2022/2023 NHL/Wild Offseason-Season-Postseason Thread

What if Hellebuyck goes to the Devils look out.

Vegas’s salary cap guy should be the first person to hoist the cup…

So the Wild now officially have the final pick of the 2nd round…

The list of playoff injuries that will be announced by these last two teams should be interesting… getting to the cup finals is an exercise in survivability and pain tolerance…

Yeah just ask mark stone…he just did an interview about it.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Vegas’s salary cap guy should be the first person to hoist the cup…

So the Wild now officially have the final pick of the 2nd round…

I may be an idiot but please help me understand this? As far as I can tell their starting goalie is out on LTIR and Patrick Nolan.

Stanley Cup championships: Las Vegas-one, State of Hockey-zero. #Loserville.

Ripjiggen wrote:

Yeah just ask mark stone…he just did an interview about it.

How would he know? Didn’t he play like 5 regular season games before the playoffs?
Winning the cup is a lot easier with an extra 12 million to spend.

What a miracle of modern medicine. Sit out the year on ltir until the cap is waived, and suddenly he can play.

Ripjiggen wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JoeMX1825 wrote:</div>
Vegas’s salary cap guy should be the first person to hoist the cup…

So the Wild now officially have the final pick of the 2nd round…

I may be an idiot but please help me understand this? As far as I can tell their starting goalie is out on LTIR and Patrick Nolan.

I’m just talking about how after year 1 they have been doing salary cap gymnastics every season to get compliant with all the injuries, trades, sending guys to the minors, IR, LTIR, not suiting a full lineup some nights to add more cap, etc…

No team has ever done so much to move in & out of the cap… kudos to their “capologist” he deserves alot of credit…

It was reported that Vegas ended the season with the highest salary cap total in league, something like $97 million? (The actual cap limit is $82) All within the rules though so good for them, seems to be a trend most GM’s are taking advantage of now since Tampa…

Do you think the Wild would be interested in signing Phil Kessel as an extra forward? He played in all 82 regular season games for Vegas so his game is still relevant enough for the NHL… if he wants to keep playing (and also keep his streak going) i’m sure he’d take the veteran’s minimum 1 year salary and play wherever they decide to put him in the lineup… Obviously if the team’s direction now is to give Iowa guys these extra spots then it makes no sense…

People love to hate on him, but he’s had one hell of a NHL career! NHL Ironman, 3 time cup winner…

Tom schmitt wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Ripjiggen wrote:</div>
Yeah just ask mark stone…he just did an interview about it.

How would he know? Didn’t he play like 5 regular season games before the playoffs?
Winning the cup is a lot easier with an extra 12 million to spend.

What a miracle of modern medicine. Sit out the year on ltir until the cap is waived, and suddenly he can play.

Because he got beat to hell in the playoffs.
I honestly can’t imagine what these guys put their bodies through to win the cup.
Always interesting to hear what injuries guys played with.

I just hope the salary cap continuing into the playoffs eventually becomes a rule, It just makes zero sense to enforce it for 82 games and then stop…I’ve never heard of a good reason why it doesn’t and now we’re seeing more GM’s taking advantage of it after Chicago did it with Kane a few years ago and Tampa with Kucherov…

Of course the GM’s aren’t going to vote it out, its another tool in their bag to use to keep their jobs…

I don’t closely follow the AHL, but the Coachella Valley Firebirds, which is the Vegas AHL affiliate, are ahead 2-1 in the Calder Cup finals against Hershey. Is it common for the NHL and AHL teams to win both titles the same season?

I’m guessing it is because teams are typically right up against it and if they had multiple injuries in the playoffs and they needed to add bodies they would have the flexibility to do so. Just a guess.
Definitely dont think the rule was written to do what has happened.

gimruis wrote:

I don’t closely follow the AHL, but the Coachella Valley Firebirds, which is the Vegas AHL affiliate, are ahead 2-1 in the Calder Cup finals against Hershey. Is it common for the NHL and AHL teams to win both titles the same season?

Common? No

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Do you think the Wild would be interested in signing Phil Kessel as an extra forward? He played in all 82 regular season games for Vegas so his game is still relevant enough for the NHL… if he wants to keep playing (and also keep his streak going) i’m sure he’d take the veteran’s minimum 1 year salary and play wherever they decide to put him in the lineup… Obviously if the team’s direction now is to give Iowa guys these extra spots then it makes no sense…

People love to hate on him, but he’s had one hell of a NHL career! NHL Ironman, 3 time cup winner…

Doubtful.

Ripjiggen wrote:

I’m guessing it is because teams are typically right up against it and if they had multiple injuries in the playoffs and they needed to add bodies they would have the flexibility to do so. Just a guess.
Definitely dont think the rule was written to do what has happened.

Isn’t that what their AHL players or “Black Aces” are for? why would it be any different than the regular season? For a league that is so strict about the Salary cap and ensuring teams don’t cheat on it, to them remove it from the playoffs baffles me…maybe it has to do with a technicallity due to the players not being paid in the playoffs?

