2024/2025 NHL/WILD Offseason-Season-Postseason Thread

Holy smokes that Russo article on veillieux and his accident! He’s lucky he’s not dead.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Holy smokes that Russo article on veillieux and his accident! He’s lucky he’s not dead.

Going to try and read that later today. Heard him on with Russo yesterday on KFAN. Sounds like a crazy story and hopefully he can recover.

King Leon re-signs with the Oilers for 8 x $14 million…that’s 16% of the current salary cap

Call me surprised, I thought he was going to get out of Edmonton… I was wrong…

Rumors abounded that he was going for 14.2. Man there is a ton of money tied up in 2 guys.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Rumors abounded that he was going for 14.2. Man there is a ton of money tied up in 2 guys.

Can you believe their GM gave him a full 8 year NMC

wait until McJesus re-signs for a close to the max 20% of cap deal in a few years…

Ya that’s pretty steep for one player but considering they went to game 7 of the cup finals and lost by 1 goal, you could argue its worth it.

gim wrote:

Ya that’s pretty steep for one player but considering they went to game 7 of the cup finals and lost by 1 goal, you could argue its worth it.

I don’t understand that argument (Canadiens went to the cup finals a few years ago with a mid-level lineup and led by a Defenseman who retired the following year, they were carried by hot Carey Price)…Oilers have had McDavid and Draisaitl the past 10+ years and in their prime and did nothing but make it a few rounds deep…

We’ll see how paying 2 players that big of a chunk (30%+) of your teams total salary cap will play out over the next 8 years…but I guess if you’re going to try that strategy, best to do it with the 2 of the very best players…

I guess they could have let him walk after making it to the cup finals and wait for their prospects to break out.

Since he signed his last contract at 8.5 he has been second in the league in goals and points.

Did you really just compare what happened to them last year to Covid 2021 Canadian cup final?

Leon’s contact is a hair over 15% in year one which is exactly nuts on with his comparables, Mackinnon and Matthews. It’ll be interesting what McDavid takes next summer. Bouchard too. Great problem to have though!

Comparing the current Oilers to the 21 Canadiens who haven’t made an actual regular playoffs since 2016-17 season is a choice. I know we’re getting the full Ricky Bobby bit here but the only teams to beat the Oilers the last 3 postseasons were the eventual cup champions.

I think Ripjiggen is right. What was the alternative? Let him walk and replace his production with “depth?” I do agree that its a steep price for one player but other options probably aren’t as good, so that’s what you do.

Ripjiggen wrote:

Did you really just compare what happened to them last year to Covid 2021 Canadian cup final?

pay attention… I merely mentioned the Canadiens as a reference that a team can make the cup finals and then disappear into league irrelevance for years to come…Just because the Oilers made the finals shouldn’t equate to future success and thus justifying Leon re-signing…

I’m not arguing about his $14 aav, the dude is a top 5 league player, I’m just saying the Oilers have had the 2 best players the past 10 years and in their prime and haven’t won anything, perhaps they could have decided to go in a different direction…I was thinking there was no chance Leon wanted to re-sign in Edmonton (I was wrong) so the rumors of San Jose possibly being interested in him would have allowed the Oilers to get younger and cheaper and still fill some of the roster holes that have plagued them the past 6+ seasons. You really think letting him walk for nothing was an option?

Now knowing Leon wanted to stay in Edmonton, you obviously re-sign him and try to put different pieces around him and McJesus and try to get different results…

It’s all about team building strategy, completely load up on a few stars or build around a single star with a better supporting cast…there’s examples of both working over the past few decades…

Trying to think of the single star scenario? Ovi?

Ripjiggen wrote:

Trying to think of the single star scenario? Ovi?

I was thinking of Washington (Ovi), Blues (prime O’Reilly?) Kings (Kopitar?) Bruins (Bergeron or prime Chara?) Ducks (Salanne) Hurricanes (Staal) You can argue some of these teams won due to their goalie getting insanely hot (Bruins/Kings)

I agree the formula recently has been to have at least 2-3 stars, what’s interesting is that other than Vegas, Caps & St Louis, the dominant cup winning franchises (Detroit/Chicago/Pittsburgh/Tampa Bay/Colorado) have been teams built from rebuilds and struck gold with their top pick decisions..

