To be honest if they fear that kind of offersheet, they will trade him before july 1st for a better return. Even tho it would be hard for them to find the cap space, you can't let go a 21 YO 2nd overall pick for a second round pick so I'm pretty sure they match and hope he pans out

i bet they match but it'd be worth doing IMO, even if just to f*** them over

Rangers are not going to sign Georgi, his rights get traded by or at the draft. He wants out and they can't afford him. If a team is dumb enough to offer sheet Kakko, the Rangers will match it and then return the favor someday like what the Canes did to the Habs.

I think they'd match that, I can't see them being happy with a 2nd round pick for a player they drafted 2nd overall.

Is it worth risking a 2nd round just to squeeze the cap a little tighter around a rival? I mean, what if they don’t match? And we are left with this guy at $4m+ for three years. Whoops.

Also why would the devils want Kakko?

I think he's probably worth that cap hit though, seems to develop into a decent two way forward with 2nd line upside.
And that term isn't long enough to be of an issue for the Devils at 4m aav.

the crazy thing is, when you look at the Devils cap situation going forward there's not much you can really do to hurt them. Hughes, Hischier, & Hamilton are all signed long-term through their RFA years, so you can't poach them. Siegenthaler & Sharangovich are RFAs after 22-23, when the Devs will have $51 MILLION in cap space - so go ahead and do your worst. And then Dawson Mercer is up after 23-24 - where they have nearly $56M in space. Obviously that space will evaporate but it's not going to be very hard for the Devils to match anything you throw at them, especially considering those summers are going to be a little tighter for the Rangers cap wise (they'll have room but not a ton to blow on RFA revenge if they want to keep their own players/replace them)

Georgiev won’t be resigned, Nemeth will be moved, blais will get same extension. Kakko will be matched 100%, would take priority over most signings. Copp shouldn’t cost more than like 5-5.5

Well cause the devils can afford the risk and it’s one that has the chance to pay out. Look at the steps Hughes took this year. Why couldn’t Kakko take his own version of that next year. Maybe being like a 50 point guy

If the Debs want to offer sheet, that's fine, they will get payback and it doesn't have to be in the next few years. GM and owners have long memories. It worked out so well for the Habs, right?

I guess ur right. They did offer sheet like within a few years I believe it was 2 or even the next offseason. Nashville never came back at Philly I don’t believe

i mean, technically i think it did? I don't know if I'd necessarily want to be paying KK $4.8M over the next 5 years to put up 30 points a season

Yet the Habs fell apart and the Canes are 1 game away from the 3rd round. Maybe its about more than just $ and stats, like his young age and potential, which is now in Carolina.

You really think James Dolan is the forgiving type? Ok, go ahead and offer sheet him.

Dundon and owners sent Molson a strong message not to self spike rfa salaries

there's a lot of reasons why the two teams went their separate ways (Habs don't make the playoffs if 2020-21 is done with normal divisions, so it's not even like they fell particularly hard) but I don't even think Canes fans are going to sit here and say that Jesperi "1 assist in 12 games averaging 11:33 a night" Kotkianiemi is the reason they're about to make the conference finals

Not suggesting that he is. The comment was more about management and their choices. The Canes management, including the coaching staff, seem to make good decisions and player signings, better than the Habs, and the Habs plan to poach from the Canes was a bad choice because they got outplayed. KK will be a good player for the Canes for many years, and all I see on here are Hab fans wanting to trade Dvorak, whom they brought in as a replacement. I think it supports the idea that offer sheets are a bad idea, but if a team is dumb enough to do it, so be it.

Offer sheets only come off as a "bad idea" because NHL GMs get excessively petty over them - not to go off on a tangent, but I'll never understand why it's such an insult to send out an offer sheet. Other sports do stuff like this all the time! Either sign him to a long term deal before he gets to RFA on July 1st, or put on your big boy pants and roll with the punches. It's insane to me how dumb the system is - the players have this "right" to early free agency that absolutely no GM wants to use. I'm shocked that the union hasn't brought forward any sort of grievance on this because it's borderline collusion.

/rant

Can't disagree with that, but in the NHL it is what it is.

Because Hughes has taken steps each year and kakko has done just as bad each year if not worse, and he has gotten tons of opportunities to, the devils should be using that cap space on a couple established top 6 wingers and a goalie