Core 4 No More: The Motherfucking Off-Season Thread

[Montana]

I answered and said that they could have allocated the dollars to one of the many top pair d available over the years. Why does it have to be a UFA? Many players of his caliber have been available at not that steep of a cost and make far less money than him.

Because you get to hide how much you’re paying for a player in AAV, when you also have to pay to acquire him before paying him that.

And why does it matter if one believes a certain caliber of player is rarely available in free agency? Why does that have to mean you should sign him to superstar money every time? Rare does not = do it for sure without thinking.

You said you used to believe they didn’t become available, now they do….free agency is a chance to get players for just money, while not emptying your draft/prospect cupboard to acquire them.

It’s a rare opportunity…..and if we didn’t sign Tavares, I’m afraid that money is just as likely spent on other free agents than it is on superstar trade acquisitions. Maybe I’m wrong on that tho. Nearly impossible to know what we’d have dealt for.

 

[MindzEye]

what do you think JT’s actual $$ value was for years 1-5?

To give an unbiased look at it based purely on production and position.

He was 24th in points, 31st in PPG over that period. 17th among centres in PPG.

Even using today's salary numbers, 17th among centres is 8.5 million. Which fwiw if we went back is probably pretty close to what I was arguing he was worth before we signed him.

 

[Preston]

Because you get to hide how much you’re paying for a player in AAV, when you also have to pay to acquire him before paying him that.





You said you used to believe they didn’t become available, now they do….free agency is a chance to get players for just money, while not emptying your draft/prospect cupboard to acquire them.

It’s a rare opportunity…..and if we didn’t sign Tavares, I’m afraid that money is just as likely spent on other free agents than it is on superstar trade acquisitions. Maybe I’m wrong on that tho. Nearly impossible to know what we’d have dealt for.

I sure as hell would rather pay picks for Lindholm or Ekholm than Lybushkin, Schenn, Foligno. Not sure I care about some late 1sts if it means they have a #1 or 2d. Picks are meant for contenders to use as currency to address needs and using them on difference makers will never get a complaint out of me.

I think players like him are available everywhere all the time, but I misinterpreted the player that I thought he was at the time; I, like you, thought it was super rare. He's ROR caliber, and in his prime maybe Lindholm or Ekholm caliber if you want to equate him to a d. They're available quite often and often make half the money. That would have been huge.

 

[Montana]

BG’s point needs to be repeated tho…..not only do we not get the team friendly deals Florida, Tampa, Vegas, Boston got…..which allow their top 4 to be cheaper than ours……we also signed our guys at the near exact moment to get maximally fucked by Covid & the lack of cap increases.

Throw in us still actually being very good, but having shit puck luck, losing Tavares for one series, Kadri for two…..and yeah, our process was gonna live up to its potential when we put it in place.


Sucks, but that’s the reality of it.

 

[Preston]

Tldr: I value cap space more a loooooot more than draft picks.

 

[MindzEye]

So it's natural to be sitting here thinking maybe we shoulda just kept Kadri afterall, IMO.

Yup, I'll be honest and admit to being part of the "you can't trust him" brigade at the time as a stupid, emotional fan. But the right play was to go get another "Kadri" level centre imo and not to dump Kadri for Kerfoot, which turned out to be a massive canary in the coal mine regarding that front office's pro scouting abilities.

 

[Montana]

To give an unbiased look at it based purely on production and position.

He was 24th in points, 31st in PPG over that period. 17th among centres in PPG.

Even using today's salary numbers, 17th among centres is 8.5 million. Which fwiw if we went back is probably pretty close to what I was arguing he was worth before we signed him.

Just if you have it pulled up already….where does he rank in goals over that time span and goals amongst centres. (purely out of curiosity)

 

[Wayward DP]

If we are using hindsight as our guide, I'm sure future cap projections looked very good in 2018. Shanaplan was expecting to be able to spend serious cap dollars to surround that core with good offensive players. Covid changed everything. As did Covid-era expansion.

this is a fair point.

 

[axlsalinger]

So 9.4 million sounds like a lot of value (we'll set aside where the value comes from for a moment) but that's not 9.4 million in NHL cap value, that's 9.4 million in Dom bucks.

The reality of the NHL financial landscape is that MVP performances are worth 11-13.25 million dollars, not 20 million.

Isn't this more like the argument that the most elite players are worth $15-20M, or in other words more than they're allowed to be paid under the cap (similar to LeBron)? If we're largely talking about a few players at the top, not sure how much that would or should affect the rest of the player pool, ie. a $9m player in "Dom bucks" is probably worth close to that in the real world too.

 

[Preston]

this is a fair point.

Should have listened to bill gates and factored that into their planning. He knew a plandemic was coming.

 

[Montana]

Tldr: I value cap space more a loooooot more than draft picks.

