#a seasoned agent still under leon's wing

[citrine-elephant]

love how fanfic leads you down some weird ass paths of research sometimes...?

currently thinking, "i should look up realistic shipping routes across the atlantic and pacific" as if i'll choose to step foot onto a nicely wrapped platter for the ocean gods to snack upon.

and it's actually beneficial cause you learn random shit! all because you either want two guys to fuck in a new way, or you want to hurt your blorbo so bad.

[blackkudos]

Betty Carter

Betty Carter (born Lillie Mae Jones; May 19, 1929 – September 26, 1998) was an American jazz singer known for her improvisational technique, scatting and other complex musical abilities that demonstrated her vocal talent and imaginative interpretation of lyrics and melodies. Vocalist Carmen McRae once remarked: "There's really only one jazz singer—only one: Betty Carter."

Early life

Carter was born in Flint, Michigan, and grew up in Detroit, where her father, James Jones, was the musical director of a Detroit church and her mother, Bessie, was a housewife. As a child, Carter was raised to be extremely independent and to not expect nurturing from her family. Even 30 years after leaving home, Carter was still very aware of and affected by the home life she was raised in, and was quoted saying:

I have been far removed from my immediate family. There's been no real contact or phone calls home every week to find out how everybody is…As far as family is concerned, it's been a lonesome trek…It's probably just as much my fault as it is theirs, and I can't blame anybody for it. But there was…no real closeness, where the family urged me on, or said…'We're proud'…and all that. No, no…none of that happened.

While the lack of support from Carter's family caused her to feel isolated, it may also have instilled self-reliance and determination to succeed. She studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory at the age of 15, but only attained a modest level of expertise.

At the age of 16, Carter began singing. As her parents were not big proponents of her pursuing a singing career, she would sneak out at night to audition for amateur shows. After winning first place at her first amateur competition, Carter felt as though she were being accepted into the music world and decided that she must pursue it tirelessly. When she began performing live, she was too young to be admitted into bars, so she obtained a forged birth certificate to gain entry in order to perform.

Career

Even at a young age, Carter was able to bring a new vocal style to jazz. The breathiness of her voice was a characteristic seldom heard before her appearance on the music scene. She also was well known for her passion for scat singing and her strong belief that the throwaway attitude that most jazz musicians approached it with was inappropriate and wasteful due to its spontaneity and basic inventiveness, seldom seen elsewhere.

Detroit, where Carter grew up, was a hotbed of jazz growth. After signing with a talent agent after her win at amateur night, Carter had opportunities to perform with famous jazz artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, who visited Detroit for an extensive amount of time. Gillespie is often considered responsible for her strong passion for scatting. In earlier recordings, it is apparent that her scatting had similarities to the qualities of Gillespie's.

At the time of Gillespie's visit, Charlie Parker was receiving treatment in a psychiatric hospital, delaying her encounter with him. However, Carter eventually performed with Parker, as well as with his band consisting of Tommy Potter, Max Roach, and Miles Davis. After receiving praise from both Gillespie and Parker for her vocal prowess, Carter felt an upsurge in confidence and knew that she could make it in the business with perseverance.

Carter's confidence was well founded. In 1948, she was asked by Lionel Hampton to join his band. She finally had her big break. Working with Hampton's group gave her the chance to be bandmates with artists such as Charles Mingus and Wes Montgomery, as well as with Ernest Harold "Benny" Bailey, who had recently vacated Gillespie's band and Albert Thornton "Al" Grey who would later go on to join Gillespie's band. Hampton obviously had an ear for talent and a love for bebop. Carter too had a deep love for bebop as well as a talent for it. Hampton's wife Gladys gave her the nickname "Betty Bebop", a nickname she reportedly detested. Despite her good ear and charming personality, Carter was fiercely independent and had a tendency to attempt to resist Hampton's direction, while Hampton had a temper and was quick to anger. Hampton expected a lot from his players and did not want them to forget that he was the band's leader. She openly hated his swing style, refused to sing in a swinging way, and she was far too outspoken for his tastes. Carter honed her scat singing ability while on tour, which was not well received by Hampton as he did not enjoy her penchant for improvisation. Over the course of two and a half years, Hampton fired Carter a total of seven times.

Carter was part of the Lionel Hampton Orchestra that played at the famed Cavalcade of Jazz in Los Angeles at Wrigley Field which was produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr. on July 10, 1949. They did a second concert at Lane Field in San Diego on September 3, 1949. They also performed at the sixth famed Cavalcade of Jazz concert on June 25, 1950. Also featured on the same day were Roy Milton & His Solid Senders, Pee Wee Crayton's Orchestra, Dinah Washington, Tiny Davis & Her Hell Divers, and other artists. 16,000 people were reported to be in attendance and the concert ended early because of a fracas while Hampton's band played "Flying High".

