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Around The League - 2024-25 Regular Season

GrandWazoo said:
No arguments there. But I’m unsure if it’s the norm or recency bias. Most 1st don’t win, but the select few wins a large share of them. As I’ve been saying the 2003-2008 crew are an outlier of the larger trend, but they account for most recent wins.
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Which is absolutely normal in a 32 team league.

It's one thing if you have a team that just has a bad set of circumstances and ends up in the lottery, but is otherwise a perennial playoff team.

It's another when it's Buffalo, Florida, Deadmonton who are run by imbeciles and are consistently bad.
 
I don't even know why the argument's become about how often the first overall picks win the Cup.

It's utterly irrelevant. Completely and utterly irrelevant. The first overall pick is one player on a roster of 22 with no guarantee of how good he may be, with no hand in the building of that franchise. He's one of many, many pieces. He may be the best piece of 'em all, but as it was shown throughout history and most recently with McDavid last Spring, he could be the best player on the planet, and he can even drag that sorry excuse of a franchise to the conference finals, but there's only so much one player can do, regardless of how good he is. By the way, fun exercise: Find me those great players like Lemieux, Gretzky, Orr, Howe, etc. who won Cups when they were surrounded by bad players.

(Hint, it's not a coincidence Lemieux never came close to winning anything without Jagr, Coffey, Ron Francis, Mark Recchi, Stevens, Murphy, Trottier, but I digress. How many Cups did Gretzky win without Messier, Kurri, Anderson, etc.?)

Getting the first overall pick never has been, and never will be, a guarantee for a Stanley Cup. It is, however, the most consistent and probable method of getting high end talent in your franchise. And the kicker? You don't even need to convince someone to come play here or negotiate with another franchise to send a player (that they would never trade in the first place) here.

We've seen throughout history that free agents don't want to come here (Not that I mind, personally), but we have seen that once players get here and spend considerable amount of time here, they don't actually want to leave. They want to stay here. What better way to get them here than drafting 'em?

And worrying about what they're going to make after the ELC, so much so that you're not sure you'd want a player like Bedard? Come on... Nobody in Toronto or Deadmonton is bitching about the Matthews/McDavid contract, except that Matthew's contract probably didn't have enough term. The money, though? Nobody cares.
 
Also with the exception of Lafleur, Potvin and Kane, and to a much much lesser degree Fleury, all of the were centers.
 
GGpX said:
I don't even know why the argument's become about how often the first overall picks win the Cup.

It's utterly irrelevant. Completely and utterly irrelevant. The first overall pick is one player on a roster of 22 with no guarantee of how good he may be, with no hand in the building of that franchise. He's one of many, many pieces. He may be the best piece of 'em all, but as it was shown throughout history and most recently with McDavid last Spring, he could be the best player on the planet, and he can even drag that sorry excuse of a franchise to the conference finals, but there's only so much one player can do, regardless of how good he is. By the way, fun exercise: Find me those great players like Lemieux, Gretzky, Orr, Howe, etc. who won Cups when they were surrounded by bad players.

(Hint, it's not a coincidence Lemieux never came close to winning anything without Jagr, Coffey, Ron Francis, Mark Recchi, Stevens, Murphy, Trottier, but I digress. How many Cups did Gretzky win without Messier, Kurri, Anderson, etc.?)

Getting the first overall pick never has been, and never will be, a guarantee for a Stanley Cup. It is, however, the most consistent and probable method of getting high end talent in your franchise. And the kicker? You don't even need to convince someone to come play here or negotiate with another franchise to send a player (that they would never trade in the first place) here.

We've seen throughout history that free agents don't want to come here (Not that I mind, personally), but we have seen that once players get here and spend considerable amount of time here, they don't actually want to leave. They want to stay here. What better way to get them here than drafting 'em?

And worrying about what they're going to make after the ELC, so much so that you're not sure you'd want a player like Bedard? Come on... Nobody in Toronto or Deadmonton is bitching about the Matthews/McDavid contract, except that Matthew's contract probably didn't have enough term. The money, though? Nobody cares.
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Hey, we agree there. As I was saying I went down a rabbit hole looking at 1st overall and their likely hood of winning Cups for the team that drafted them. To my somewhat surprise, it wasn’t as strong a correlation that I might have thought. There is so much more that goes into it. You still need to build a team around those guys.

