Curt

Didn’t see it noted anywhere here, but owner of the Blackhawks, Rocky Wirtz, passed away at 70.

He wrote actual because he was clarifying his earlier tweet where he said it would be in the $1.6M range.

It’s not really 10% though, because a guy making $5M doesn’t take home $5M. He takes home like $3M, and maybe $3.5M in a tax friendly state. So maybe more like 15%. But anyway, yeah, there are lots of different reasons that people take jobs. An NHL job is not quite the same as your job though. Not all 10%’s are created equal. A 10% that is $500k is much different from a 10% that is 10k. Yeah sure, they are both 10% but you can do a lot more with 500k than you can with 10k. Or over a 5 year contract, big difference between $2.5M and $50k.

Players themselves have come out and said that the tax differences between certain situations can result in a savings of nearly 500k on a large contract ($5M+). It’s not an insignificant difference to the players.

Random question: Excluding the Bills and Chiefs, what 3 teams do you think are set up to have the most success over the next 5-10 years?

Crosby took under market value for basically his whole career. He was the best player in the league and instead of taking a deal that reflected that, he signed a deal that was just kind of on par with the other top 5-10 players in the league. I can’t imagine anything too extreme, but I could see McDavid doing something similar. You know that guy must really want to win. I could see him taking around a 15% cap hit, to be right around the other few highest payed players, instead of pushing for something like 18%, which would almost definitely make him the top paid guy. That’s the difference between ~$14M and ~$17M.

Just thinking about McDavid’s next contract. What is he going to get? He could justifiably get 17-18% of the cap, which will probably be around $95M at that point. That’s a $16-17M cap hit. Will he go for that? Or will he take less to try to win a Cup?

Let’s Go Norwin!

Yeah, Matthews will probably sign for more than McDavid or MacKinnon but maybe less in terms of cap %. Year from now cap will probably go up to like $88M maybe. 15% of that would be just over $13M. I don’t really see how Matthews will get any significant raise from his previous contract in terms of cap %. I think it’s nuts what the Leafs gave him on his current deal.

The max? No one is paying him the salary maximum.

How much money do you think Matthews makes in advertising/spokesperson income in Toronto? How much do you think he would make in Arizona?

???…… correct, I wouldn’t. I did comment to ask about some of the characteristics that define Buffalo style pizza.

I’ve never had pizza from Buffalo and my information is based on internet research as well. This guy probably makes and reviews hundreds of recipes from all over the place, so it’s kind of unrealistic to expect that he has been to each dishes place of origin.

Because it’s the offseason, there seems to be a lot of interest among you guys, and because I don’t know the answer……..What are the characteristics that define “Buffalo” pizza?

I think it’s kind of the opposite, even before he played in the AHL he was a highly regarded goalie prospect. Being a fairly high draft pick and being dominant in the OHL. I think his professional exposure actually dropped his stock.

Uh, he is only 20 year old former 7th round pick who wasn’t productive in the AHL last season. Dark horse? More like a midnight black pygmy goat.

Alex Galchenyuk is a born and raised US citizen. Do a bunch of people think that he is from Russia?

I still can not get over this one. They traded an entire draft worth of assets for Tanner Jeannot. This should go down in history as one of the more outrageous trades in NHL history, but it won’t because NHL people have a hard time making a big deal over, or drawing attention to anything (except the Toronto Maple Leafs, whatever they do is automatically a huge deal). In the NFL the NO Saints traded an entire draft class of picks for Ricky Williams, and that is ingrained as part of the league’s history mostly because it’s viewed as folly even though Williams was great. And this was a record breaking college player who was basically a lock to be a star performing in the NFL. He wasn’t Tanner Jeannot.

Chris Drury - had watched him play for the Avalanche in the playoffs a lot and always really liked him Ryan O’Reilly - hadn’t watched him much before because he was playing for crap teams, but was super excited when they made the trade to get him to pair with Eichel. Part of it is that I’m a big fan of this player “type”. Shutdown defensive centers with the offense of a top-6 center. Also, Skinner because that was just a huge W of a trade, and Tuch because it was a good return in a sad situation and all the hometown vibes.

Although he seems like a real turd, I feel for Alex a lot. His family seemingly has made things really hard for him, with his Dad always in his ear his entire life twisting up his mind. Always undermining his coaches, focusing on Alex way above the team, and seemingly being verbally and psychologically abusive. I have no doubt that Alex has a lot of mental health issues stemming from his family life and it seems like he has become pretty self destructive as a result. I don’t like the guy but I do feel sorry for him because it doesn’t seem like he ever had much of a chance. He is still young in life. A lot of time for him to find happiness and peace. I hope he gets there.

According to this, he stunk. https://thehockeywriters.com/ducks-2022-23-player-grades-simon-benoit/ His basic shot share numbers look decent though and maybe as a 3rd pair guy on a team that’s not a train wreck he could do well. Nice story as an undrafted guy.

You joking?

Alcohol abuse can also be very damaging. Within certain parameters meters it’s more socially acceptable than most other drugs, but that doesn’t really change the results.

Substance abuse is tough.

Briere and Drury was just gutting.