Being a part of Hampton's band provided a few things for "The Kid" (a nickname bestowed upon Carter that stuck for the rest of her life): connections, and a new approach to music, making it so that all future musical attitudes that came from Carter bore the mark of Hampton's guidance. Because of Hampton's hiring of Carter, she also goes down in history as one of the last big band era jazz singers in history. However, by 1951, Carter left the band. After a short recuperation back home, Carter was in New York, working all over the city for the better part of the early 1950s, as well as participating in an extensive tour of the south, playing for "camp shows". This work made little to no money, but Carter believed it was necessary in order to develop as an artist, and was a way to "pay her dues".

Very soon after Carter's arrival in New York City, she was given the opportunity to record with King Pleasure and the Ray Bryant Trio, becoming more recognizable and well-known and subsequently being granted the chance to sing at the Apollo Theatre. This theatre was known for giving up-and-coming artists the final shove into becoming household names. Carter was propelled into prominence, recording with Epic label by 1955 and was a well-known artist by the late 1950s. Her first solo LP, Out There, was released on the Peacock label in 1958.

Miles Davis can be credited for Carter's bump in popularity, as he was the person who recommended to Ray Charles that he take Carter under his wing. Carter began touring with Charles in 1960, then making a recording of duets with him in 1961 (Ray Charles and Betty Carter), including the R&B-chart-topping "Baby, It's Cold Outside", which brought her a measure of popular recognition. In 1963 she toured in Japan with Sonny Rollins. She recorded for various labels during this period, including ABC-Paramount, Atco and United Artists, but was rarely satisfied with the resulting product. After three years of touring with Charles and a total of two recordings together, Carter took a hiatus from recording to marry. She and her husband had two children. However, she continued performing, not wanting to be dependent upon her husband for financial support.

The 1960s became an increasingly difficult time for Carter as she began to slip in fame, refusing to sing contemporary pop music, and her youth fading. Carter was nearly forty years old, which at the time was not conducive to a career in the public eye. Rock and roll, like pop, was steadily becoming more popular and provided cash flow for labels and recording companies. Carter had to work extremely hard to continue to book gigs because of the jazz decline. Her marriage also was beginning to crumble. By 1971, Carter was single and mainly performing live with a small group consisting of merely a piano, drums, and a bass. The Betty Carter trio was one of very few jazz groups to continue to book gigs in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Carter created her own record label, Bet-Car Records, in 1969, the sole recording source of Carter's music for the next eighteen years:

....in fact, I think I was probably the first independent label out there in '69. People thought I was crazy when I did it. 'How are you gonna get any distribution?' I mean, 'How are you gonna take care of business and do that yourself?' 'Don't you need somebody else?' I said, 'Listen. Nobody was comin' this way and I wanted the records out there, so I found out that I could do it myself.' So, that's what I did. It's the best thing that ever happened to me. You know. We're talking about '69!

Some of her most famous recordings were originally issued on Bet-Car, including the double album The Audience with Betty Carter (1980). In 1980 she was the subject of a documentary film by Michelle Parkerson, But Then, She's Betty Carter. Carter's approach to music did not concern solely her method of recording and distribution, but also her choice in venues. Carter began performing at colleges and universities, starting in 1972 at Goddard College in Vermont. Carter was excited at this opportunity, as it was since the mid-1960s that Carter had been wanting to visit schools and provide some sort of education for students. She began lecturing along with her musical performances, informing students of the history of jazz and its roots.

By 1975, Carter's life and work prospects began to improve, and Carter was beginning to be able to pick her own jobs once again, touring in Europe, South America, and the United States. In 1976, Carter was a guest live performer on Saturday Night Live′s first season on the air, and was also a performer at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1977 and 1978, carving out a permanent place for herself in the music business as well as in the world of jazz.

In 1977, Carter enjoyed a new peak in critical and popular estimation, and taught a master class with her past mentor, Dizzy Gillespie, at Harvard. In the last decade of her life, Carter began to receive even wider acclaim and recognition. In 1987 she signed with Verve Records, who reissued most of her Bet-Car albums on CD for the first time and made them available to wider audiences. In 1988 she won a Grammy for her album Look What I Got! and sang in a guest appearance on The Cosby Show (episode "How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?"). In 1994 she performed at the White House and was a headliner at Verve's 50th anniversary celebration in Carnegie Hall. She was the subject of a 1994 short film by Dick Fontaine, Betty Carter: New All the Time.

In 1997 she was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton. This award was one of thousands, but Carter considered this medal to be her most important that she received in her lifetime.

Death

Carter continued to perform, tour, and record, as well as search for new talent until she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the summer of 1998. She died on September 26, 1998, at the age of 69, and was later cremated. She was survived by her two sons.

Legacy

Carter often recruited young accompanists for performances and recordings, insisting that she "learned a lot from these young players, because they're raw and they come up with things that I would never think about doing."

1993 was Carter's biggest year of innovation, creating a program called Jazz Ahead, which took 20 students who were given the opportunity to spend an entire week training and composing with Carter, a program that still exists to this day and is hosted in The Kennedy Center.

Betty Carter is considered responsible for discovering great jazz talent, her discoveries including John Hicks, Curtis Lundy, Mulgrew Miller, Cyrus Chestnut, Dave Holland, Stephen Scott, Kenny Washington, Benny Green and more.

