LastPommerFan

No. Hackett Stays. You can't spend what we spent to bring him in, and let him walk. Hackett Stays.

This is like something out of a Roman Polak-ski movie.

I may have missed it, but has it been announced as to when the islanders have to make their decision? Obviously the timing would affect any pre draft trade discussions.

Listening to experts explain things from their realm is my favorite. Great breakdown.

I don't think it all comes down to future drafting when talking about moving from 25-30th to 13th-18th (ie "in the playoff hunt") in the short term 2-3 seasons.The development of the last four 1st round picks and the maturation of 19, 57, and 63 will have more impact on the short term drive to competativeness. Now, the drive to be a contendah, none of those seven are the difference makers (with the possible exception of Zemgus). The Stanley cup move into positions 1-5th will be dependent on the talent drafted and acquired over the next 2 off seasons.

Tertiary Futility. That's some deep ######, man.

What?!?! This roster + Conner McDavid =/= Stanley cup? Blasphemy.

TPFKALPF

This one may not be either.

The cap floor, the growth of young players, and the loss of around $10million in salary that is producing nothing right now (miller, vanek, pommer retained salary and Leino.)

Ah. Right now is rock bottom. March-April 2014. The roster will be better in October and going forward than it is right now. 10/13-2/14 was not rock bottom.

Miler is not on the team!

Miller and Vanek aren't on the team right now. The annual revolution of the Earth around the Sun, The cap floor, and the loss of pommer, vanek, and miller retained salary practically ensure the team is better in October than it is right now.

Not splitting nothing. "Rock Bottom" is the superlative. There can be only one. We could ba bad, even terrible, but the roster will never be as terribly bad as this.

We have clinched last place. The only way the next 2-3 years can be part of rock bottom is if we finish last. That won't happen. Remember, 25th is better than this.

Not sure about big market, but McDavid is definitely landing south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Bettmen will protect his vision.

I hear ya.

Nothing matters until you have the right QB. Once you have that. Pretty much only defense matters.

Or, if they think we'll be in contention and he'll play be playing for the cup. At this point, I think you almost have to be thinking that way.

More than half the goals for, way less than half the goals against. And he plays on the #1PK unit. He'd be a steal at $5M/yr

Yes. They only question is why? He is a good-not-great player being paid right in line with his talent/production. He's an asset with no reason to buy him out. He's only 31. Lots of good $4M seasons left in him.

Think of it this way: Our cap advantage on his contract is $10M (His salary was $6M above his cap hit ($4M) in '11-'12, $4M above in '12-'13, and they are even now) If he plays out his contract here, we pay that $10M back in the last 4 years of the contract. In '17-'18 we pay him $3M, so we "pay back" $1M of the cap advantage. Each of the final 3 years, we pay him $1M so we pay back $3M per year. If he retires at any point before that payback is complete, we have to pay whatever cap advantage we still owe, over however many years are left on the contract. The worst case scenario, he retires in the 2018 off-season, we end up with a $3M recapture penalty for 3 years. For reference, the league minimum salary by then will probably be around $1M and the cap will likely be well over $100M. There is no situation where our recapture penalty is greater than $3M if we don't trade him. In other words, Erhoff is not a recapture nightmare contract if we keep him. Now, if we trade him, and retain max salary, now we're eating cap hit starting immediately (around $1.3M per year, every year he stays in the league) and not getting full advantage payback when he plays the final 4 years of the contract. In this scenario, if he were to retire before the final year of the contract we would owe a $7.7M, one year recapture penalty. This after we've already penalized ourselves for half a decade paying $1.3M/yr in retained salary/caphit. If we trade him without retaining salary we would automatically owe a $10M recapture penalty spread out over however many seasons he has remaining. If he retires in the summer of 2020, we owe a $10M recapture penalty for the 2020-2021 season. Which would be deadly, even with a $100M cap. Ehrhoff will not be traded for the above reasons, and he will not be bought out, because as long as he stays here, the recapture penalties aren't that bad.

http://www.dorkly.com/article/61062/every-version-of-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-ruined-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles

Alternates.