Joined: Jul. 2018
Posts: 349
Likes: 246
I think Pietrangelo's deal is right around fair market value. Chances are he out performs in the next few years, but gives back some of that value later on. The problem is always that fans and teams never really remember the good years when the player has declined below what the cap hit is worth, but today, I think this deal is fine for Pietrangelo, but it's right on that line of fair.
Where this kind of goes off the rails for me, is that they didn't get much better, and they took on additional cap space. Pietrangelo replaces Schmidt at 5 on 5 and on the PK, however the gap in those areas isn't large, at least not $2.9M worth. If Pietrangelo doesn't get PP1 time, it will be hard for him to justify the additional cost and risk over Schmidt. If he does, I doubt he can act as enough of an upgrade on Theodore to justify the cost.
Vegas is still a very strong team, and Lehner was a great value add, but losing a reasonable (but overpaid) 2nd line center, and upgrading Schmidt to Pietrangelo, I don't know that they are really any better than they were. So it feels like a lot of moving parts to make a splash, but not necessarily like a firm plan to improve in any particular area.