November NHL News

Ferm Sheller

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I think that that's a pretty damn good haul for Buffalo considering that they essentially had to deal Eichel.
 

LogansDad

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Both sad that the pipe dream of him to the Bruins didn't happen, and relieved that they didn't give up that much for him.
 

Silverdude2167

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I like Vegas and enjoy them being a "cap is crap" team.

If I am looking at his right which it is very possible I am not..they are going to be right up against the cap next year with 7 RFA's.
 

Green (Tongued) Monster

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Finally. Knew it was close these past few days and expected to wake up to news that he was shipped to Calgary based on all of the smoke last evening. I am just getting back into hockey and was wondering if any of you guys had a recommendation for an NHL prospects resource. I can see prospect rankings by team, but not by league like MLB has. I am trying to figure out where Krebs would rank in relation to players like Dylan Cozens, Trevor Zegras, Matt Boldy, etc.
 

cshea

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Take a bow. I spit out my coffee with this.

And to just keep this on topic…..if Vegas gets everyone back healthy, they could be an absolute monster after the Olympics.
I can't quite figure out they make the cap work. They are currently in LTIR, using Pacioretty and Tuch's money. Tuch out for Eichel, who presumably goes onto LTIR. None of their injuries are season enders. Pacioretty is due back in a month, Eichel supposedly around the Olympic break, Wild Bill broke a foot the other day but that's only 6-8 weeks. Back of the envelope math, with Eichel in and Tuch/Krebs out they come in at around $89 million with everyone healthy. Maybe they never get there, but I don't quite get the cap gymnsastics here. Maybe they'll Kucherov Eichel but that was suck for him given he hasn't played in forever and the current injuries are putting them in a little bit of a hole and they may not be able to cruise to the post season without him.

FWIW, I think this is a shit return for Buffalo. A middle-6 winger and a decent-ish prospect. Vegas seems to be a hype-then-dump place for prospects. Small sample size, but they've traded all their first round picks in their existence (granted only 4 playes with a 5th pick being traded) and only 1 has come back to be anything signficant, Suzuki. Erik Brannstrom was sure fire, can't miss hot shot who went to Ottawa in the Stone deal and can't make the Senators roster. Cody Glass was another ranked high but busted and was moved to Nashville for fellow bust Nolan Patrick. Maybe Krebs works out but I feel like they could've gotten more.
 

Bozo Texino

still hates Dave Kerpen
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I'm happy Eichel is gonna end up getting the surgery he wants.

Bummed he didn't somehow make it to the B's, but yeah - that was never really gonna happen.
 

cshea

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Finally. Knew it was close these past few days and expected to wake up to news that he was shipped to Calgary based on all of the smoke last evening. I am just getting back into hockey and was wondering if any of you guys had a recommendation for an NHL prospects resource. I can see prospect rankings by team, but not by league like MLB has. I am trying to figure out where Krebs would rank in relation to players like Dylan Cozens, Trevor Zegras, Matt Boldy, etc.
If you're a susbriber, The Athletic usually does top 100 lists or so every now and again. They don't appear to have done one recently, but they did do recent team-by-team U23 lists and rankings. FWIW, they have Krebs in the same tier as Casey Mittlestadt who was 4th on the Sabres behind Dahlin, Power and Cozens. The Sabres ranked as having the best prospect pool in the NHL. Krebs was Vegas' #1 prospect, who ranked 19 as a team.

It's really hard, and IMO, uslesless, to do top 100 lists for the NHL. The kids are playing all over the place as opposed to the more structured minor league system for baseball. NHL prospects are playing Canadian Major Junior hockey, NCAA, AHL, European Leagues and junior systems, etc. It's really difficult to compare an 19 year old playing in the OHL against a 19 year old playing in the KHL, for instance.
 

cshea

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The first round pick Buffalo is getting is top 10 protected.

I realize it's highly unlikely that pick ends up in the top 10, but it boggles my mind when teams agree to these conditions. Why would Buffalo agree? Is not agreeing to that condition going to stop Vegas from making the deal?
 

cshea

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I'm still unclear on how Vegas is going to make this work from a cap perspective. Nobody in the media seems to be saying anything about it, so maybe I'm missing something.

https://www.capfriendly.com/teams/goldenknights

They have $27.2 million on LTIR right now between Eichel, Stone, Pacioretty and some guy on a minimum deal. There's some wiggle room with Eichel's injury since the recovery is relatively unkown for a hockey player. McCrimmon said 3-5 months. 5 months conveniently brings them into April. Their last regular season game is 4/29, so I suppose that leaves a bit of a door open for them to Kucherov Eichel and stash him away for the playoffs. That seems pretty unfair to Jack if he's ready closer to 3 months. Even if they did go that route, I don't see how they can even activate Pacioretty and Stone, who are both due back in the sorter term (month-ish). They both don't fit in Eichel's LTIR.

Maybe the math here is over my head, but I think they have to move like $12 million if they want to activate everyone. I'm a little surprised Reilly Smith didn't go to Buffalo in the deal. $5 million, expiring contract. Would've balanced the money on the Vegas side, and Smith would be a prime pump-and-flip candidate. Play him a shitload of minutes, trade him at the deadline for more futures.
 

TomBrunansky23

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The first round pick Buffalo is getting is top 10 protected.

