Edited Aug. 18, 2021 at 10:43 a.m.
Quoting: palhal
Yea, I've been following the Sens. Actually Melnyk spend when and tried to win, gee they went to the Conference Finals I believe four years ago. Sens fans should be delighted that Melnyk didn't budge on his 10m offer to Karlsson, and got San Jose to make that sucker trade and resigning of EK. Sens were wise to not to overpay for Duchene and trade him for assets. Nashville sure ain't happy they signed him.
Stone wanted to leave, despite a fair offer from the Sens.
IMO those trade proposals where either the Sens, Ducks or Kings have to give up so much of their youth are just ridiculous. Teams aren't biting because they believe they can land an excellent UFA for Eichel money and keep all those cheap young assets.
I wouldn't want 10m Eichel and 9m Skinner for free. Next summer the Sens could spend 19m a lot better than having those two guys on the team.
I know the last three years have been difficult been a Sens fan. But no use wasting future cap. IMO the Sens are in such an enviable position going forward,,,spending cap on their good RFAs, and supplemented with some UFA signs, plus they still have talented group on ELCs.
Yeah they have made the ECF in 2017, came very close to make the SCF. But the team salary cap in 2016-17 was $69,252,320, and that's accounting MacArthur 4.5 salary on LTIR all season (insured). Also, Hoffman's salary was 3.8 vs his 5.1875 AAV and Brassard was 3.0 vs his 5.0 AAV. It's well known that Melnyk loves to go after contracts where the salary owed to the player is lesser than the AAV. Much easier to reach the cap floor like that.
Yes it turned out great in hindsight for Ottawa to trade Karlsson to the Sharks, same for Duchene as not re-signing him but they didn't get much for him in the end (Abramov gone to KHL for now and Thomson is like Ottawa's 15th best prospect). Remember what they paid (Turris (could have gotten a nice return for him instead) and what ended to be a 4th OA pick. Bowers and a 3rd as well who weren't great pieces)
I really wish Ottawa could have kept Stone and Pageau for the rebuild, those were the 2 vets I wanted to stay on the team
Tkachuk-Norris-Stone
Stutzle-Pinto-Batherson
Formenton-Pageau-Brown
Paul-Tierney-White
Watson
That forward group would be fantastic (I'd run the first 3 lines evenly at ES)
Too bad it didn't work out that way and gotta understand them wanting to contend right away instead of going into a rebuild. Yes, the Sens are extremely well positioned for the future and they could build a serious perennial contender once again but that will ONLY happen if Melnyk spends a LOT of money or sell the team to somebody who will.
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When you say "
I wouldn't want 10m Eichel and 9m Skinner for free", is it serious?
I mean, let's imagine for a second that Melnyk is even richer than he is and that he doesn't mind going a bit more negative on the operating income (like maybe 50% of NHL teams), Skinner for 6 years is manageable. That would be "weaponizing" cap space (get Eichel for free!)
They have over 28.5 M$ in cap space right now. Let's say they only send Tierney back for Eichel/Skinner, they'd still have 13 M$ left to sign Batherson and Tkachuk
Yes, next year they have Norris and Formenton to sign but they'd have the space depending on they manage the bridges for all these young players (without the need to trade another salary). Holden, Nick Paul and Josh Brown contracts will be up.
The following year it will be Stutzle, Pinto and JBD (and Sokolov) but money will start going off the books with Connor Brown, Austin Watson, Artem Zub, Del Zotto being UFAs. The year after, you have Murray 6.25 and Zaitsev 4.5 coming off the books. It's super manageable. You also plan to buy out Skinner's contract at the best possible timing
But of course, there'd be ways to use that 19 M$ even better but this is not a guarantee to happen as it requires Dorion to make only good moves and UFAs to want to sign in Ottawa. Getting Eichel for free/cheap is a great thing even though you're completely wasting millions on Skinner contract.