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Betty Carter among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Discography

CD compilations

1990: Compact Jazz – (Polygram) – Bet-Car and Verve recordings from 1976 to 1987

1992: I Can't Help It – (Impulse!/GRP) – the Out There and The Modern Sound albums on one compact disc

1999: Priceless Jazz – (GRP) – Peacock and ABC-Paramount recordings from 1958 and 1960

2003: Betty Carter's Finest Hour – (Verve) – recordings from 1958 to 1992

On multi-artist compilations

1988: "I'm Wishing" on Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films

1997: "Lonely House" on September Songs – The Music of Kurt Weill

[nomorebluehearts]

List-O-Muses

So, I have a lot, a few I cannot remember, a few I’ve never put on Tumblr... So I shall put up a list of them all... by category! Only certain muses will get an explanation and not all have blogs, the ones I remember that do will have them!

Also some blogs might have autoplay, I will label the ones I remember. Some of these blogs have not been touched in years, I apologize

Muse I’ve Had since Before Tumblr

Lexara (OC)- Originally a special agent of some kind, I made her around about 2005, when I first started to read Manga and started drawing characters. She had short hair- Like me at the time, and she was tough and rugged... because my protected catholic ass hadn’t learned the word ass or any swear word ever.

Muses I’ve had on Tumblr

Category 1- KH and FF

Leon/Squall (Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy VIII)- This blog still exists for the nostalgia. I don’t rp on it, but this was my gateway to RP in 2011 on this sight. I made it to be on an AU KH RP community, but it never happened, but I found some of my oldest and closest friends there, so yaaaay!! URL- http://transient-awoken.tumblr.com/ AUTOPLAY WARNING

Zidane Tribal (Final Fantasy IX)

Data Sora (Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded)

Reeve/Cait Sith (Final Fantasy VII and Dirge of Cerberus)

Vincent Valentine (Final Fantasy VII and Dirge of Cerberus)

Zack Fair (Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, Final Fantasy Crisis Core)- Url- https://gongagan-soldier.tumblr.com/

Axel/Lea (Kingdom Hearts)- URL- http://flamesxofxeternity.tumblr.com/

Vanitas- URL- https://menfilik.tumblr.com/

Category 2- TOME Canon Characters (because I have OCs too)

Nylocke- WAAAAAAY Back in 2011, I made him a blog, no one else was around, I cried, i deleted, but back them was when I started thinking of Omega... so that’s a plus

Zetto/Kirbopher- My second attempt at a TOME blog that I loved! the icon is from Muffin, I remember seeing the older one going omg it’s perfect, then I got to know her and she is very nice from what I remember (it’s been a while) URL- http://thexcyborgximp.tumblr.com/

Alpha/Kajet- URL- http://godsheritage.tumblr.com/ idk if it is auto play, but there is the possibility of music so AUTOPLAY WARNING

Sofdti/GC- http://lifelinkoftome.tumblr.com/

Category 3- TOME OCs (I’m putting them all here, even though some might fit in other categories)

Omega- He is one of my all time favorite muses I’ve ever made, I love using him, and I even named my car after him, same orange he has on his outfit. URL-http://remorseformistakes.tumblr.com/

King- Based off of an AU with a character named Lady Tigerlilly where the Virus takes over Zetto’s life. URL- http://incurableshadows.tumblr.com/

Squire- Same AU as above, but the other half of King’s code. Same URL.

Velvet- The Prototype to the Antivirus and ‘Older Sister’ of Cake’s oc Amber. I have done a lot more with her in private RP, so she’s grown more than the blog shows. URL- http://purpuravitae.tumblr.com/

Mocha Latte- The Barista of the Netkings named Jane Doe.

Category 4- Canon Misc (the muses on Tumblr that I used that aren’t big enough to class on their own like 1-3 were)

Yang (RWBY)- URL- http://blazing-beauty.tumblr.com/ AUTOPLAY WARNING

Sombra (Overwatch)- URL- https://boop-the-planet.tumblr.com/ Possible AUTOPLAY WARNING

Ryuko Matoi (Kill La Kill)- URL- http://alliancexofxlifexfibers.tumblr.com/ AUTOPLAY WARNING

Yami Yugi/Atem (YGO from Season 0 to 5 and the movies)- URL- https://forgotten-monarch.tumblr.com/

Raiden (Metal Gear Solid 2, 4, and Revengeance)

Pikachu (Pokemon)

N (Pokemon)

Male Pokemon Trainer (Pokemon Black and White)

Endrance (.hack series)

Haseo (.hack series)

Jade Curtiss (Tales of the Abyss)

Amaterasu (Okami Series)- I think I managed to get the blog url ‘Mother of All’, but that was ages ago

Shadow the Hedgehog (Sonic Series)

Levi Ackerman (Attack on Titan)

Nagito Komaeda (Danganronpa)

Rin Matsuoka (FREE!)