I realize it's highly unlikely that pick ends up in the top 10, but it boggles my mind when teams agree to these conditions. Why would Buffalo agree? Is not agreeing to that condition going to stop Vegas from making the deal?
I think it's really simple - the Sabres would not retain any cap hit. Had they been willing to hold on to ~$3mm of Eichel's salary, the dynamics would have been a lot different.
 

Silverdude2167

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I'm still unclear on how Vegas is going to make this work from a cap perspective. Nobody in the media seems to be saying anything about it, so maybe I'm missing something.

https://www.capfriendly.com/teams/goldenknights

They have $27.2 million on LTIR right now between Eichel, Stone, Pacioretty and some guy on a minimum deal. There's some wiggle room with Eichel's injury since the recovery is relatively unkown for a hockey player. McCrimmon said 3-5 months. 5 months conveniently brings them into April. Their last regular season game is 4/29, so I suppose that leaves a bit of a door open for them to Kucherov Eichel and stash him away for the playoffs. That seems pretty unfair to Jack if he's ready closer to 3 months. Even if they did go that route, I don't see how they can even activate Pacioretty and Stone, who are both due back in the sorter term (month-ish). They both don't fit in Eichel's LTIR.

Maybe the math here is over my head, but I think they have to move like $12 million if they want to activate everyone. I'm a little surprised Reilly Smith didn't go to Buffalo in the deal. $5 million, expiring contract. Would've balanced the money on the Vegas side, and Smith would be a prime pump-and-flip candidate. Play him a shitload of minutes, trade him at the deadline for more futures.
Yeah, it is a question. This Twitter thread does a good job of breaking it down and basically comes to the conclusion that another move must be coming.

View: https://twitter.com/JoshLwoh/status/1456238371844595717


In all seriousness, I'd like to take a crack at this.

Just my guess currently has $5.76M remaining in their LTIR salary pool. Move #1: Subtract Tuch from that number, which now becomes $1.01M.

Move #2: Subtract Krebs' cap hit. Salary pool increases to $1.87M...

Move #3: Place Stone on LTIR. Salary pool increases to $11.37M. This is where we stand now, giving VGK cap flexibility to acquire Eichel.

Move #4: Place Eichel on LTIR. At this point, VGK would have $27.21M on LTIR (incl. Bischoff)

This is where it gets tricky

Move #5 (mid-Nov.): Stone comes off LTIR. Assuming Patrick is healthy by then, Vegas can finally reassign Rondbjerg/Leschshyn to Henderson. This gives them a cap hit of $90.62M. They're exceeding the cap by ~$9M but still have $17.71M on LTIR so OK

Move #6 (Dec): Pacioretty comes off LTIR. Karlsson/Whitecloud are healthy. Hutton waived, sent to Henderson.

23-man roster at this point is as follows...
14 active Fs: Stone, Pacioretty, Karlsson, Marchessault, Smith, Dadonov, Stephenson, Janmark, Carrier, Patrick, Howden, Roy, Amadio, Kolesar 7 active D: Pietrangelo, Martinez, Theodore, McNabb, Hague, Whitecloud, Coghlan Lehner/Brossoit

Waiving Hutton gives them a cap hit of $89.87M. With Eichel and Bischoff remaining on LTIR, they still have $10.71M stashed there. Their salary pool is much smaller now. They're able to exceed cap by $10.71M, they're doing so by $8.37M. They have ~$2.34M in feasible space now.

Trim down the roster as much as possible. Waive Amadio and Howden, Coghlan for a 20-man roster. Now have $87.4M cap hit. They're still way over. Eichel can't be activated.

All of this is to say that yes, another move is coming for the Knights. But they have time. Karlsson, Pacioretty, Stone, and Whitecloud can all return to play and the team will be compliant They only need to make a move before activating Eichel post-Olympics
 

cshea

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That's a great summary, thanks for sharing. So essentlaly, assuming Stone and Pacioretty return and no further long term injuries arise, they'll need to move ~$6 million if they want to activate Eichel during the regular season.

On the flip side, Buffalo acquired Johnny Boychuk's contract for nothing. Trying to circumvent the cap floor.

View: https://twitter.com/SabresPR/status/1456332119932821504?s=20


The Eichel deal put them like $1 million over the floor. This gives them cover to trade other guys out and not have to take money back to stay above the floor.
 

cshea

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To be honest, I forgot about Boychuk and I'm kinda surprised he was sitting there and moved for nothing. Only this year left at $6 million AAV. Cap Friendly has 16 teams into LTIR at this point, kinda figured someone would take the Tampa plunge and cough up a real asset for an extra $6 million.
 

EvilEmpire

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McDavid is so good and the Rangers defense less so. Georgiev was under siege for pretty much the whole 3rd period. They got a point, but not a good night.
 

LogansDad

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Man, I shut it off at 4-1 to go play Cyberpunk before bed. I'm an idiot.

McDavid has at least a point in every game he has played against the Rangers in his career.
 

Greg29fan

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Jul 14, 2005
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Interesting timing since the Pens window with this core group is totally slammed shut and they'd be better off blowing it up and starting to rebuild.

But as a Pens fan, at least this isn't some shyster who will probably bankrupt the team like many of their previous owners.
 

cshea

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The Isles have had a rough start to the year. 13-game road trip to start the season plus a Covid outbreak.

Eh, fuck 'em.
 

burstnbloom

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Jul 12, 2005
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Gorton gets more shine than I think he deserves but he's certainly worlds more competent than Bergevin.

Let's home there are more 2 years X $8m for Ryan Spooner deals coming (and fewer trading Spooner for Strome.)