[Meikkhaell]

I'm in!
I just got into liking hockey fairly recently but I'm pretty into it now. I've never done one of these before so I might need a crash course on the rules and stuff but it sounds like a great idea!

 

[Meikkhaell]

The Calgary Flames traded Hunter Shinkaruk to Montreal for Kerby Rychel.
Basically a draft bust for draft bust trade, both were drafted in the first round in 2013, but neither has done much at the NHL level at all.
Rychel has 14 pts in 41 NHL games (total), and 42pts in 71 AHL games (last year). Shinkaruk has 4pts in 15 NHL games (total), and 32pts in 63 AHL games (last year).
They were both signed to identical $650,000 2-way deals on their respective new teams.

All in all I think Calgary won this trade slightly. Rychel might never amount to much NHL success, but he's a little bigger than Shinkaruk, has more points at the AHL level, and who knows. Maybe some fresh faces will do him good.

 

[Oddball]

The Calgary Flames traded Hunter Shinkaruk to Montreal for Kerby Rychel.
Basically a draft bust for draft bust trade, both were drafted in the first round in 2013, but neither has done much at the NHL level at all.
Rychel has 14 pts in 41 NHL games (total), and 42pts in 71 AHL games (last year). Shinkaruk has 4pts in 15 NHL games (total), and 32pts in 63 AHL games (last year).
They were both signed to identical $650,000 2-way deals on their respective new teams.

All in all I think Calgary won this trade slightly. Rychel might never amount to much NHL success, but he's a little bigger than Shinkaruk, has more points at the AHL level, and who knows. Maybe some fresh faces will do him good.

I the same ready as you. How I heard it described is that Rychel has more of a "4th liner game" compared to Shinkaruk too, so that if he were to make the big team in any capacity it's clear where he'd fit in.

 

[Mountain Man]

Still don't get why the Flames traded for Shinkaruk in the first place...

 

[Oddball]

Two reasons I suspect. Firstly, the season we acquired him was 2015-16. We'd just regressed from our miraculous playoff berth the season before and guys named Sam Bennett and Matthew Tkachuk were not Flames property. Curtis Glencross was bounced the season before. Lance Bouma also spent most of that season injured and his decline would ultimately prove irreversible. Jiri Hudler was traded that same year. The Flames didn't really have a whole pile of depth on the wing beyond Gaudreau. Taking chance on a guy who as I'll discuss in point two wasn't always an afterthought seems like a fairly prudent thing to do.

Leading into the second reason, I think they were just taking a swing at a guy who was a touted winger coming up from junior at one point. I remember a buddy of mine was hoping that we'd draft him in 2013 as opposed to Poirier. He was pretty high on him having seen him play for the Tigers a number of times. His two seasons prior to the draft he put up 91 and 86 points respectively. I think the hope was that a change of scenery would do him some good, similar logic to Lazar I'd imagine. Obviously Shinkaruk never really rose to the occasion here and now we have Kerby Rychel.

(Rychel by the way is now the seventh player from the first round of the 2013 draft to grace our roster. Lindholm #5, Monahan #6, Lazar #17, Rychel #19, Poirer #22, Shinkaruk #24, Klimchuk #28)

 

[Meikkhaell]

In an interview a couple days ago Hanifin said he's "super close" to being signed, and expects it to happen before preseason.
He also mentioned that he really wants to stay here long-term, and his goal is to be one of the best defensemen in the NHL.

NYR defenseman Brady Skjei, who's also 6'3, ~210lbs, just got signed this offseason for 6 years @ $5.25M/year.
Hanifin's scored a bit more and played a few more NHL games than Skjei, so i'd say his contract might end up being somewhere around $6M for anywhere from 5 to 7 years.

I'm excited for this guy. He's trending up in almost every stat year-over-year.

 

[Oddball]

Here's a real August quality post for you guys. In typical, I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy fashion, a good buddy of mine just had a new custom home built. His builder is friends with another builder who is friends with the Eberle family. This builder with whom I share a tenuous 3rd degree relationship says that he wants to show off a house he just built to Jordan and his dad because he thinks Jordan might be interested in something similar. Fun right?

So I had to go look up Eberle's background naturally. I'd always assumed he was a Saskatchewan boy, but that isn't totally the case. Turns out Eberle's family moved here from Regina when he was 15. He probably didn't spend much time here in that first stint because he would have been back in Regina playing for the Pats by the time he was 16. So he maybe lived here about a year before junior and he's probably spent a number of summers here along the way too because by all accounts his parents still live here (Based on Wikipedia and this 3rd degree connection). He also happens to have gotten married in Calgary on July 22nd of 2017. An event no doubt planned while he was still an Oiler. So he definitely has a decent Calgary connection.