Franchises that went the other route winning with multiple stars: Tampa (Kucherov/Stamkos/Hedman/Vasy) Pittsburgh (Crosby/Malkin/Flower/LeTang) Colorado (MacKinnon/Makar/Rantenien/Landeskog) Blackhawks (Kane/Toews/Keith) Detroit (Yzerman/Federov/Lidstrom)

obviously Colorado only has 1 sofar, but I think most would agree they are probably one of the favorites to win more the next 3-4 years….

Well the blues had tarasenko, caps had backstrom so I don’t think those are great examples.

Sucking your way to success is not the preferred route. Both Shitcago and Shittsburgh did that. Be really really bad for like a decade so you can load up on high picks that hope to pan out. Bold move Cotton

CaptainMusky wrote:

Well the blues had tarasenko, caps had backstrom so I don’t think those are great examples.

The Blues cup team had a hot goalie and a really well balanced team… I agree Backstrom was the perfect compliment to Ovi, but not sure he was a star player? arguable both ways I guess…

The model that’s been working lately is suck for 3-5 years, make good decisions on drafting studs with your top picks and get lucky on 1-2 of your 2nd-3rd round draft picks and then figure out the proper role players to put around them…

Vegas is a really fun franchise to break down their success. They turned an expansion draft (that got them basically 2-3 regular drafts worth of picks acquired that they used to trade with) and built a year 1 contender that shows no signs of regressing…

The only benefits they have over other franchises were:
1) their expansion draft scenario (teams not making good pick/player protection decisions)
2) It’s a destination city, so they could sign UFA’s pretty easily
3) They don’t have a state income tax.
4) Owner willing to do ANYTHING financially to help the team

I’m really surprised other teams haven’t copied their strategy of using draft picks as nothing more than currency to acquire more seasoned players vs drafting and hoping prospect pan out…

I was thinking of Washington (Ovi), Blues (prime O’Reilly?) Kings (Kopitar?) Bruins (Bergeron or prime Chara?) Ducks (Salanne) Hurricanes (Staal) You can argue some of these teams won due to their goalie getting insanely hot (Bruins/Kings)

Bruins Lucic Kreici
Kings Doughty and Quick
Ducks Niedermayer Pronger

Agree on Blues and Canes but seems more rare than having a Batman and Robin scenario.

The whole hot goalie usually does work out if you also have a decent team but someone to steal games makes a huge difference.

Pretty broad definition of “star” here. I only see one true comparable of a generational player + a Hart winner. Big difference is that Crosby took an extremely friendly deal

What do we think is a realistic AAV for Kirill’s next contract (assuming he’ll re-sign with the Wild) for 8 years. He can sign it July 2025 and the Salary cap is expected to be right around $93 million.

Just to get some baseline numbers out there, $18.6 million is 20% of that $93 cap ceiling, $13.95 is 15% of that cap ceiling and that number is important as we’ve seen with the recent big NHL deals (Mathews, MacKinnon, Draisaitl) they’ve been right around that 15% number.

So is Kirill worthy of the 15% number? as a Wing, I don’t think so as the 15% zone has been primarily for Centers… if you look at the recent contracts of other superstar Wings (Pasta was 13.5%, Tkachuk was 11.5%) Pasta probably aligns most with Kirill, so 13.5% of next years cap is $12.5 million aav x 8 sounds like a fair contract. Now Kirill’s agent could put pressure on GMBG knowing they can’t allow the MN Wild fanbase to lose Kirill, he could also argue that Kirill’s numbers would likely be better if he had better linemates to play with and asks for 14%+

We’ve seen with Kirill that yes he absolutely wants to win and loves just playing the game of hockey, but he’s also very aware of what his value is (commanding a 5 year x $9 contract after just 50+ NHL games) and likely won’t take a team friendly deal…I don’t think he would want a 4-5 year deal as that puts him in his mid-30’s for his next deal and nobody is going to sign him out into his 40’s

So what do you think he signs for? (if he re-signs)

I’ve said for awhile 8 x $13aav gets it done…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

What do we think is a realistic AAV for Kirill’s next contract (assuming he’ll re-sign with the Wild) …

It’s basically all in that assumption. The first hurdle to clear is convincing him that there’s some reason to stay here because he can probably get the same money somewhere else.

