a 7 million dollar player that plays 13 minutes a game is the last thing they need.

if you roll at lest 3 lines it will be closer to 15-17min a game

ive been saying that for a while

30 million for Brandon saad? What year do you think this is?

The great thing about Nuge is he can play C or LW, Kills Penalties and can play on you Powerplay. $7M whether he is 1st line LW or 3C doesn't matter IF you aren't overpaying all over the roster

The one where he has 10pts in 13 games, is a pending UFA and is 28 yrs old with years of good hockey left.

That would be the best offer he got by probably 18 million.

HAHAHA so he's getting $12M over 2Yrs?

I’d be pretty surprised if he got more than $4MM per season. I think 3x12 is probably the high end for him. Probably will settle for a 1x4 or something similar.

What do you pay your top wingers? They need a chris tierney or adam lowry type not Nuge on the 3rd line.

Problem being nuge isn’t all that great at playing centre.... he’s more than capable to cover the position when needed but full time not going to get nearly enough out of him to justify spending 7 million. Pay him that gotta be putting him in an ideal spot to get the most out of it.

Whatever GM convinces Saad to sign that deal is a criminal

It seems like you think it’s 2015. You know he just got traded for the rights to Nikita zadorov right?

Look around the league their are numerous top line wingers that make $7M per (Connor, Pacioretty, JVR, Tkachuk, Gaudreau, Keller, Kane) and decide whether RNH belongs in that group.

Could EDM use a grittier 3C... depends what type of players he is surrounded by and what type of hockey you wanna see.

Do you know how many times Chicago has lost a Brandon Saad trade? Either way come summer 2021 Saad will sign and one of us will be right

Spoiler alert: it’s going to be me. Your evaluation of him is insanity. If Hoffman is only getting 1x4, not a snowballs chance in hell that saad is getting 30 million dollars.

As a 1C ya Nuge isn't great but as a 2C / 3C insurance policy I really like him.
$7M is based on him joining a group of other top line wingers in that same pay range (Connor, Pacioretty, JVR, Tkachuk, Gaudreau, Keller, Kane)

Ya I'm actually quite confident it won't be you, especially now when you're comparing what Hoffman got in the summer of a pandemic and major economic uncertainty to what Saad may or may not get following a very successful campaign with COL.

Okay, well lets pump the brakes on the whole very successful campaign thing. We’re a quarter of the way through and his shooting percentage is over 30%. That won’t last.

Do you think the economic uncertainty will just, “poof,” disappear after this season? Do you think the cap is going to go up anytime in the next few seasons? It isn’t. And all those contracts signed anticipating the cap going up at least 5% a year are still there. Hoffman is a way better scoring winger than saad, and he had to sit around all off season to get 1x4. Saad will get 15 or so goals this season and probably either get a 3x4 or a 1x3.

He's playing less than 15 minutes at even strength right now on the first line. Even if that got scaled back to 13, there's still 5 minutes on the PP and 2 on the PK - that's a 20 minute player. Only 29 forwards in the league are playing more than 20 minutes per game. Plenty of value there.

Unfortunately I think you've misconstrued the point of the pandemic and economic uncertainty surrounding it. This past summer Hoffman tried waiting out a few teams to land the best deal (none better than the STL deal came and that deal is only as big as it is because of Steen retiring and Tarasenko LTIR). That is partly because there was worry of a fully cancelled season, the very real prospect of zero fans (50% of HHR) and additionally there was no vaccine in sight and teams were not looking to hand out big money deals to non big name players. Look at Athanesiou in $1.2M LA, EDM offered him something around $2.5M but he just like Hoffman held out signing assuming better deals would come.

Is the cap going up next year, NO we all know that and as you can see the CAP in this AGM is flat.
Will the economics of 2021/2022 be better than those of 2020/2021.... One hopes so as the USA is doing a decent job producing vaccines meaning they will likely see fans in 2021. Canada on the other hand won't see fans this year sadly. That being said the outlook of owners & GMs will not be as bleak as this summer, there wont be impending doom of a potentially lost season looming and the attendance revenue will be back in full so they will be more inclined to loosen up the purse strings.

As for Hoffman vs Saad, sure Hoffman can score but there is a lot that he doesn't do. But he sat around all summer to get 1 x $4M because of poor advice and a trash market. Comparing his situation to Saads is apples and oranges

I think you should read up on the series of events that lead this season to take place. First off, the gate is 75% of HHR. The owners took a bath this year, and the bargaining chip they used was a flat cap. If we’re very lucky, it will rise in 2023-24. Probably 24-25 though.

I'm well versed in "the series of events" that allowed this season to happen.
Attendance is > 50% of HHR, more specifically in the 30-40% range (https://www.statista.com/statistics/193413/percentage-of-ticketing-revenue-in-the-nhl-since-2006/)
And the Owners taking a bath while accurate is misleading, thanks to escrow the players will pay back the NHL in full as a means of equalizing an HHR imbalance as per the CBA