NHLers living in Calgary while not playing here isn't totally unheard of. As an example I've heard that Brent Seabrook of the Chicago Blackhawks lives here in the off season. Having a solid Calgary connection definitely doesn't hurt though. Brouwer was apparently building a house here before he even signed. Travis Hamonic also really wanted to be in Western Canada to be close to home (Winnipeg), hence partly why he ended up here. Calgary and southern Alberta area guys like Versteeg, Setoguchi, Raymond, Colbourne and Shinkaruk have also passed through the organization in recent years. Why not live and work near one another? Doesn't sound so crazy.

Eberle is an UFA at the end of the 2018-19. His infamous $6M x 6Y deal signed by the Oilers will have expired and let's face it the Islanders aren't looking like a squad that's too set up for short term success right now. With the deals that a number of UFAs have recently signed, why wouldn't you test the open market? At the end of next season Eberle will have just turned 29. Here's what his production in the first 5 years of that 6 year deal look like:

The only season he was below 50pts he missed 11 games. Otherwise, he's in a band between 50-65pts and didn't score less than 20 goals. For the record his best season came before his current contract:

It's doubtful he'll ever revisit those numbers, but it's out there as a potential upside risk. His final season in NY could have a lot to say about the price he could fetch on the open market. Maybe he can re-up with someone at $6M if he has another season around 60pts. Maybe he shows some signs of decline and can come a little cheaper. He also isn't totally in control of his own fate either. He doesn't have any trade protection and could easily be dealt by a rebuilding Islanders team that has no interest in watching another high profile asset walk for nothing. So maybe he ends the season playing for a contender and lines himself up for an extension there.

There isn't a huge amount to work with. A guy with some decent local connections is probably headed for the free market. It isn't like Brayden Point or Mike Green will ever play here. It's enough to have a little summer fun though. Especially when the August inter-season doldrums are setting in hard. So why not play the scenario out?

The Flames cap situation is tight next year. Signed roster players are taking up about $61M right now. The cap is $79.5M as it stands. Let's make a few wild guesses. Let's say next year's key RFAs Tkachuk and Bennett are signed for a combined $9.75M. Why that number? Well because I guess Bennett would have a solid but not mind blowing season and signed a decent Backlund's last contract like $3M deal. I'm also assuming Tkachuk shoots into the stratosphere and signs a deal matching Gaudreau and Giordano in dollars at $6.75M. Let's say Tree waives his magic wand and gets Hanifin done long term under $5M at $4.8M. Let's also say the 12th starting forward and 6th starting d-man slots will come from internal development at a cheap $900K a pop. It doesn't matter who. Let's say Dube and Andersson for the hell of it. Maybe it's Klimchuk and Valimaki, who cares. Anyway, if we assume that the cap climbs by about $2M, a respectable ~2.5% that leaves the team with $4.2M... to sign a starting goalie. Right... that.

So, we're already totally capped out as it is. Well, we need a roster spot on the right wing anyway. So let's trade Frolik. His $4.3M comes off, provided we don't have to take roster players back. That leaves the Flames with that amount of money. Let's also say that since Tree is working mostly with RFAs (and let's face it he isn't known as the Wizard for nothing) he shaves another $1M off of those other deals. RFA negotations are the man's sweet spot afterall. That gives $5.3M. Maybe that's enough? Maybe you have to sell Stone too? Which isn't out of the question. Lots of people don't think his game is very good. And with Valimaki, Kylington and Andersson waiting in the wings, there's reason to think Tree might want to push the pipeline along this season. So his $3.5M coming off the books give $8.8M. That's more than enough to do Eberle even if he does have another 76 point season. It's an interesting thought. A right wing depth chart that goes...

Lindholm
Eberle
Neal
Czarnik (He's on contract, but maybe someone else takes the job. Doesn't matter.)

...looks mighty nice. Especially when you fill in the whole roster.

Gaudreau - Monahan - Lindholm
Tkachuk - Backlund - Eberle
Bennett - Ryan - Neal
Dube(?) - Jankowski - Czarnik(?)

That's probably the deepest Flames roster since I was a wee little lad and the Flames were cup contenders. Somehow that isn't the end of it either.

Interestingly, Treliving is supposed to have called Toronto recently to inquire about Calgary native, American raised, Swedish bread and trained Willian Nylander. And Toronto for their part is alleged to have listened. He's younger and better than Eberle. He's also an RFA who looks too pricey for Toronto to afford with Matthews and Marner following up after Tavares next year. He'd cost Calgary in assets to procure, but if you can preserve the other 8 of my top 9 there and swap Eberle for Nylander that's one hell of a lineup.