Thats one thing I massively agree with you on….we should have applied the same strategy we had with respect to the cap:…as we did to trading assets.

Spend it on top talent, not on dice rolls…..not acquiring the likes of Ekholm or Lindholm, or something comparable, is a big big whiff, when what we did spend those assets on choked so hard.

 

[axlsalinger]

Should have listened to bill gates and factored that into their planning. He knew a plandemic was coming.

we could even play a Youtube clip taken out of context that doesn't really say what we're arguing it says, to prove it!!

 

[Wayward DP]

Should have listened to bill gates and factored that into their planning. He knew a plandemic was coming.

what kind of legit nerd doesn't know when a pandemic is imminent eh

 

[MindzEye]

I sure as hell would rather pay picks for Lindholm or Ekholm than Lybushkin, Schenn, Foligno. Not sure I care about some late 1sts if it means they have a #1 or 2d. Picks are meant for contenders to use as currency to address needs and using them on difference makers will never get a complaint out of me.

I think players like him are available everywhere all the time, but I misinterpreted the player that I thought he was at the time; I, like you, thought it was super rare. He's ROR caliber, and in his prime maybe Lindholm or Ekholm caliber if you want to equate him to a d. They're available quite often and often make half the money. That would have been huge.

Yeah, that's the argument I made pre signing. It's not that signing a super star is bad. It's that John Tavares is no superstar. I remember 101 calling him a "90th percentile" player at the time, because there was some analytics website using bell curves that we were throwing around on here, and I agree with that. John Tavares was a 90th percentile player at the time we signed him. But it's always a mistake to give 100th percentile money to a 90 percentile player.

 

[MindzEye]

Just if you have it pulled up already….where does he rank in goals over that time span and goals amongst centres. (purely out of curiosity)

18th in overall goals, 11th among centres.

 

[Montana]

Yup, I'll be honest and admit to being part of the "you can't trust him" brigade at the time as a stupid, emotional fan. But the right play was to go get another "Kadri" level centre imo and not to dump Kadri for Kerfoot, which turned out to be a massive canary in the coal mine regarding that front office's pro scouting abilities.

Yeah, I think we have to factor in how fucking hard it is for a team like ours to not trade Kadri in a situation like that….(like I wouldn’t even be surprised if the board put pressure on Shanny over it)

….but blowing the trade, is what really doubles down on making it the deadly sin it was.

 

[MindzEye]

Isn't this more like the argument that the most elite players are worth $15-20M, or in other words more than they're allowed to be paid under the cap (similar to LeBron)? If we're largely talking about a few players at the top, not sure how much that would or should affect the rest of the player pool, ie. a $9m player in "Dom bucks" is probably worth close to that in the real world too.

But they set the market. If the most they're getting paid is ~13 million, paying someone 11 million who isn't remotely as valuable as they are is bad business. Paying someone 9.4 million to provide half the value is again, bad business imo. You're much, much better off finding value in the middle who are maybe slightly worse (I've given a bag of names in the past, but Trochek is the first example that comes to mind) but for 5-6 million than you are paying an additional 3-4 million for 5 more goals. It's an economic efficiency issue in a capped system.

 

[Montana]

To mesh everyone else’s point and mine….i wish we could have gotten JT level talent for $8.5-9m a year and a handful of firsts we threw away elsewhere, instead of the $11m per we did, while still losing those picks.

 

[MindzEye]

Yeah, I think we have to factor in how fucking hard it is for a team like ours to not trade Kadri in a situation like that….(like I wouldn’t even be surprised if the board put pressure on Shanny over it)

….but blowing the trade, is what really doubles down on making it the deadly sin it was.

Taking a look at your options is the right move. Is someone offering another "change of scenery" centre of similar quality? Sure. Is there a high level player of need out there at another position? Sure. Fwiw, the original trade for TJ Brodie would have turned out fine-ish (though getting him for free as a UFA a little after sure makes that questionable still), but as soon as the value isn't there, you just live with it and keep him.

But we had John Tavares, so we felt he was expendable.

Yeah, about that. Fuck.

 

[BG]

Isn't this more like the argument that the most elite players are worth $15-20M, or in other words more than they're allowed to be paid under the cap (similar to LeBron)? If we're largely talking about a few players at the top, not sure how much that would or should affect the rest of the player pool, ie. a $9m player in "Dom bucks" is probably worth close to that in the real world too.

This is why when I calculate pts/total cap I only use the available cap dollars (even though not every team spends to the upper limit).

So take a players point totals (or projected point totals) and divide it into league-wide totals, then multiply by total available cap dollars. It's not perfect, but makes sense to me as a way to properly disperse contracts.

This calc showed 140pt MacKinnon was produced around $16.5mil in points percentage last season.

McDavid: $14.1
Nylander: $12.0