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2023-24 NHL Misc. Thread

cmaleski2 said:
Swayman has never played more than 44 games in a season. He has only played 132 games in his NHL career.

I agree that what Cam Neely did was extremely unprofessional, but I definitely think the Bruins are correct in being reluctant to pay Swayman all that much more than what Jussi Saros got this offseason. Mostly gone are the days where a goalie played 70, 65, heck even 60 games. That means you generally have to pay 2 goalies to be good.

I get all of Swayman's negotiating leverage....."you just made me the #1 when you traded Ullmark and your alternatives if you don't sign me are not good", "the cap is going up, salaries for good goalies are going to continue to go up", ".919 career Sv%". The Bruins of course are used to "players taking less for the common good".

Swayman I think will give in at some point. perhaps agreeing to a shorter term (for $7-8 million AAV) to walk himself to UFA status.
Click to expand...
According to PuckPedia, the Bruins have about $7.8 million in cap space, but that includes 14 forwards, so sending 1 or 2 down and the current backup goalie gives them enough to sign him at $8 million. Hes a UFA after the 25-26 season, so it makes sense to take a shorter term deal and get to free agency sooner.
 
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$64 for Swayman is more than fair.
Seeing Swayman's sketchy agent state that doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy they weren't offered it.
Both sides are handling this terribly AFAI can tell.
 
On Boston's situation ... IMO nobody benefits from talking in specifics in public. For one thing, it's easy to get caught being a bit more self serving than honest, as Cam Neely did. For another, it's easy to start to sound a bit greedy as Swayman's agent did (see Mitch Marner and William Nylander's sagas in Toronto if you need more context). Just shut up, negotiate in good faith and if you find yourself forced to make a statement then make it as bland as possible. Nobody ever wins when the details are made public. And since 90% of these impasses are eventually resolved, all you're doing is poisoning the well. Which is particularly dangerous for the Bruins since their whole vibe of "everybody takes a bit of a discount because they all love it here" is being shown to be either blatant BS or a thing of the past ... take your pick depending on how charitably you view that obnoxious organization.
 
Seravalli says the offer for Swayman wasn’t 8x$8, it was 8x$7.8. So not only did he start negotiating in public, he had the offer wrong, if you believe Seravalli.
 
Aaron Portzline, who covers the Blue Jackets for The Athletic says the Jackets have been told by the league and NHLPA that they don’t have to meet the cap floor on October 7, with the expectation they’ll get there in “reasonable time”. The $2 million signing bonus they paid to Gaudreau in July will count against the cap, leaving them about $1.4 million short. But Waddell has said he wants to add another forward and could hit the waiver wire for cap casualties.


View: https://x.com/aportzline/status/1841156860490985887?s=61&t=ZT8KDHkGMyk7V3JAuh5_ag
 
FWIW, I've seen several CBJ writers suggest that Columbus will almost certainly claim Ryan Suzuki if/when Carolina waives him to assign him to Chicago. Not sure if they're just connecting the Waddell dots or not, but I wouldn't be all that surprised to see somebody take a flyer on Suzuki this fall. I see roughly no chance that he makes the big club this year.

That wouldn't get CBJ all the way over the hump, but it wouldn't hurt and they don't have a lot of creative forwards.
 
Some team will want to dump a contract that Waddell would likely take on if the player could help them…Leafs are one example of a team that will need to shed a player or two if Patches and Lorentz get contracts from their PTO’s.
 
The Habs got mixed news today on their injured players. Patrik Laine has a sprained knee and is out 2-3 months. That's the good news, it looked a whole lot worse than that. David Reinbacher had knee surgery this morning and is out 5-6 months.
 
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