There is a big wrinkle in all this, Seattle. They're supposed to expand the league as early as next year. And the expansion draft is assumed to follow the same rules as the last one. With all that forward depth, the Flames would definitely pick the 1G-7F-3D protection structure over the 1G-4F-4D one. So you get:

Goalie 1 - whomever that may be

Gaudreau
Monahan
Lindholm
Backlund
Neal
Takchuk
Eberle/Nylaner

Giordano
Brodie
Hanifin

Forcing you to expose Bennett, Jankowski, Ryan and Hamonic. (Assuming Stone was already traded.)

That's a nastly little list of potentially lost assets. Best case is probably trading futures to get them to take Ryan. Still, not cool.

Anyway, that's all I've got. I hope that helped scratch your summer hockey itch! I know writing it did for me.

 

[Meikkhaell]

Wow that was an awesome read, thanks Oddball!
I never knew all these players had connections to Calgary. Adding Eberle or Nylander would make our lineup legitimately scary to face. With Neal, Gaudreau, Monahan, Tkachuk, Eberle/Nylander, we'd have at least 5 perennial 20+ goal scorers on our team. Let alone Janko and any others who pop off as well.

As for acquiring Nylander, Toronto is most in need of defense, if anything. Not sure how much we have to give, perhaps some of our young guys ... but that creates a new problem. We'd be lacking defensemen ourselves. So I guess we either give them more forwards or a bunch of picks? For Eberle, Islanders are pretty out of it, they'd be looking for young guys or picks mainly to rebuild. I don't see either team letting their players walk for free.

For me we'd have to be in a spot where we can basically contend for the cup to trade for Eberle, just because he's already 29 and we risk overpaying a player who might only have a few more good years in him before he starts to drop off. Nylander is only 22 and could be a key player for us for a long time, but he's bound to be expensive. I'd honestly love to get either player, but it'll be tricky. I wish we had more pieces to trade. Not really any massive prospects in our possession (unless Dube and/or Gawdin can tear the AHL apart next season).

As for goaltending, it's tricky. Sergei Bobrovsky is 29, very solid, and an RFA next year. BUT I highly doubt Columbus will part with their star goaltender without a huge payout. Varlamov is another RFA next year, Age 30. He's had a history of injuries though, and unless Grubauer somehow becomes the #1 goalie in Colorado I don't know if Varlamov will be leaving there easily either. There's also Calvin Pickard, age 26, who's been decent so far in the AHL and in the NHL too. He played 50 games during Colorado's horrendous 48pt season, with a .904S%. Pretty good all things considered. Aside from that he played 16 games for Colorado in 2014-15 with a GAA of 2.35, and a .932S%. He's currently property of the Leafs.

Other than trading outright for a goalie under contract, those are probably our three best options. I kind of hoped the Flames would pick up Grubauer or Hutton this offseason, then we wouldn't have everything in 2018-19 riding on Smith's health. But I guess we can't have everything.

I definitely think if we can acquire Nylander or Eberle at a reasonable price we should go for it though. Those are two proven 60pt+ players with Calgary roots and I think they'd totally push us over the hump and into contention.

 

[Meikkhaell]

Hani-finally!!!
Flames just signed Noah Hanifin to a beauty of a deal, 6 years @ $4.95M per.
Imo that's a total steal, seeing as how he could've exceeded 5.5 or even 6 million dollars, to sign him for under $5M is exceptional.
The term is great too, we'll have him for basically all of his prime years.
We have $2.6M left this season, by no means is that a lot but it's definitely more than I thought we would end up with.

If he reaches his potential, we could have a player worth $10M locked up for only $4.95M. That's impressive.

 

[Oddball]

Pretty nice deal. Part of me was hoping for cheaper for longer, but that's just me being greedy. Under $5M is great. If Treliving ever writes a book I'd love to read it. I'd love to know how he consistently gets RFAs to sign below what outsiders expect. Obviously having Johnny Gaudreau and Mark Giordano in on good deals helps him leverage things in his favour, but that can't be all of it. Is he like some total hard-ass hard-baller like you wouldn't believe? Is he able to really sell the idea that distributing the wealth is as a path to overall team success? I'm immensely curious. *mumbles* something something something... magicians and their secrets...

$2.6M is definitely better than being totally capped out. After considering things a little more, I think the player we should be watching for to be on the move this year is Michael Stone. If the young defenders really make a push, he'll have outlived his usefulness at $3.5M. That would really require some outstanding play from the prospects though. Stone is a legit NHLer. Who ever would take his job has to be 100% ready for full times NHL duties. The Flames just don't graduate guys from the farm all that often unfortunately so it's a question whether this is necessarily possible beyond theory. As discussed previously, August is when "in-theory" is at it's best.

