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Leaf Rumours

The beauty of it is that it doesn't hamstring you if a great opportunity arises via trade or UFA. The Leafs could still go out and sign a veteran goaltender, if needed, and a guy like Perry.

you just posted a roster that is basically at the cap ceiling and is only under because you assume colorado would eat 25% of stastny's deal (bringing his cap hit down by $1.7mn).

now, i grant you that you probably overstated kadri's salary for next season (though i would agree that a long term extension is a possibility). and liles could be bought out.

but that still wouldn't give them the cap sapce to add anything more than a second rate veteran starter, and it would certainly prohibit them from acquiring a guy like perry.
 
Bozak is addition by subtraction. Stastny is well worth the risk, as he has the potential to rebound from is 60 pointish performances over the past two seasons with David Jones and over the hill Hedjuk. He, unlike Bozak, has a proven record of being able to be a ppg player over multiple seasons. There's all kinds of flexibility if it doesn't work out. Bozak will never get near a ppg production.
 
And considering all the contracts up after next year a one year option might be better than going out into free agency. If you can't get someone better, its not a bad chance to take.

or, perhaps you'd be better off just running with kadri, grabovski and mcclement/colborne, and saving that space to add an impact d-man, or a starting goalie (if necessary), or a guy like perry.

stastny's days as a 1st line C look well behind him. 4 years as a 50-60 point guy. this team's already stuck overpaying grabovski.
 
Stastny > Bozak AND Grabovski

Neither of them should be a deterrent when looking at acquiring Paul Stastny.

Lupul - Stastny - Kessel
JVR - Kadri - Frattin

Looks like a pretty good top 6.

Most concerning is having Kadri and Frattin thrown into a scoring role where they are relied upon to produce. Is Kadri a player that will sustain the production he's shown this year, or is this just a hot streak?

Ideally we would like to have a center with size ala Joe Thornton, Ryan Getzlaf but the price will be high to acqurie either this season.
 
When i say > i mean in the sense of trading both together or in seperate trades and getting Stastny on the roster.
 
The Islanders are a must to target to get a great prospect in exchange for Dipietro's salary. Wang will order his errand boy Snow to make the deal. It will be very disappointing if the amnesty is used on someone like Komisarek. This is a rare chance for the Leafs to have a real advantage in this situation.
 
you just posted a roster that is basically at the cap ceiling and is only under because you assume colorado would eat 25% of stastny's deal (bringing his cap hit down by $1.7mn).

now, i grant you that you probably overstated kadri's salary for next season (though i would agree that a long term extension is a possibility). and liles could be bought out.

but that still wouldn't give them the cap sapce to add anything more than a second rate veteran starter, and it would certainly prohibit them from acquiring a guy like perry.

They can amnesty 2 contracts. To arrive at your conclusion, you have them buying out only one and the cheapest of the three identified. Here's how it looks if you amnesty Komisarek and Liles.

APGEEK.COM USER GENERATED ROSTER

FORWARDS
Joffrey Lupul ($5.250m) / Paul Stastny ($4.950m—25.0%) / Phil Kessel ($5.400m)
James Van Riemsdyk ($4.250m) / Nazem Kadri ($4.000m) / Nikolai Kulemin ($2.800m)
Leo Komarov ($1.000m) / Mikhail Grabovski ($5.500m) / Matt Frattin ($0.925m)
Frazer McLaren ($0.696m) / Jay McClement ($1.500m) / Mike Brown ($0.737m)
Colton Orr ($1.000m)

DEFENSEMEN
Dion Phaneuf ($6.500m) / Cody Franson ($2.200m)
Carl Gunnarsson ($2.200m) / Jake Gardiner ($1.117m)
Morgan Rielly ($1.775m) / Mike Kostka ($1.000m)
Korbinian Holzer ($1.000m) /

GOALTENDERS
James Reimer ($1.800m)
Ben Scrivens ($0.613m)

OTHER
Buyout: Darcy Tucker ($1.000m)
Buyout: Colby Armstrong ($1.000m)
Buyout: Mike Komisarek ($0.000m)
Buyout: John-Michael Liles ($0.000m)

------
CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(these totals are compiled with the bonus cushion)
SALARY CAP: $64,300,000; CAP PAYROLL: $59,711,583; BONUSES: $1,150,000
CAP SPACE (22-man roster): $5,738,417

That's $5.7M in cap space after buying out Liles and Komisarek. Let's say the Leafs decide they want to go after Perry. They would certainly unload a contract to do that - namely, Kulemin's (who is tradeable). Here's how that works out:

CAPGEEK.COM USER GENERATED ROSTER

FORWARDS
James Van Riemsdyk ($4.250m) / Nazem Kadri ($4.000m) / Corey Perry ($6.700m)
Joffrey Lupul ($5.250m) / Paul Stastny ($4.950m—25.0%) / Phil Kessel ($5.400m)
Leo Komarov ($1.000m) / Mikhail Grabovski ($5.500m) / Matt Frattin ($0.925m)
Frazer McLaren ($0.696m) / Jay McClement ($1.500m) / Mike Brown ($0.737m)
Colton Orr ($1.000m)

DEFENSEMEN
Dion Phaneuf ($6.500m) / Cody Franson ($2.200m)
Carl Gunnarsson ($2.200m) / Jake Gardiner ($1.117m)
Morgan Rielly ($1.775m) / Mike Kostka ($1.000m)
Korbinian Holzer ($1.000m) /

GOALTENDERS
James Reimer ($1.800m)
Ben Scrivens ($0.613m)

OTHER
Buyout: Darcy Tucker ($1.000m)
Buyout: Colby Armstrong ($1.000m)
Buyout: Mike Komisarek ($0.000m)
Buyout: John-Michael Liles ($0.000m)

------
CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(these totals are compiled with the bonus cushion)
SALARY CAP: $64,300,000; CAP PAYROLL: $63,611,583; BONUSES: $1,150,000
CAP SPACE (23-man roster): $1,838,417

So, they could do this and sign Perry without too much difficulty, assuming Perry is willing and $6.7M is the going rate for such a deal with a $64M cap. This would then also allow the Leafs to acquire a reasonably good veteran to backstop Reimer/Scrivens if one of those two don't pan out.