Which is where I still have have questions on how much money should be awarded to a single player. Single players can be nullified by a good team. You need multiple layers of good players to be effective at which point concentrating too much of your cap space in a select few will be detrimental. How much is too much? I don’t know. I stated my opinion but it’s by no means fact. But there is a point of diminishing returns.
 
The single best way to win, regardless of which professional sports league you watch, is to have as many players on a team that will grossly outproduce relative to what they earn. It's why quarterbacks on rookie contracts are so precious and why giving a second contract to running backs (like my Cowboys stupidly did with Zeke and are probably stupidly going to do with Pollard) is the height of lunacy.

In an ideal world, yes, you would love it if you had players like Cale Makar who has a completely incompetent agent takes a team-friendly deal to improve the team's chances to win. But that isn't something that should be expected, frankly.

So, what should McDavid/Matthews get paid? The answer is simple: Whatever amount they want, up to the limit that permissible by the CBA.

McDavid & Matthews are dictionary definitions of irreplaceable. There is no single team in the NHL that could make a package that would make Edmonton consider trading McDavid. We could offer Suzuki, Caufield, Guhle, our next ten first round picks and second round picks, any prospects in our pool that they'd want, and Deadmonton wouldn't even consider it. Despite getting all of that offered, they'd still get fleeced.

The problem in Toronto/Deadmonton isn't what McDavid/Matthews get paid, it's what everyone else is getting paid.
 
Crosby won it the first years of his big contract while Malkin and Letang were still on ELC then had to wait another 7 years, at the same salary, on a new contract, to win the Cup again. Kane never won it after his salary went over 6,3M. Stamkos, hardly the most important player on his team, won it twice with a reasonable salary below Crosby’s.

i see no reasons, besides demands which is a major one, that Matthews should command more than McDavid.
 
Long story short, the best way to get better faster is by tanking. The second best way to get better faster is by having a great hockey staff that can identify talent and then by accumulating draft picks and being able to use those to select future NHLers.
 
GGpX said:
The single best way to win, regardless of which professional sports league you watch, is to have as many players on a team that will grossly outproduce relative to what they earn. It's why quarterbacks on rookie contracts are so precious and why giving a second contract to running backs (like my Cowboys stupidly did with Zeke and are probably stupidly going to do with Pollard) is the height of lunacy.

In an ideal world, yes, you would love it if you had players like Cale Makar who has a completely incompetent agent takes a team-friendly deal to improve the team's chances to win. But that isn't something that should be expected, frankly.

So, what should McDavid/Matthews get paid? The answer is simple: Whatever amount they want, up to the limit that permissible by the CBA.

McDavid & Matthews are dictionary definitions of irreplaceable. There is no single team in the NHL that could make a package that would make Edmonton consider trading McDavid. We could offer Suzuki, Caufield, Guhle, our next ten first round picks and second round picks, any prospects in our pool that they'd want, and Deadmonton wouldn't even consider it. Despite getting all of that offered, they'd still get fleeced.

The problem in Toronto/Deadmonton isn't what McDavid/Matthews get paid, it's what everyone else is getting paid.
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Surely there is a limit though? Should Matthews/McDavid make 80% of the cap space and reasonably expect a good team around them?
 
GGpX said:
Long story short, the best way to get better faster is by tanking. The second best way to get better faster is by having a great hockey staff that can identify talent and then by accumulating draft picks and being able to use those to select future NHLers.
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I like the second way better. In fact I don’t think you can win consistently without being good at the second one.
 
GrandWazoo said:
Crosby won it the first years of his big contract while Malkin and Letang were still on ELC then had to wait another 7 years, at the same salary, on a new contract, to win the Cup again. Kane never won it after his salary went over 6,3M. Stamkos, hardly the most important player on his team, won it twice with a reasonable salary below Crosby’s.

i see no reasons, besides demands which is a major one, that Matthews should command more than McDavid.
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The Choking Dog was a major contributor to that long wait. It wasn't until they benched him for Matt Murray that they won two straight Cups.

Kane & Toews both got the type of deals that Tavares/MacKinnon got, the "transition" contracts that team convinced players had to be cheaper because there were RFA years. They also had Keith & Hossa on those now illegal deals, along with a ton of good and underpaid players like Sharp, Byfuglien, Bolland, Brouwer, Versteeg, and some others I'm probably forgetting.