Stone has a modified NTC, meaning he as a 15 team list. So there goes the idea of shipping him to Ottawa to reunite with his brother as a higher functioning Freddie Hamilton. Maybe someone out there who really wants to court Mark would be interested in him. If you managed to swap him out for Rasmus Andersson there's a net savings of ~$2.7M (not taking into account his potential performance bonuses. Of which only a modest $82K is still available.). Roughly ~$5.2M is enough money to play around with if they really need to.

A goalie is probably the best place to spend that money. I didn't notice that Varlamov had a decent bounce back year. But his injury history is really troubling like you say. Maybe if Grubauer is really working out he becomes available. I don't know what their goalie pipeline looks like. Colorado would have to retain or the Flames would have to include another roster player apart from Stone to make the Money work. Maybe you could work a trade around Stone + Rittich? Rittich because Gillies is waiver exempt. Then you set up Varlamov and Smith as a 1A/1B tandem to keep either from being over worked down the stretch. Here's what it could look like:

There could also be other minor moving parts like picks and prospects, but I really only cared about it from a salary perspective. There's probably a few ways it could be done. You could trade Gillies rather than Rittich and if there's any LTIR in play on Calgary's side that changes the cap situation and probably changes our trade needs while we're at it.

Apparently the Flames had expressed interest in Jusse Saros (26G GP, 11-5-7 record in starts and 0.924 sv%) at some point. He's way younger at only 23, but less proven. He's also the obvious choice to take over from his countryman Rinne in Nashville. I just don't see the Flames being able to get that kind of deal done cost effectively. I can't see Columbus letting Bobrovsky slip through their fingers either. If Tre maybe had some dirt of Kekalainen, like he's hiding from a murder charge back in Finland or something? Maybe we could extort him out of Columbus, but I just don't see that happening. He's too integral to their success (when healthy).

 

[Mountain Man]

Hanefin deal is a good one I think, it's a bit long for a guy who hasn't really proven himself yet, but I think it should work out in the end.

 

[Oddball]

I was trolling Calgary Puck. Darnell Nurse won't participate in the Oilers' training camp without a contract. (Think the Johnny G negotiations in 2016.) Their already emaciated D-corps is really going to suffer without him. I hope he really sends them to the next circle of Cap-Hell with his next deal.

Obviously, as a player no one is going to look out for your own interests save for you so you have to hold out for the best deal you can at all times. Part of me wonders though if Oilers players aren't merely taking advantage of the weak GMing up the road and are trying to sign prohibitively expensive deals just to get traded out sooner.

 

[Meikkhaell]

Haha! Yeah I don't know what's up with some Canadian GMs. Cheveldayoff, Dubas, and Tre seem to be pretty smart guys, but the GMs of the other four Canadian markets sometimes seem like they have a screw loose.
I've really admired Tre's efforts this offseason.

I can't help but get excited that we play Edmonton, Vancouver, and even Arizona so frequently being in the same division as them. We play Vancouver 5 times, and the other two 4 times each. If we somehow win all those games, that's 26 points, a quarter of what we'd need to sit comfortably in a playoff spot, just from 3 teams. Even winning, say, 2/3s of those games brings 17 points.

Other news that might play to our benefit, arguably the best defenseman of Vegas was suspended 20 games for supposedly taking performance enhancing drugs. I feel bad for him because he accidentally took it as part of a different medication, and it was such a small amount that it's impossible he consumed it intentionally. Still, the league has a zero-tolerance policy and since we'll likely be competing for a playoff spot with Vegas, their setback could really give us a leg up.

With Vegas and Edmonton facing defense issues, and Anaheim and LA getting older and slower, we should have a good shot.

 

[Surrealplaces]

I was trolling Calgary Puck. Darnell Nurse won't participate in the Oilers' training camp without a contract. (Think the Johnny G negotiations in 2016.) Their already emaciated D-corps is really going to suffer without him. I hope he really sends them to the next circle of Cap-Hell with his next deal.

Obviously, as a player no one is going to look out for your own interests save for you so you have to hold out for the best deal you can at all times. Part of me wonders though if Oilers players aren't merely taking advantage of the weak GMing up the road and are trying to sign prohibitively expensive deals just to get traded out sooner.

I heard about the situation with Nurse, as was thinking the same thing. I hope he nails them for a hefty contract lol.

 

[Mountain Man]

Nurse is open to a bridge deal apparently, so not sure why they are having so much trouble signing him. Hope he holds out till Christmas though!