With Eugene Melnyk unwilling to pay top dollar for players GM Joe Sakic could make an already lopsided Duchene deal even more impressive.
With Ottawa deferring their relinquishment of their 2018 selection to 2019 it gives rise to a unique opportunity. Mark Stone being an RFA open him up to offer sheets. Should the Avs make a $7,305,316 offer to Stone it would only require them to give up the AVS 1st, 2nd and 3rd. While the Sens would now own the Avs first three choices they would be without their best forward and with Karlsson likely leaving town they will be short of star talent needed to keep them afloat for the 2018-19 season. The Sens 2019 selection would be even more likely to yield a very high draft pick and would be forced to be given to the Avs.

Ottawa is going full rebuild mode. Problem is they will likely give up their selection this year because they will likely be moving both Karlsson and Hoffman. But in doing so they are likely to match any offer for Stone or trade him too. So in a nutshell, the Sens will like give up their pick this year because they will like be better able compensate for the loss of it. Next year they are likely to be worse but by design, thus definitely want that pick. The offer sheet idea is cool to think about but there is no way Ottawa leaves themselves open to that. Nice try though

It's a smart idea. But the sens' season ends in the middle of April. That gives them over 2 months to sign Stone. There is probably already a framework for a deal in place. No way Dorion let's him get to that point and if he does, he should be Stoned (pun intented).

If this happens, I'm done as a sens fan until major organizational changes are made.

Also Ottawa matches that and anything else in the range of a 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

Alex. In RFA contracts, the total value of the contract in this case over 51m is divided by FIVE years for average over 10m which is compensation of four 1st rounders.

Well, goodbye Rantanen

People forget this too often. They just see the draft pick compensation and think its that easy....its not. The offer sheet system is set up to be very hard for a team to actually win the bid.

There are only two realistic offer sheet scenarios in the current NHL.

One is if a team knows they can't afford a player because of their cap situation. A team may take advantage of this but as we've seen its never used because of the negative retribution aspect. A guy like Kucherov was available last year and not one GM was willing. That was a player worth doing it on and not one peep....

The second option is if a team wants to seriously overpay a player due to other reasons. You want a player so bad but he isn't that great necessarily that a team will match any offer that is given. Think back in the day Dustin Penner. He was good but nothing crazy good. Edmonton took a risk and overpaid for a guy who had one good year essentially. It ended up being a decent acquisition but could of flopped the other way.

IMHO offer sheets are not worth it. It is cheaper in overall value to simply trade for the player out right, when you take all factors into play. That's why you don't see offer sheets anymore.

If Stone actually gets to RFA, Sakic would be crazy not to do this. It's not like burning a bridge with Melnyk will hurt him in the future. The guy is going to have to sell the Sens at some point or the league will step in and make him.

While I think the $7.3M would get matched very quickly, that was the 2015 number for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd compensation. Last summer was $7,851,948 on a $75M cap, so if we project that to $80M this year, the maximum offer before it goes to 2 1sts, a 2nd, and a 3rd would be $8,375,411. If I recall correctly, any offer over 5 years in length takes the total compensation ($8.375 x 7 years = $61.145M) and divides it by 5 years to get the "compensation salary" which would be $12.23M in that case.

My thoughts would be to offer Stone $8.375M per on a 5 year deal. Makes it the hardest for Ottawa to match, while still remaining in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd compensation range.

In this particular situation, I see value in the offer sheet, whether or not Ottawa matches. Offer a 5 year deal at the maximum pay to stay in that compensation range (should be about $8.375 this year as $7.3 was from 2015), and if Ottawa matches, you make them pay more than they would have wanted too and won't be able to keep more talent around Stone because of their internal budget. If Ottawa doesn't match, Colorado adds a great player at a slightly higher than ideal price, but pays minimal compensation for that level of player, and potentially gives themselves a much better chance at a lottery pick.

Yes but you just soured a relationship with 1 of only 30 other GM's in the league. Not too mention that once they lose Karlsson, they'll have some extra cap space to spend. What better way than to overpay on a Rantanen, Makar or Jost for example.

I get it. It makes sense. But there are intrinsic negative impacts that make it almost not even worth it. Trades are hard enough to make that eliminating 1/30th of your chances isn't a good idea. Not too mention the other GM's who will look at this as an attack on all of them. Whats stopping you from going after one of there RFA's? Potentially souring further relationships.

The offer sheet concept started off as a way to help players who were stuck on teams who were hoarding players and not playing them. Not meant to be used to poach other teams players they have every expectation to resign and play.

Like I said, Kucherov (The current NHL scoring leader and soon to be 100+ pt player) was available this summer and no one bit. There's a reason for that.

Not arguing that offersheeting Stone is both silly, and not going to happen. But I dont see how this loses Rantanen. This team has a TON of cap space. Plus Colin Wilson is off the books when Mikko is up. There is plenty of cash to go around to sign Mikko and Zadorov regardless of who they sign this offseason. If there is one thing Colorado has done well, their cap situation is pretty enviable.

I’m just thinking that Ottawa might want revenge.

With as much cap space as Colorado has I dont see any reason they don't get the extension done this summer after July. This would take any retribution off the table. I think Mikko has already earned himself a 6mil per contract at the minimum already. He doesnt need to prove it for another year.