The Daily Cup of Joe for today was a very dry part 1 of 2 that will eventually categorize and then discuss likely outcomes for the Carolina Hurricanes’ list of free agents.
Before I get to predicting outcomes for the Hurricanes free agents, the Monday Coffee Shop gives readers an opportunity to sort some of the situations out first. (A few of these overlap a bit with previous discussions, but the goal is to pull multiple free agent discussions into one place.)
Carolina Hurricanes polls
Please remember to click ‘vote’ for each individual poll response.
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Discussion questions
1) Going deeper on the offer sheet possibility, would you consider using it? If you were going to use it, who would you target, and what would you be willing to offer in terms of a contract?
2) Which, if any, of the Hurricanes’ restricted free agents do you see being a bit tougher to get signed?
Go Canes!
1) If, and I don’t think it makes sense given the cost and ill will it apparently produces, going after RFA my one target would be Horvat. He has made progress each year, but didn’t have the type of year last year that would have his agent looking for huge contract. He is the big center everyone wants. He just turned 22. Finally, Vancouver has a load of RFAs and the only cap relief for this year is $6M in letting Ryan Miller become UFA.
2) The only one where the word tough might apply is TT. But I think both sides quickly agree around $2.7M.
I like your ideas the best out of all of the below I have read. I would just add what raleighj says about going after someone else RFA and trying to work out a deal with the players current team. If we start raiding other teams’ RFA’s, as a small market in the end we will come out a loser IMO.
1. I just don’t think you arbitrarily put an offer sheet out to another team’s RFA – just not acceptable practice between GMs. One way it can happen, though, is that the GM approaches the GM of the RFA’s team as sort of an informal “trade” – this might work under ctcaniac’s Canucks scenario where there is a cap space concern.
2. Teuvo is the only Canes RFA of real importance – McGinn, PDG are still borderline NHLers and Nesty is gone (mutual decision, in the end). I am not sure Teuvo will be easy to value. I just don’t think he has consistently played at a high enough level to warrant big-money/long-term. He is not a Lindy ($2.7-$2.9M) but he will be looking for that type of money. Will he accept a bridge deal for less?
It does not make sense to use the offer sheets as it costs way too much. There would have to be some Matthews/McDavid level option out there to do that. Another thing (which I am not 100% sure about) is that I believe I read that if you make an offer sheet move this year, all those picks you have to give up are for the next year. We have a lot of picks this year but I do not believe it would apply against this year. If true, that is a non starter for me. I know it is viewed very negatively if you try something like this, kind of going against acceptable behavior. As we saw through our conversation there are quite a few options this year. Why would you do an offer sheet and loose a bunch of draft picks (I know it is relative to the level of the player you take) in a year when there will be many options due to the expansion draft, restructuring and cap issues? I would not.
2) I see very little issue with RFAs. I agree with CT, I think TT will go someplace between $2.5M and $2.7M. Not sure about the term, probably 3 to 6 years. RF likes shorter terms in most cases.
OK, I’ll take a turn…
The only RFA I would consider offer-sheeting is Leon Draisatl. 7 yr, $7M (+ or – to get it done). He is younger than some of the other top 6 C’s out there and has a ton of more potential. I don’t care the about the picks… He would slot in as 1C with no problem and if needed we can move him over to W. I think he would fit very nicely in our top 6 and has so much potential to be a true 1C.
Edmonton has a bit of a log jam at the forward position with contracts. they have 3 guys at $6M, one guy at $4M. That’s $22M tied up to 4 guys, and then it gets fun… LD needs a raise, and then McDavid will get PAID.
I’m okay giving this years 12th, next years 1st, throw in Murphy, and however many more 2nd’s or conditional picks, etc that are needed. LD is the real deal, his light will never shine that bright under the glow of McDavid, so let’s get him and start buying playoff tickets for 2017-2018!
Humm, your right. Leon Draisatl would be on that top tier list. Still think (at this point) it would be next years picks. But he is the level of guy I was talking about. Evgeny Kuznetsov, from ironcaniac below, would be one of those elite guys also. Offer sheets rarely happens, so I know it is viewed very negatively by other teams GMs. I wonder what the implications are long term. Do other teams boycott you and not trade with you. Just wondering what the repercussion are. Since it happens so seldom, I do not have a feel for the down side. Does anybody have a feel for that?
I would love to steal Draisatl, but especially after his playoff performance, I have to figure that Draisatl is untouchable trade-wise. I also figure that Edmonton would grumble but match any offer sheet. We will get to that later, but I touched on the Edmonton situation in my recap after the second round of the playoffs. The players very likely to be available and probably even discounted are Nugent-Hopkins and/or Eberle.
I think the Canes should consider using an offer sheet for strategic reasons. How do we feel about kicking someone when they’re down? 😉 Washington has a bunch of good RFAs (Evgeny Kuznetsov, Andre Burakovsky, Dmitry Orlov, Nate Schmidt) but will be up against the cap (they only have 11 players signed and expect to get only about $22M in cap space). Most of the RFAs and UFAs will be due raises, and since the Canes have cap space to spare, we’d be in a better position to provide those raises.
Andre Burakovsky is the one I’d target since he has 1st line potential. Washington would almost certainly match, but in doing so, they’d lose a lot of their cap space, which would hamstring their ability to keep their remaining RFAs and UFAs. If for some reason they don’t match, then the Canes get a great player at the cost of 2 or 3 draft picks (worth it in my opinion for a guy like Burakovsky). Can you imagine Burakovsky playing alongside fellow Swedes Rask and Lindholm? That’s a line that could be very good for a very long time!
There should be no love lost between the Canes and the Caps since we are division rivals after all. Given how the division works, the Caps will probably be one of the main hurdles to our success in both the regular reason and postseason. If we have an opportunity to either improve our own team at their expense or prevent them from being as good as they could be, does the spirit of competition not demand we act on it? (Unfortunately, I doubt anything with offer sheets will happen, but I dream.)
Offer sheet for TB forwards (take your pick), might be a good move… Not sure i, or many of us completely understand that entire process… so I reserve judgment. Would anyone be able to explain it again, for me? It’s been awhile since it’s been discussed, and my memory AIN’T WHAT IT WAS…!
Teuvo had a good (not great) year. I believe his scoring #s are
15 27 42 – G A Pts – 6th on the team, and 150th in the league.
..better than I thought! (IIRC) 2.5M-3M sounds right.
Agreed puckgod. My first impressions was too costly but canesjkg and ironcaniac brought up some good names. I am in the same boat, it happens so seldom that I do not have a feel for it. The real question is if you do something like that what are the repercussion and what can the other teams do in return to penalize you for stepping outside the lines?
Here’s a pretty good explanation for how offer sheets work:
http://thehockeywriters.com/offer-sheet-cost-2016/
It’s subject to how much the cap will increase, but I’d expect that the Canes would only be looking in the $3.7M to $5.6M range, which would require 1st and 3rd round picks for compensation.