Funny, I just found an Athletic article written last year just before the playoffs started by Pierre LuBrun about this very subject, he even mentions how Vegas has abused the LTIR/Playoff rule and what that could mean if they make the playoffs (they ultimately didn’t, but we all know how this season ended after another season of LTIR gymnastics)

for reference, the Lightning 2022 cup team (Kucherov’s playoff return) had a final roster payroll of $98.5 million (cap limit was $81.5) Vegas just won the cup with a final roster payroll of $96.5 (cap limit is $82.5)

link for subscribers – https://theathletic.com/3208035/2022/03/24/lebrun-nhl-gms-to-discuss-extending-salary-cap-to-stanley-cup-playoffs/

Isn’t that what their AHL players or “Black Aces” are for? why would it be any different than the regular season? For a league that is so strict about the Salary cap and ensuring teams don’t cheat on it, to them remove it from the playoffs baffles me…maybe it has to do with a technicallity due to the players not being paid in the playoffs?

Yeah not sure. I guess either way they all play by the same rules so if some teams take more advantage than others not sure they will do anything until the next CBA.

Ripjiggen wrote:

Yeah not sure. I guess either way they all play by the same rules so if some teams take more advantage than others not sure they will do anything until the next CBA.

Technically we almost did it with Nyquist, but he got a few games in at the end of the regular season so we were cap complaint…

Devils extend Jesper Bratt 8 x $7.85…

They still need to sign Timo Meier who’s likely looking at $9aav and then they have several stud ELC guys who will need to get paid in 2-3 years… oh and they still don’t have a good solution at Goalie…it will be interesting to see how they manage the cap over the next 3-5 years…

Good run, but fell short of the goal of 241 pages, like the Wild there is always next year!

Not so fast there Werm. We still have till June 27th.

Page count.

Draft should generate a few more pages…

Caught the last few minutes of Russo on kfan tonight, mentioned Foligno carries the most value and could get traded if they need to free up capspace… also mentioned Duhaime could get traded as the Wild are worried about his concussion history…

I’d like to see the Wild move up in the 1st round if they can to get one of the better 2nd tier centers…they need quality over quantity prospects now imo…

The next week of draft preparation will be fun, I fully expect some big trades to happen around the league…. I think Chicago or Detroit will do something huge….

they need quality over quantity prospects now imo…

Don’t disagree but I think that goes for just about every team. One first line player is more valuable than 3 4th line players.

BG said I am sure every team would like to move up in this draft and I’m sure every team that picks early doesn’t really want to move back.

Isn’t the new thread supposed to start before the draft? Gives us a better chance to top 241 next year… There’s always next year! Next year is our year!

Pretty confident this off-season is going to be a whole lot of boring if a potential Foligno trade and a RFA goalie bridge deal are the headliners.

Unrelated to the Wild but NHL related. Just got back from Canada fishing and saw my buddy’s kid for the first time in 3 years because of Covid and hockey responsibilities. To say his body has transformed is an understatement and he hasnt even joined the Hawks training staff yet, but is working out in the cities with a bunch of D1 and other NHL players. Holy smokes does that kid eat. He is supposed to eat like 4000 calories a day and he sure seemed to. He also said that while Toews is listed at like 215 he is really 247. He said he is a tank but you wouldnt know it until you see him in shorts, etc.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Unrelated to the Wild but NHL related. Just got back from Canada fishing and saw my buddy’s kid for the first time in 3 years because of Covid and hockey responsibilities. To say his body has transformed is an understatement and he hasnt even joined the Hawks training staff yet, but is working out in the cities with a bunch of D1 and other NHL players.

I just think this is a really important point with NHL draftees, prospects, etc. The Athletic had a great article on this recently with good comments from Rasmus Dahlen about how over the top expectations are for even elite top 5 picks.

These kids are SO DAMN YOUNG when drafted now and this is in a league where skill has been going up, up, up. Marco Rossi is 21. Addison is 23. and these Rossi hasn’t seen a full NHL season and Addison has seen 1.

Basically you’re drafting adolescents and all their adult development has to happen in the system. Expectations of these young players coming in and making a big splash in their first full season with the big club are so high and this is only based on the tiny, tiny number of players who can actually pull this off. As Dahlen and others comment in that article, T=the vast majority of even R1 draftees will take years yet to develop after draft day and when they do join their big club, there are even more years before they reach anything like their potential.

Just looking back at the draftees that Wild fans wanted dumped starting about a month after they arrived…. This is by no means a complete list, so feel free to add:

Ek – Probably the best example, there were lots and lots of calls to ship his buttski out of here in his rookie and second season because he would never amount to much.

Dumba – In his rookie season, nobody thought he would ever amount to anything and there were plenty of calls to trade him before the first deadline.

Tuch – Here’s a player who a lot of fans branded as lazy and slow and basically thought we had pulled a fast one on Vegas when they took the “bait” in the expansion draft. Vegas laughed all the way to the finals at Fletcher’s expense on that one because not only did they get a prime player, they got a combo deal at our expense.

Addison – Way, way too soon to be giving up on him IMO.

I’m sure there are plenty more examples.

Addison – Way, way too soon to be giving up on him IMO.

Way way to small to be a viable option for the wild with already being small with 3 of their top 4.

I agree with you on the rest.

Grouse you nailed it and those are some great examples proving your point. I will say this this about Wyatt he is pretty cocksure not cocky. I told him his skating reminded me a lot of brodin. He said “I’m a better skater than brodin”. I go really!? He said yeah he isn’t as good forwards as I am which is probably true but backwards he is elite. I’d love to see rookie camp with Wyatt against bedard not that he is the fastest skater but he’s elusive.