Link (Legend of Zelda)- I remember deciding to RP him as a mute, so I got really good at describing actions with him

Dark Link (Legend of Zelda)

Hsien-Ko (Darkstalkers)

B.B. Hood (Darkstalkers)

Sesshomaru (Inuyasha)

Category 5- OC Misc (same as above, but OCs)

Xurik (Kingdom Hearts)- Based off of a story I wrote for FANFICTION.NET (so ages ago) And never put up... I also have to heavily edit it, my vocabulary had found out about words such as ‘damn’, ‘shit’, and ‘fuck’ and I thought it was cool to use it a lot. I’ll take a pic of that notebook one day. it is a MESS. URL- http://ashenxheart.tumblr.com/

Kirara (Naruto)- A ninja with a demon that had an amazing voice, used songs to buff and debuff her allies and enemies.

Ezekiel (Final Fantasy IX)- the soul that became Zidane, he is the part of Zidane that craves the blood of Gaia’s Citizens. Can use a scythe made from blood and has Blood Wings......... I was just out of high school and very depressed XD

Riboruba (Final Fantasy VIII and Kingdom Hearts)- She is the personification of Squall’s/Leon’s Gunblade! Fun Fact: Riboruba is the Japanese pronunciation of Revolver, to which that is the style of Gunblade Squall has.

Category 6- Main Characters that are heavily AU-d

AU Abridged Yami Bakura (YGOTAS and Kingdom Hearts)- Yes... a parody character, which is it’s on AU in a way, in an AU where he is a keyblade wielder................................ tada! I made this with my good friend millennium-hearts at a con, and because of this blog we are practically family. URL- http://thiefxkeybladerxbakura.tumblr.com/ Possible AUTOPLAY WARNING

AU Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII)- He is basically Sephiroth, but winning, the world is pretty much dying/almost dead, so like.... Worst Case Scenario/Apocalypse AU

AU Nylocke (TOME) I’m putting this here because this is the Nylocke that is apart of the Omega Timeline. Where Nylocke had a twin brother (Nye is Colin-based on tta Nai’s name, and Martin- because Martin Billaney), who died. He is also the world’s best hacker, even better than the main villain of the blog, which was revealed once, but never by name. URL with Omega.

Hao Asakura- This was semi-based on the manga and the anime mixing. the story the blog was based off of is actually still on Fanfiction.Net i named Angel of the Devil (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6203556/1/Angel-of-the-Devil) Feel free to read it! There are 9 chapters!

Glitchy Red (Pokemon Creepy Pasta)- He was based off of many different piecemeal creepy pastas (Lost Silver, Pokemon Black, Strangled Red, Glitchy Red, small stories about the candle instead of flash, but used in a house it would burn it down, and the rope inside would make you hang yourself). This blog got me into KORN.

Category 7- Muses on Blogs that belong there, but are not the main reason people went to said blog

Xirra (TTA)- She is a re-purposed character with a whole new look to fit into TOME, and I used her on Remorse for Mistakes

Darkeyes (TTA)- Much Like Xirra, but never got onto the blog much.

Demon Eyes Kyo (Demon Eyes Kyo)- I read this manga in the 6th grade... it is fucking bloody and gory, so don’t look it up if you are weak stomached. I used him as the Guardian Spirit of Hao on his blog instead of the Fire Spirit.

Beelzemon (Digimon)- I had him on a blog I have yet to mention, but you’ll see why I haven’t yet, that blog is in a category all of its own~

Keldeo (Pokemon) He made a brief appearance on Kirb/Zetto blog... Chris named him Vic........ because voiced by Vic......

Muses I’d love to make, but I finally have self control so I won’t make them

Infinite (Sonic Forces)- Because he is my super floof boy and I must PROTECC

Qrow Branwen (RWBY)- I must protecc the birb boi too

THE LUKA-POCALYPSE I have had a lot of Luka’s in my time RPing, and I loved the name so much, I use it as my online pseudonym now... now you will learn where I get it from!

Luka Crosszeria (Uraboku)- This was the man I fell for, he is extremely loyal and protective of the one he loves through every reincarnation they have, and will do anything, even betray his own kind for love. So in a way, I can relate. I want to do the same with my friends and family and girlfriend. This is the blog Beelzemon is on.  URL- http://crosszeriaxbetrayer-blog.tumblr.com/ AUTOPLAY WARNING

Luka Crosszeria (Final Fantasy XIV)- She is my character from my favorite and most played MMO. And while she no longer has a blog, she does have an instagram! URL- https://www.instagram.com/luka_of_eorzea/

Luka Cross (OC- No other affiliation)- She is a girl with the power to summon elementals. From fire and ice spirits, to even the goddess of the moon. Her goal is to gain the power of Elder Summoning. Aldo Omega is in this AU as the guardian of the Library of Summoners, and he is an Elder Summon.

Luka (TOME)- She is the little sister of Xirra. A different kind of virus, hers is a contact epidemic virus that spreads through touch. She has her hands covered at all times, and is very shy, but is almost second to none in hand to hand combat, being at least 30 time stronger than her just 4 foot stature would lead you to believe. she is also a lolita that wears extremely tall boots, and yet she is still very short... like just under 5 foot short. She also dates a giant dragon... and she sounds like Hinata from Naruto... she is an actual baby that is months old

[your-dietician]

Who on Edmonton Oilers' extended NHL roster is likely to be promoted to a "Core 12" spot next season?

