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2025-26 NHL Miscellaneous Thread

Coleman is in the last year of his contract and Maatta has 2 years left at $3.5 million per.
Which makes the picks even more of a plus. They bought the second rounder with Coleman plus retention, and Maata is only a vague upgrade over Middleton. Figure the 4th rounder for the difference if you’re feeling kind. That means Calgary got a 3rd for free. Thanks for doing business with us Mr. Guerin.
 
Also, there was an offer sheet buried in all that mess yesterday. It’s low risk and unlikely to happen, so … meh. The Devils got Utah’s Barrett Hayton to sign a sheet for $4.77 mil. If Utah matches, they just walked Hayton up to UFA … which also would apply to New Jersey if they don’t. Hayton’s not a moron so he signed it because he’ll pretty much double his pay and get to free agency early. All that for a bottom 6 center with a career season of 46 points. Fun?
 
The Ducks have $38 million in cap space available, so they have been smartly protecting themselves against something like this. But of course, it's not just Leo Carlsson who is an RFA, they also need to sign Cutter Gauthier AND to a lesser extent Pavel Mintyukov.

Right now Anaheim has only 10 other forwards under contract and 5 other Dmen under contract. If Carlsson is taking up $18 million AAV, that leaves only $20 million for Gauthier and Mintyukov. That isn't a lot of room left for both of those guys. They would have to convince Mintyukov to take a bridge deal for smaller money. They also could have to deal with yet another offer sheet for either or BOTH of those players.
 
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So now if you really want to make things interesting, have the Pittsburgh Penguins offer sheet Cutter Gauthier for $18 million AAV and the Chicago Blackawks offer sheet Pavel Mintyukov for $6 million AAV. Then we will be having some fun...

ACTUALLY, nevermind. Gauthier is currently a 10.2c RFA, which means he is not offer sheet eligible. He only played 1 NHL game his first season.

Mintyukov is offer sheet eligible.

Alexander Nikishin is in that same 10.2c situation, he cannot sign an offer sheet.
 
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So … if you’re the Ducks you either just pay Carlson his money and figure out how to keep the rest of your salaries in check or else you make a deal with Philly that does something more than deliver picks. In that division, Anaheim is relatively competitive now and have been terrible for a while so they won’t want to just soak up picks, even though it would tempting to break this one off in Philly and that would be the smarter long term play. Carlson is a VERY nice player but he’s not a 15% of the Cap cornerstone and he’s not the one guy that puts Philly out of the needing first round picks game for the next 4 years.

Ya see. These GM jobs seem like all fun and games when people play around with GM mode in Puckpedia. Then somebody drops this mess in your lap.
 
So now if you really want to make things interesting, have the Pittsburgh Penguins offer sheet Cutter Gauthier for $18 million AAV and the Chicago Blackawks offer sheet Pavel Mintyukov for $6 million AAV. Then we will be having some fun...

ACTUALLY, nevermind. Gauthier is currently a 10.2c RFA, which means he is not offer sheet eligible. He only played 1 NHL game his first season.

Mintyukov is offer sheet eligible.
Not sure how much you’re joking but this would be the perfect time to offer sheet Mintyukov. Gauthier is gonna cost them some cash either way, and I get the feeling the Ducks are less sold on the Russian. And keep in mind, Sennecke is going to cost them a mint in two years. It would be freaking diabolical, but the offer sheet game is all about putting a team in an uncomfortable position. That would do it.
 
I'm not joking. Mintyukov is definitely fair game now and if someone was going to do it, now is the exact time to pull the trigger.

Not the Canes of course, someone else....
 
In less dramatic news, James Dolan has relinquished control of the Rangers in favor of his son Quentin. He’s been involved in the management of the Knicks and Rangers for a while now, mostly on the stats nerd side of things. No idea what it would mean for the Rangers general vibe, but seeing them lean more into analytics would be a pretty hefty sea change if it happens.

 
I'm not joking. Mintyukov is definitely fair game now and if someone was going to do it, now is the exact time to pull the trigger.

Not the Canes of course, someone else....
He’s a quality young defenseman even if he’s been a bit slow to develop and it doesn’t seem likely that his offensive threat is going to ever show up. He can move though and he’s a pretty snappy passer. Chicago certainly needs a guy like that, as does San Jose. Hell, so does Philly, but …
 
Where does Leo Carlsson even rank in terms of top players? He probably would be outside my top 10 right now in the NHL and maybe in that next tier after that. $18m per is of course the top of the food chain even with the rising cap so he instantly becomes the highest paid player in the league. What does a trade look like…Michkov, Konecny, Bonk and a first round pick or two?
 
It's been reported that 4 teams submitted offer sheets for Carlsson to consider. It will be interesting to see if the names of the other 3 teams leak. The Canes probably were not one of them...these salary levels are outside what we can currently pull off.
 
I was kind of chocked when I saw Leo Carlsson signed that offersheet because he is currently at my local rink. Does that mean he signed the contract there and they faxed it over or how does that work?
 
Where does Leo Carlsson even rank in terms of top players? He probably would be outside my top 10 right now in the NHL and maybe in that next tier after that. $18m per is of course the top of the food chain even with the rising cap so he instantly becomes the highest paid player in the league. What does a trade look like…Michkov, Konecny, Bonk and a first round pick or two?
I think of Carlson as Aho with size, and less determination to play effective defense. He got that kind of second level set of skills and is a wonderful skater, but he’s nobody’s idea of McDavid. Honestly, another comp would be a shiftier version of Larkin. I think he matures comfortably into that level of 1Cs … really good but not great.

I’m pretty sure Philly has Michkov loaded for that trade, but you’d have to make it hurt a little. Bonk would hurt a little, but I’d ask for Michkov, Bonk, a veteran forward and a 1st. And make it a 2027 1st, unprotected, so if this blows up on them then it hurts sooner rather than later. They’re willing to give up 4 1sts, so you start with 4 legit assets and go from there. If you go nuts and ask for Martone or Foerster they’d bail and revert back to the picks.
 
Friedman says it’s front loaded, with $39 million due in the next 12 months.


View: https://x.com/friedgehnic/status/2073140177938022403?s=46&t=8056gLL6Pl3wbApF5otK6g

When will NHL front offices grow up on this stuff? The Flyers obviously think they can stress the Ducks financially by cash loading the front end since they know that Samueli just committed to a $2 billion redevelopment of the arena. I mean. You guys have heard of financing, right? He can just borrow the cash or take on a minority VC partner and figure that out. I’m certain he already had loan capital in place before he announced the construction plans, because that’s how these things work in real life. That stunt is right on par with Montreal assuming that Dundon was too poor to pay Aho. Karmanos did it to Illich in the 90s too, but I think he just wanted to make Mike ask for a loan since he made such a big deal out of Karmanos taking out short term loans against TV revenue.
 
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