All of this assumes that Nonis wouldn't be able to unload any contracts like Komi, Liles or Grabovski. If he could do that, they'd be able to make even more room through amnesty buyouts. So, no, this would not hamstring the Leafs at all.
 
or, perhaps you'd be better off just running with kadri, grabovski and mcclement/colborne, and saving that space to add an impact d-man, or a starting goalie (if necessary), or a guy like perry.

stastny's days as a 1st line C look well behind him. 4 years as a 50-60 point guy. this team's already stuck overpaying grabovski.

I would only do it in the summer if you miss out on Perry/Getzlaf/Ribeiro/better players.

I'd rather take a one year chance on Stastny than start signing other guys long term.
 
With no more hilariously front loaded, cap circumventing deals, the days of getting player like Perry in the 6.5-7 million dollar range are gone. Expect Perry to get 7.5 million or more, even with a 64 million dollar cap.
 
The cap circumventing deals clearly point to the fact that team have cap ceilings for these players. Why assume they'd increase those? The exceptions for this have been guys like Malkin, Crosby, Ovie. Not able to make these types of deals any longer, it is not safe to assume that this will imply increased yearly salaries/cap hits. All teams have to manage their cap and no one was willing to blow it out of the water before - which is why they engaged in circumventing the cap in the first place.

High end UFA cap hit limits for a $70M cap were right around the $7.5M mark last offseason (Parise, Weber, Suter). A proportionate adjustment would land around $7M.
 
Throughout all the work stoppages and returns, have we seen the GM's getting smarter about the cap, signings and salaries? I say no. Why think they'll learn now. The minute the last CBA was ratified it was the Devils of all teams that worked through a loophole.
And of course as long as the Islanders are owned by Wang...
 
ya, but the variance is going to make that impossible, unless teams collude to keep cap hits down.

gonna be tough to sell a guy like perry on a salary ranging from $6-$7.5mn over the term of his deal in years where guys like kovalchuk and parise are earning $12.
 
The highest cap hit any team has ever paid a UFA to date was last year - Shea Weber @ $7.8M. That's way, way below the max salary/cap hit.

No one is going to come close to getting the early salaries Kovalchuk and Parise saw under the previous CBA. This would require teams to screw their cap and virtually none have shown a willingness to do this. The game has changed. Maybe some dummy will do it, but he'll be the posterboy for how to **** your competitive position.
 
and fine, they can buy out liles and have $5.5mn in cap space to play with.. and yet you only fit in perry and stastny by assuming that colorado covers $1.7mn of stastny's salary and a below-market cap hit for perry despite the impossibility of a circumventing contract.

a $6.7mn cap hit barely puts corey perry in the top 20 cap hits amongst forwards. let's assume that a 27 year old recent hart winner hits the unrestricted market. do you honestly think a guy like that is going to end up with the 18th highest cap hit in the league?

i'm not sure why we would assume any adjustments that correlate to the cap drop. first, it's an open market and you can bet that several teams will bid for his services. but, secondly, salary variance has drastically altered the rules of the game. in fact, the union's problem with the variance was specifically that it would shift more resources to star players and the impact would be smaller salaries for second and third liners (who actually made the biggest gains under the previous cba).

last summer, on a circumventing 13 year deal zach parise, a lesser player than corey perry, got a $7.6mn per year cap hit deal. i just cannot foresee any realistic scenario where perry gets significantly less than that. it's not going to happen. somebody is going to pay him.
 
The highest cap hit any team has ever paid a UFA to date was last year - Shea Weber @ $7.8M. That's way, way below the max salary/cap hit.

No one is going to come close to getting the early salaries Kovalchuk and Parise saw under the previous CBA. This would require teams to screw their cap and virtually none have shown a willingness to do this. The game has changed. Maybe some dummy will do it, but he'll be the posterboy for how to **** your competitive position.

why does it matter whether a cap hit was paid to a ufa or not?

weber wasn't even a ufa. and his $7.8mn cap hit is amongst the top 5.

and it might be far below the max, but you know what isn't? his real salary over the next 6 years, during which time he'll pull $80 million, with $68mn of that in the form of up front bonus payments.

but you acn't offer that sort of contract nowadays anyways, so you can't use it as a benchmark.

as for weber -- his cap hit is still less than the 9.5 ovechkin is getting, and the 8.7 crosby and malkin are getting and the 8.25 staal is getting.
 

Nah, you really didn't. In the past they got to use cap tricks to add those players to keep their cap down. Previous to the cap though....teams were putting themselves in massive debt (hello Dallas) to add elite players at market rates.

The common denominator is that teams will do silly shit to add top players. Always have, always will. Now that the rules have been structured in such a way that trickery is harder to achieve, the average salaries will go up and teams will make cuts in other ways to manage their cap. Now we'll actually start to see the cap economics we see in other capped environments...where the top players are making damn close to the high end of the scale...and the majority of the players in the league having their markets depressed so teams can fit the top salaried players into their structures.

Just like we see in the NBA.
 
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