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/nhl/who-on-edmonton-oilers-extended-nhl-roster-is-likely-to-be-promoted-to-a-core-12-spot-next-season/

Who on Edmonton Oilers' extended NHL roster is likely to be promoted to a "Core 12" spot next season?

Breadcrumb Trail Links

Cult of Hockey

Author of the article:

Bruce McCurdy  •  Edmonton Journal

Vancouver Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes (43) checks Edmonton Oilers forward Ryan McLeod (71) in the third period at Rogers Arena. Oilers won 5-3 on May 4, 2021. Photo by Bob Frid /USA TODAY Sports

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The other day we began our off-season review of Edmonton Oilers’ roster with a detailed look at the club’s “Core 12” players, a group that includes the starting goalie, top two defence pairs, top two forward lines plus third-line centre. While one or two of those spots might be open to debate, I chose the following dozen: 

Lots of holes in this version of the Oilers Core 12, of which no fewer than 8 players (white background) played under expiring contracts in 2021 and are poised to become free agents next month. Of the others, 2 have a year to run on their current pact (blue background), and 2 are locked up long term (orange). Thankfully, that latter category includes both of Edmonton’s “franchise” players.

Let’s look a little further down the line-up this time:

Every skater here played 8 or more NHL games with the Oilers this past season, nobody else played even 1. The list does include a tiny shuffle between the pipes, where mid-season waiver pickup Alex Stalock dressed as a backup goalie a couple of times, but saw no game action. He was on an NHL roster all season long so clearly belongs with this group. Stuart Skinner on the other hand did play an NHL game, but primarily was a core player for Bakersfield Condors so will be considered later.

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Whereas there are tons of pending free agents in the Core 12, the secondary players — including at least 2 at each position — are largely under contract. That’s not necessarily a good thing, especially on a team whose bottom 6 forwards have gotten owned at 5v5 on an annual basis.

Before we slice the chart vertically and review on a position-by-position basis, it’s instructive to do so horizontally and look at them as 6-man units. The first of those — Neal-Turris-Kassian-Russell-Bear-Koskinen — is not only under contract, but for a collective $18.35 million in ’21-22. That’s over $3 million a man. Not too many value pacts to be seen, especially up front where veterans Neal, Turris and Kassian each played only half the season for various reasons, combining for just 9 goals at a cap hit of $10.6 million. And not one of those contracts is expiring. Ouch.

The second set of Shore-McLeod-Archibald-Jones-Bouchard-Stalock at least has the virtue of being inexpensive, to the tune of less than $1 million per. At that level, contracts can be buried in the AHL, making those spots more open to competition.

Just 6 guys on the entire list who don’t have a contract, 2 of them already committed elsewhere. At first blush the other 4 are in deep simply due to the numbers game.

Left wing

Mixed reviews on the big contract-driven trade that brought James Neal to Edmonton in exchange for Milan Lucic. Some saw it as a Ken Holland-inspired miracle, but the net effect to this point is that Edmonton’s cap hit went up, not down. Instead of absorbing $6.0 million per season on Lucic, the Oilers are on the hook for a net $6.5 million, of which $5.75 is Neal’s AAV and the other $750k cap retention on Lucic. Neal came out guns blazing in Oil Country, but since the calendar turned to 2020 has struggled with injury and COVID and scored just 5 goals in 42 games. With 2 years yet to run on that contract and Neal about to turn 34 before camp opens, the Oilers may well be considering a buyout. That would open a little over $3.8 million in cap space the next 2 years, but claw back 50% of that amount in the following 2. This per PuckPedia.com: From the organization’s perspective the buyout option is the one significant advantage of the Neal pact vs. that of Lucic, which was and is virtually buyout-proof. But that only comes into play if the Oilers actually pull the trigger. Best guess here is that they will.

Devin Shore was RFA at season’s end, but has already signed a 2-year extension at $850,000 per.

Tyler Ennis was acquired for a draft pick at the 2020 trade deadline, then signed to a 1-year extension which has run its course. The 31-year-old vet showed some nice offensive flashes, but ultimately scored just 3 times in 30 games while twice clearing waivers and spending plenty of time on the taxi squad. A small forward with no meaningful role on special teams, I’ll speculate Ennis won’t be re-signed a second time.

Joakim Nygard‘s NHL dream was ruined by a badly-broken hand. He has already committed to a 6-year (!) contract back in his native Sweden.

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Centre

Just 3 centres listed in our chart above, though its worth remembering our initial Core 12 had an “extra” centre in Jujhar Khaira, identified as a 3C which by definition is a bottom 6 player. Indeed, Khaira played fewer than 10 minutes all season long with each of Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and scarcely more than that with anyone who might identify as a “skill winger”. He’s RFA with a qualifying platform of $1.3 million. We discussed JJK’s situation in the previous post, and also in the podcast associated with this one.

