It's going to cost more than a 2nd to get Elvis Merzlikins out of Columbus.

I'd be surprised if Columbus doesn't have to pay to offload him.

I don't know why anyone would give up an asset for a guy being paid $3 million more than he's worth for the next 4 years.

Merzlikins probably has negative value.

His contract is absolutely negative, And i'm pretty sure that Jarmo will have to retain a little on it.

Oh I thought you meant Carolina has to give up more than a 2nd to get him.

I did, Columbus will get more than a 2nd for Merlikins regardless. From what's being reported he's in high demand Jarmo might just need to eat $900,000 on him for the next 3 years though.

I assume his value is actually slightly negative unless Columbus does some retention on him.

I think Columbus is asking for more besides a second-round 2024 pick.
Maybe Carolina can throw in a prospect or a player in general along with the second round pick.

This isn’t the deal, but Columbus isn’t paying to move him. They’ll just keep him if it comes to that, but I think there’s a team out there desperate for goaltending that will take him for free or for an expiring cap dump, at least. Might even be Carolina.

Probably overpaid by 500k-1 million. Definitely not 3 million lol

Why do people assume overpaid = valueless? If Toronto sold, would they be eating cap to give Tavares away for free?

He's slightly above league-average, he'll steal some games and more rarely give some away. He's probably a $2.5-3.5M goalie.

A mid-to-late round pick (4th-6th range) probably lands him with the full deal, no retention. If you're expecting Columbus to retain ~$1M for the next 3.5 years, we're talking a 1st.

Right, please look at the long list of moves Carolina have made under Waddell because they were desperate and see how this compares. I'll wait.

Canes will have no interest. Raanta's been WAY better recently, Kochetkov's been good, and Freddie was medically cleared a month ago. He's out looking for specialists to make sure, but he isn't a million miles away either. Absolutely no need for Elvis

I wouldn’t mind trying out Elvis if push came to shove, but Columbus would absolutely have to eat about 1.5-2mil. And no, they aren’t getting a 1st for retaining on an already bad contract.

There is a difference between overpaid the way Tavares is and the way that Elvis is. Tavares is overpaid by like $.5-1m, Elvis is by like $1.5-2m. The jackets are gonna have to swallow at least 1.5-2m on him for the canes to even think about it

Then maybe the Canes aren't the right fit? $1.5-2M overpaid really isn't that much.

Also Tavares is overpaid by at least $1.5-2M more, too, and probably more. He's .83 ppg, at the 4th-highest cap hit for centers league-wide. An appropriate cap hit for that would be closer to Tage Thompson money, who's scoring at the same rate at $7.1M. Arguably PLD money at $8.5M is fine too, but that's still $2.5M under his current hit. There's no difference in the way Tavares is overpaid and the way Elvis is overpaid.

Tavares does have a bad contract but It's insane to give $5m+ to any goalie except like the top 5 goalies... I don't know when GMs will learn this lesson

It's definitely not smart, but having a $5M price tag doesn't automatically make him a negative asset either. That's all I'm arguing. He's still a starting-caliber goaltender, and he should be for the duration of the deal. We don't need to just give that away, but the contract does mean that an acquiring team can have him for cheap.

It doesn't make them a negative asset but
1. The Canes don't have the long-term cap space (We have a bunch of UFAs and RFAs to sign) to take Elvis on at his full cap hit
2. I'm not sure that Don will spend a first on a goaltender for retention

Where did you hear a reported cost? And what was it?




They’re going to keep a player that’s made a big fuss in public about wanting out. And one that will eat 5.4M on the Cap? Yeh I don’t see that happening.

No it doesn’t automatically make him a negative asset. It depends how good he is. Just one year ago he was horrific, buy out territory candidate. His “recovery” this year is only league average. You can get league average goaltending at 3M or less quite easilly. That’s why he has negative value.