Stamkos wasn't the most important player, he even missed a good chunk of time in the first Cup year. But Hedman was awesome and Tampa found a HHOF goalie and they've been the best drafting team of the last 20 years. They didn't need Stamkos to be awesome, the team was filled with killers.

Matthews is going to be the highest paid player in the league when his deal is up, simply by virtue of being able to sign a new contract. If both were available to sign a new contract, McDavid would have the top salary in the league.
GrandWazoo said:
Surely there is a limit though? Should Matthews/McDavid make 80% of the cap space and reasonably expect a good team around them?
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There's no limit in the NFL for how much a player can make on the salary cap and the league has been able to manage and the NHL would manage if they were in a similar ruleset. Granted, players have much less leverage in the NFL than they do in hockey. For the time being, I believe 20% of the cap is the maximum a player could make.

GrandWazoo said:
I like the second way better. In fact I don’t think you can win consistently without being good at the second one.
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The second is much, much more difficult and requires a lot of luck, even for the best teams. But you're right, if teams aren't able to hit with with picks outside of the lottery, they are no different from Deadmonton, Buffalo, Florida, and whatever other moribund, good for nothing franchise that always finishes in the cellar.

Take a year like 2017 when we took Poehling late in the first. Poehling isn't great, but what's the difference between him, Morgan Frost, Jaret Anderson-Dolan, Maxime Comtois? Not that much, really. Between Poehling & the end of the second round, there's only one player that's a top-end player and it's Jason Robertson. After the second round, Ottawa took Drake Batherson in the fourth, but otherwise there doesn't look like there's a single player that is a top-6 forward or even a legitimate top-4 d-man from rounds 3 to 7. It just happens to be a bad year and they happen, but you could have the best hockey staff in the world and you'd still come out underwhelmed.
 
For the record, I agree with 20%. I’d prefer lower but. You need to adapt to market prices. And yes, those RFA team friendly deals are exactly what I’m talking about, and why teams in those eras were able to build dynasties. Now that it’s gone, teams needs to be a lot smarter.
 
Krustchev said:
I sigh whenever I read here from Sal and Count that the “rebuild” will be done/complete after next summer. It won’t be, obviously. It’s not like HuGo can snap their fingers and say “Rebuild done, we’re now going to be good for the next 7 years.” Only Rags can because two superstars decided they would only play for them. Not gonna happen with us. 3-5 year organic rebuild. Done when it’s done.
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show me one post where I stated the rebuild is over after this season counsellor
 
Given the cap space, and my blueprint of of winning team m, where does my math go wrong?

Elite C: 11
Elite scoring W: 8
Top 2c 2way : 8
Top D: 8
Goalies: 9
Subtotal: 44

3rd line : 8
4th line: 3
Top 2D: 6

Subtotal : 44 + 17 = 61

Bottom 6 D : 3.5 (2x1.75)
Top 4 Ds: 6.5 (2x3.25)
Complementary top 6 F: 10 (3x3.33)
Depth: 1.5M (2x0.75)
Total: 82.5M

You increase the top earners and you’re going to have to make sacrifices somewhere else or have some cheap rookies to fill in.
 
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GrandWazoo said:
How do you see that with the cap at 83 next year with a recession looming in?
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The revenue from Seattle blew the roof off expectations. The only reason the cap isn't rising more this summer is escrow recapture. That gets completed this coming summer. In fact that part is still in front of the NHLPA for approval.

Summer after next the cap will rise greatly.
 
GGpX said:
Long story short, the best way to get better faster is by tanking. The second best way to get better faster is by having a great hockey staff that can identify talent and then by accumulating draft picks and being able to use those to select future NHLers.
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The best probability of attaining Cup success in the NHL post 2004 lockout, is to move to a player friendly geographic, taxation and non pressure environment w deep pocketed ownership willing to spend and a fanbase that’s willing to fill an area to at least 90% capacity even if the Cup parade has to be held in the parking lot
 
Sal_Butera said:
The best probability of attaining Cup success in the NHL post 2004 lockout, is to move to a player friendly geographic, taxation and non pressure environment w deep pocketed ownership willing to spend and a fanbase that’s willing to fill an area to at least 90% capacity even if the Cup parade has to be held in the parking lot
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Explains why Dallas, Florida and Arizona have been model franchises for the last twenty years then.

The teams with the most success in the last twenty years definitely weren't from Detroit, Chicago or Pittsburgh. No sir.
 
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