Signed to a 2-year contract on the first day of free agency, Kyle Turris showed plenty off the ice, where he received Edmonton’s nomination for the King Clancy Award for his exemplary work at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital. On the ice was another story, however, where he struggled right out of the gate at both ends of the sheet. The would-be 3C soon wound up as a bit player, clearing waivers at one point and playing on the wing on those rare occasions when he got a game. He finished with just 2-3-5 and a team-worst -11 in 27 games. Alas, he still has a year to run at a cap hit of $1.65 million. Oilers could consider buying him out but are more likely to send him to Bakersfield which would allow them to bury $1.125 million and retain “just” $525,000 against the cap. Not impossible he rebounds and makes the club, of course, but that seems the unlikelier outcome from this distance.

Ryan McLeod made terrific strides in 2020-21, first getting some productive time in the Swiss National League before ripping it up in the AHL (28 GP, 14-14-28, and a league-leading +23). That earned him the distinction of an in-season recall to the NHL, the only player in the organization to do so successfully. He got his feet wet with 10 games and 4 more in the playoffs, scoring just 1 point but showing decent promise. McLeod projects to being a #3C in due course, but surely is better pencilled in at 4C next year until such time as he plays his way up the line-up. Shows real promise to be a draft-and-develop success story, a rare bird in this part of the world.

Gaetan Haas was a quirky, fun player to watch with some real defensive utility but zero offence that translated to the NHL. Like Nygard, he’s signed a long-term deal (5 years) back home, in his case Switzerland.

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Right wing

Zack Kassian‘s counting numbers in 2021 were literally that: 1 fight, 2 goals, 3 assists, dash-4, 5 points. His season was limited to just 27 games due to 2 significant injuries. After a monster 2019 riding shotgun with McDavid that saw him score 24-26-50 in 82 games between Jan 01 and Dec 31, he was signed by Holland in 2020 January to a 4-year extension at a whopping $3.2 million AAV. But the wheels came off right away; he’s scored just 4 times in 47 games since the calendar turned to 2020. Now 30, his career is at (another) crossroads. While there are some whispers that eastern-based clubs might be interested on the trade market, one wonders if they might balk at that cap hit. Best guess is that he’ll still be an Oiler come the fall, with Holland foremost among those fervently hoping for a bounceback season.

Josh Archibald was signed in the summer of 2019 to a 1-year-deal, then re-upped for 2 years with a 50% raise that raised his cap hit to $1.5 million. That deal still has a year to run. Oilers fans can expect more of the same fast-skating, hard-hitting, aggressive-penalty killing style Arch has brought to this point, along with maybe 10 goals.

Alex Chiasson came to Edmonton in 2018 at a crossroads, having just won a Stanley Cup but unable to land a contract. He had to come to camp on a professional tryout before winning an NHL minimum pact from the Oil and using it as a springboard to a career-best 22-goal season. Holland signed him to a 2-year extension in the summer of 2019 at a pricier $2.15 million, for which he delivered responsible even-strength play and net-front excellence on the league’s best powerplay, but only 20 goals combined over the 2 years. That pact has now expired and the cap space likely to be used elsewhere, though it’s not impossible he could be brought back at a significantly lower figure. Best guess here? He’s gone.

Patrick Russell has gotten way further than anyone could have expected since he was signed as a college free agent back in 2016, ultimately signing 4 different contracts with the org. He spent parts of the last 3 seasons with the Oilers, appearing in 59 games overall. Alas, the promising offence he showed in the AHL did not survive the trip to Canada, and he remains stuck on 0 career goals. The Dane was OK-ish as an occasional fill-in on the 4th line, but with his latest 1-year pact expired it seems likely the org will look elsewhere to fill his spot. Almost the definition of a “replacement-level player”.

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Left defence

Kris Russell has been an Oiler for 5 years now, the last 4 of them at a $4 million AAV. His ice time dwindled the last 2 seasons, and he appeared in just 35 games in 2021. Partly due to expansion draft requirements, the organization saw fit to sign him to a 1-year extension at less than a third of his old cap hit. That’s a more appropriate price tag for a guy who projects to a part-time third-pairing role. The diminutive 34-year-old still has defensive chops but has never excelled at the transition game.

Caleb Jones still has a year to run on the 2-year, $850k AAV pact he signed early in 2020. At the time it projected as a value contract, but a year later the player has struggled to make the next step and optimism about his future is waning in some quarters, though not in others. He had a great chance to step into a second pairing role but instead stepped into his coach’s doghouse on occasion. He remains a promising young player who may well be targeted by Seattle Kraken in the upcoming expansion draft.

William Lagesson got an extended look on a defence-first pairing with Adam Larsson. He played a robust game and won his share of physical battles, but brought very little in terms of offensive or even transition game. The Oilers averaged just 16.34 shots per hour that he was on the ice at 5v5, by far the lowest among the 712 NHL skaters who played at least 120 minutes. (Teammate Haas was next at 19.63, over 20% (!) higher.) He’s halfway through the 2-year pact he signed last summer, but as he enters his Draft +8 season it’s surely fair to conclude “limited upside”.

