Curt

Retire? If you can’t play hockey anymore, shouldn’t you retire? If you physically can’t play, how can you fulfill the terms of your contract? I’ll add this because someone will probably ask. Insurance, NHL players have insurance in case of injury to protect against future earnings losses. If you need to retire due to a chronic injury, use the insurance. Also, being an NHL player is not guaranteed. If you get injured, can’t play, and can’t fulfill your contract then I don’t see why you should be guaranteed to get paid anyway.

Well, Ottawa didn’t even give out the Gaborik contract, but that’s neither here nor there. I feel like the heart of the issue isn’t this trade, but rather the silliness of how LTIR itself can be used.

My real question on this topic is, why does LTIR exist in its current form? I get it for a player who is out for a season due to injury, but why these guys who are never coming back to play? I think should be a limit to how long a player can be on LTIR. Even if it’s very lenient, like 1.5 NHL seasons, 120 NHL games, or 18 calendar months. It would do a lot to combat the silliness.

Yeah, possible solution. Can’t think of a reason that it couldn’t work. Except that the owners would never vote in favor of it.

TB did give up two useful players and a 2nd round pick (in addition to taking on a bunch of real world $$$) just to clear $3M in cap space.

In a vacuum, I don’t love it either. It’s lame. But with a cap league, these things take place. It happens in all cap leagues, NFL and NBA included. It’s well within the current rules.

Agreed. They are well run, but losing your best player for the season is one heck of a brilliant way to keep your team in tact.

Player salary is a factor in every trade. As soon as there is a salary cap, a bunch of rules come to manage that cap. As soon as you create a cap, then cap space becomes an asset. It’s part of the deal. And TB did benefit on the ice from this trade. It allows them to ice all their other (better) players.

I think Sid is still better than Eichel. He should be healthy. He will be 33 for the entirety of this coming season.

And all that had to happen to get cap compliant was for their best player to sit out the season! Genius! What cap wizards! Although my understanding is that he will be back for the playoffs, which is kind of a sketchy rule.

Capitals, Penguins, Flyers are probably the top 3. Boston could end up in that group, but are badly injured to start the season and are getting old. As a result they are probably in the group below. Then we have a group of Rangers, Islanders and Sabres (along with Boston) who will probably duke it out for the 4th playoff spot. Then there is NJ at the bottom. Thats how I see it shaking out. So Buffalo could very well make the playoffs, but they are in the toughest division so it’s going to be difficult.

I guess he didn’t want to travel around with the NHL team during a pandemic while receiving AHL pay and not actually playing in any hockey games.

We all watched the team last season. Were the PK goals primarily because the goalies let in a bunch of bad goals, or because the PK was bad and gave up a lot of excellent shots against? I would argue that it’s primarily the later, at least in Ullmark’s case.

Absolutely true. I’m not even really sure what we are trying to pin point here. Tourney MVP or best hockey player in tournament? I think we were just trying to brainstorm about the best players.

Ah, yup. He slipped my mind. I’d put him in that 2nd group.

I would have had Dach as favorite. In a short tournament, a lot of guys could end up as best. Favorites now would be Byram, Cozens, and Zegras. Askarov, Raymond, Broberg, Stutzle, Boldy, Turcotte, York, Caufield, Newhook, Byfield and Krebs as a larger group of possibilities.

Feaster got hired by TB as exec director of hockey development. It’s basically a community outreach position. It’s not a front office job and has nothing to do with NHL decisions. When he got fired by Calgary, it ended his front office career, so far.

I strongly disagree that he is the tournament’s best player, and even if you think so, it’s very far from fact.

Mike Gillis and Jay Feaster both, the only two guys to leave their organization after signing a player to an offer sheet. Agree, I think a guy generally needs to be very secure in order to do it.

And also, this makes total sense. Something like this would require owner approval. As would any significant contract or trade, I would imagine.

This is interesting but I don’t totally agree with your conclusion. It makes total sense that guys were not fired from their current organizations for offer sheeting other teams’ players. Why would they be? If anything, it may have helped their standing within their current organization. However, of the two guys who signed players to offer sheets, then were fired from their GM roles, neither of them went on to ever hold another high level NHL front office position, as of yet. My take away from what you presented was that if you do this, then can’t stick with your current organization, you may not be able to get another front office job somewhere else.

I wouldn’t be surprised either. I’d love to see a bounce back for Hutton, but he is 35 at this point and he may just be washed up. Still have a little hope that Buffalo can make a move for another goalie.

1) Sure, the Thompson contract was unnecessary. So was signing Eichel to huge money when he had yet to prove he was an elite player. Was that a stupid, completely unnecessary contract, or was it a bet on what the player will become? Contracts are not about what a player has done, it’s about what you expect them to do over the life of the contract. 2) Based upon the contracts they were given, it seems extremely unlikely that Mitts will be making the team over Thompson. They are not going to just waive Thompson.

Alternative future: But there is also a good chance that he does make the team and is able to contribute as a middle 6 winger scoring 15+ goals, in which case you are getting him for 3 years at a bargain of 1.4. Like I said, whether it’s a good contract will be born out by Tage’s play. It’s not inherently a bad contract. Obviously, Adams thinks that your scenario is not likely, we’ll see if he is right.

Just a note on this. I honestly don’t believe that the Thompson contract is an overpay. If it was a 1 year deal, then yes, but the value of it is that it’s 3 years. Thompson would not have signed a 3year deal for the minimum. Even if he shows that he is a good player this season, he now won’t be able to get a raise until the 2023-24 season. Whether or not it’s a good contract will be born out by Tage’s play. The contract isn’t inherently a bad contract. It is a bet on Tage though.