I think what it’s going to come down to is when the time comes, what are his other options for the trifecta. He needs a team that (1) wants him and is willing to pay at the same level as the Wild and (2) has the available cap space without offloading salary and (3) and has what he sees as a significantly better chance to get to a final.

Not saying it couldn’t happen but that’s a lot to line up. The thing about these superstars is the massive salary hit means at any one time there’s only a small number of teams that can pay the high salary on a free agent. And a lot of times those teams have cap space because they’re not contenders.

My thinking is the wild need to put him out of their minds for now and focus on getting their s*** together with a goal of being a strong second round playoff team.

Billy Gee Wiz said it himself. The goal is not to win the first round of the playoffs. Now that was a strange way to put it, but he’s absolutely right. They only measure of success for the wild is getting into that second round and playing strong.

If the wild are looking like they’re either going to miss the playoffs or pull another first round flop, I think Billy Gee Wiz’s seat gets very very warm.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

If the wild are looking like they’re either going to miss the playoffs or pull another first round flop, I think Billy Gee Wiz’s seat gets very very warm.

I think he’s been given the timeframe of the season after this one…There’s no way GMBG does the buyouts unless he gets assurance from Leopold beforehand that his job is safe until the season after the major buyout pain (GMBG’s likely sales pitch was he’ll use the buyout pain years to re-tool the team to start it’s run after the buyouts)

I think the thing that complicated this plan a bit was the instant star power impact of Kirill Kaprizov and it resulting in making the playoffs and having a couple of the best seasons in team history (when pretty much all players had career seasons) this resulted in some questionable extensions and those players then struggling last year (If Hartman, Foligno and Gaudreau had similar production to the prior season, nobody would be complaining about the extensions)

The same thing the other highest paid wingers are signing for… 13.5% of the cap in year 1 of the contract. Rough cap estimate for 25-26 is $98m, round up to $100m to make this easy and Kirill will sign here for $13m-$14m on a 8 year contract. This isn’t rocket surgery.

tswoboda wrote:

The same thing the other best wingers are signing for… 13.5% of the cap in year 1 of the contract. Rough cap estimate for 25-26 is $98m, round up to $100m to make this easy and Kirill will sign here for $13m-$14m on a 8 year contract. This isn’t rocket surgery.

gah, I forgot he’ll have one more year at $9 after this one…13.5% is just what Pasta got and he’s hit 60+ goals…and will have been 2 years younger when signed…

Can split hairs all you want but I think we can all agree Kirill is in the tier of best wings in the NHL… that gets you 13%-14%. Anything under $13 would be team friendly and over $14 an overpay. Money won’t be the deciding factor if he stays or goes.

tswoboda wrote:

Can split hair all you want but I think we can all agree Kirill is in the tier of best wings in the NHL… that gets you 13%-14%. Anything under $13 would be team friendly and over $14 an overpay. Money won’t be the deciding factor if he stays or goes.

agreed, i’m just pointing out the details that can affect the number is all…

Yeah there’s definitely outliers and that could happen with Kirill too. Kucherov signed for an absolute bargain of 11.5% and Panarin is the only wing not named ovechkin to sign for over 14%. So what did we learn here… Russians do weird shi!t

tswoboda wrote:

Yeah there’s definitely outliers and that could happen with Kirill too. Kucherov signed for an absolute bargain of 11.5% and Panarin is the only wing not named ovechkin to sign for over 14%. So what did we learn here… Russians do weird shi!t

The Panarin deal was always a head scratcher, ultimately its worked out, but 14.3% 5 years ago was pretty crazy… oh look who Panarin’s agent is…