Slater Koekkoek signed a 1-year deal late in free agency, won some fans with his early play before getting injured. He’s poised to become UFA again, even as many folks have penciled his name in as a likely returnee. This observer is less sure about that, given the organization’s depth at left defence. Detailed write-up here.

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Right defence

Finally, a chance to discuss a player who has a legitimate shot to move from this group into the Core 12 next season. That would be Ethan Bear, who was a top 4 defender in his impressive rookie season in 2019-20 who found himself in a third-pairing role on many nights in 2021. Both guys who were ahead of him, Tyson Barrie and Larsson, are currently UFA. Only one of them is pat to be back — I’m guessing Larsson — with Bear well-positioned to step back into his old pairing with Darnell Nurse. He has a year to run on a bridge deal that carries a $2.0 million cap hit.

Evan Bouchard also projects as a Core 12 type in the future, though it’s likely he will first be eased into a third pairing role. He was blocked by all 3 of Barrie, Larsson and Bear in 2021, and played just 14 games in what many saw as a failed developmental opportunity.

Goaltenders

Mikko Koskinen had a hugely disappointing season that failed to build on what was a fairly strong 2019-20. He was OK for a while in the backup role, but struggled mightily any time he got more regular ice time. He definitively lost the #1 job to Mike Smith, whose base salary was just a third of Koskinen’s. That $4.5 million cap hit still has a year to run, leading some to speculate that the Oilers might buy him out. If they try to move him in a trade it will come with a cost of a sweetener, cap retention, and/or a hefty pact coming the other way. Detailed write-up here.

Alex Stalock was plucked off the waiver wire at mid-season, but came with an ongoing health issue and spent plenty of time in a non-roster position before eventually being activated as a third goalie. He played no games. He’s cheap ($785k), experienced, and might battle for a backup job in the fall, though he’s more likely to stay as the #3 man in the depth chart. That’s problematic in an organization that has 3 promising young goaltenders with North American pro contracts and limited places to play.

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Summary

19 players in all discussed here, a meaty post to say the least. Primary takeaways are three-fold:

too many weighty contracts in the lower echelon of the roster, and no easy path to clear them out that doesn’t leave residual dead cap space like buyouts or cap retention.

too few players on the list who project into the Core 12 in the near or intermediate term. I count just Bear in the former category, with Bouchard, Jones and McLeod (as the token forward) in the latter. Given all the potential vacancies due to free agency, internal help still seems to be a fair ways off.

including the Core 12 plus those detailed here, just 2 players (McLeod and Bouchard) on the NHL roster will still be on their Entry Level Contract in ’21-22.

Of course the club has other players in the pipeline who were outside the NHL last season, including several promising ones. We’ll dive into this last group next time.

Recently at the Cult of Hockey

STAPLES: One lesson Oilers could learn from the defending champs

McCURDY: Holland has a big problem with Oilers’ depth lines

LEAVINS: Oilers need to get better players — 9 Things

STAPLES: Evening the score for the Oilers at the 2021 NHL Draft

McCURDY: The next few weeks will define Holland as Oilers GM

Follow me on Twitter @BruceMcCurdy

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[getseriouser]

20 THOUGHTS: Greene, Eye-Gouge Monster

AND then there were four. 

Two redemption stories, a minor premier seeking validation and an underdog looking for quality over quantity 

Richmond were fantastic in 2017 and arguably looked better the following year. A grand an opportunity to go back to back you’d never see yet in the penultimate weekend they stuffed it. Tipping they’re still dirty.

Collingwood, the winners that night a year ago, came from nowhere to lose agonisingly a week later. Tipping they’re dirty on that still too.

Geelong has a monkey on its back the size of Naomi Watts’ co-star in that 2005 film set in Skull Island. The minor premier yet not rated a legitimate flag chance. They’d be dirty on that.

And lastly the Giants. Third prelim in four seasons, no-one has put together a more consistent body of finals work without tasting ultimate success. They’d be dirty they haven’t converted a golden opportunity yet.

Lot of get-even stories going on, three will go unsatisfied, yet one will succeed and nothing will taste sweeter.

  1.       Start with Toby Greene – still don’t get it. Last week, Bont, that was either a free-kick at most or a couple weeks for doing something properly grubby and in need of a spell. A contrived outcome later and he plays last week, instrumental in their win. Given the margin you could say he misses through suspension it’s a Brisbane win. Now, he gets a week and its upheld, but on the vision available the Bont incident looks worse. Don’t get it.

2.       Theory – Michael Christian wanted to see Greene go to the Tribunal last week on a serious charge where the Tribunal could come to its own conclusion, away from the constraints of the matrix Christian uses, and the Giant gets a suspension through that channel. It didn’t work, an agreed guilty-verdict into fine-only eventuated and the Christian plan failed. So this week, to avoid that happening again, he gave the suspension up front so Greene would have to work down from a week instead of the Tribunal working it out from scratch.

3.       As of writing this his suspension has been upheld but surely the Giants appeal on Thursday. Costs them $5,000, it’s a free hit, and given the size of the task Saturday afternoon and how important he is to them, they’d be mad not too. I expect them too, and in reality, it’s a 50-50 to be a success such is the crazy case it is.

