Edited Aug. 2, 2021 at 1:27 a.m.
Quoting: JokiStan
Then that would mean no Eichel and maybe that's for the best for San Jose
It absolutely would be best for San Jose if we didn't trade for Eichel.
We're looking at a flat salary cap or one that may, in a best case scenario, rise by four million over the next five years. Between EK65, Burns, Vlasic, Couture, and Meier we've got $40.5 million dollars tied up - so, half the cap. Further, I assume that if we trade for Eichel we're going to pushing for the playoffs and would want to extend Hertl. I'm going to guess that his contract will be in the $6 million to $7 million dollar range - so add that to the total. If you add Eichel's $10 million into the mix you're looking at between $56.5 million and $57.5 million dollars tied up in seven players. That leaves you less than $30 million to sign the rest of the team, including other players who will need new contracts (our two promising young defensemen next season, Meier will need a QO of $10 million in two years, and we’re going to have to address the goalie situation at some point too.)
I don’t think there’s any other team in the league in worse cap hell other than the Lightning, and their best players are signed to better contracts than ours are. Hedman is making less than EK65 or Burns and less than a million more than Vlasic - and he's much, much better than any of them. Their forwards vs our forwards are a similar story. And we’re unlikely to be able to move any of those terrible contracts because Doug Wilson likes handing out M-NTCs with 3 team trade lists and NMCs like they’re candy - he’s bad at negotiating contracts. So very, very, very bad.
We might be able to field a good top line - and that's a big maybe, we wouldn't have Kane - and part of a decent second line, but I don't think we could afford to sign any high level talent to fill that in and we wouldn't have any good assets to trade away for good, affordable players for depth. Well, that's not exactly true. We'd still have picks - which would just keep us in the exact same ****ed up situation we’re currently in for the foreseeable future.
I think that there's a lot of hockey fans who haven't fully grasped how bad our situation is or what our future is going to look like thanks to the players we’ve got who are rapidly aging and currently declining or bound to decline before the end of their massive contracts. Doug was able to keep our window open for a good long while, but that era is over. The only way we keep this as a reset or a rebuild that lasts less than a decade is if we manage to draft, develop, and ice high level players who will be signed to affordable contracts to balance out our overpaid dinosaurs. Now assuming we've traded away our two best forward prospects, the only two we have who are very likely to play in the NHL, how do you think that's going to shake out for us?
So no, I don't want Eichel. I don't want to be a wildcard team that gets bounced in the first round. I want to us to be picking high in the 2022 draft and preferably the 2023 draft too. That's our best path out of this mess. Getting Eichel completely ****s that up.