choice. LTIR is a way for a severely injured player’s salary to not cripple the team’s salary cap by allowing a team to exceed the cap up to the amount of that player’s cap figure. The league also does require medical documentation to accept the LTIR designation and has the right to challenge a diagnosis if they think there’s monkey business going on with a team’s salary cap. Contracts are also guaranteed in the NHL, and you can’t buy out an injured player without his consent. So a player who is medically unfit to play anymore can just sit back and collect game checks for the duration of his contract.