4.       It’s an impressive four-year block for the Giants after that win last Saturday. Lost that epic prelim by a kick to the Dogs three years ago, were really in that prelim against the Tigers the year after a long way in, remembering they didn’t have Dylan Shiel for three quarters, and once again into a prelim this year. Leon Cameron has his detractors but they say winning a flag doesn’t just take planning and talent but a little luck as well. Given he continually gets this far, maybe that last ingredient is all they’re missing?

5.       Last one on GWS, from a league perspective it was actually encouraging to see that the left of screen displayed decent Giants coverage in the crowd in Brisbane Saturday night. Not a massive contingent but hardly the token couple-dozen of the early years, there was something half-decent for what is still a club shy of ten years old representing what is otherwise rugby and soccer heartland. Encouraging.

6.       Right, Brisbane. Told you so. This is a team who had zero injuries until Mitch Robinson and a draw softer than the Russians paid for at least year’s World Cup, so straight sets doesn’t surprise one bit. This is not a top four team, it’s probably a sixth to eighth team at best. Straight sets dot com, doesn’t surprise this column one iota.

7.       Luke Hodge though, what a jet, enormous career, huge for the Lions the last two years too, and we just love the look of Jarryd Lyons motioning to the two-time Normie winner for a chair off and the Colac product in body language alone gave it the “nah mate, cheers”. Love that. Well done Hodgey, certainty for a Hall of Fame Legend status at some point you’d think, with that resume.

8.       How was the Sam Reid ‘George Gregan’ impersonation on the game-winning-goal? Three or so posessions before the jockey Brent Daniels cheeky checkside, pretty sure it was Reid who dished the ball out like he was given a freshly-baked jacket potato unawares, very quick hands but by the letter of the law incredibly illegal. Umpy was never going to see it but gee, if only he could, would have paid a forward pass for sure.

9.       Speaking of umpiring, that spirit of the game free kick nonsense with Adam Kennedy and Charlie Cameron. My Lord. I hope the umpire mistakenly meant the stuff about constant niggle where a free is awarded if its just too much. But otherwise, under the letter of the law, Cameron coming back on was not injured. Play on. Ridiculous.

10.   So umpiring, was a shocker this weekend. Match Review and Tribunal not good either. Who is responsible for that? Old Steve “having a shocker” Hocking. My mate is just enduring the nightmare to end all nightmares. Rules, done nothing, scoring, down, I can’t see any portfolio he looks after better than this time last year. Lift Steve.

11.   Oh, and whilst we need to whack some folks – how about all that fuss about Mark Blicavs out of defence against the Pies and it cost them the game. They brought Rhys Stanley back in and where did the Blitz play most of his footy in the first half, a first half where the Cats played well? On the wing! David King was the main culprit. So we know not to ask him about the Geelong backline like we don’t ask him to be designated driver. Low blow, but he doesn’t read this, too busy with the behind the goals vision looking for Blicavs on Kennedy or Darling. He’ll be a while.

12.   So this week, what we got. Richmond playing a better Geelong but without Hawkins. Anyone see that going any other way than a Tigs win? Didn’t think so. Surely last year’s cock up doesn’t repeat. So one inner-suburban army of hundreds of thousands will bombard all of us in Grand Final week.

13.   Then, the day after, weather-pending the greatest collection of Collingwood supporters in one place ever since Pentridge hit capacity once back in the late 80s, hosting a GWS who have been tough for two good weeks but can they go again? The Pies might like the wetter conditions, the mosquito fleet up forward and a classy onball brigade. So we might end up with another huge inner-suburban army up and about in Grand Final week. Giants are in decent nick but, very decent nick.

14.   Good to see the Gulls make the VFL Grandma this weekend. Not just coz we like Willy almost as much as Liz Taylor, but because if it had been Richmond reserves versus Essendon reserves it would have been mega scratchy. Let’s just call the VFL for what it is, what used to be the well-respected VFA is now just the AFL Reserves comp with appearances by Port Melbourne and Williamstown. It’s a magoos competition and this Sunday one club will be caring more about the GF the Saturday after, the other will be hellbent on winning so they can secure a local real estate agent as a sponsor the year after to pay for the club jumpers.

15.   Jordan De Goey, oh, not worth the risk, he has only played ten seconds of footy in seemingly eight months and is made of tissue paper and is missing a limb and has Rickett’s. One thing though, aside from the German witchcraft and the fact he will have 22 days between the first final and a potential Granny – he hurt his hammy against Geelong in the opening two minutes but ran out, to little impact granted, most of the first half before heading for the tracksuit. No gratuitous stride out where the back door comes off the hinge and there’s the full dramatic hobble off the ground like you’ve got a bad case of pins and needles. Sure, he has a bad history, but this was not your typical tear. If the Pies win, I think he is a certainty to play Grand Final day.

16.   Ashes, all done. But please, Timothy. If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a million times: if you win the toss, nine times out of ten you bat first. On the tenth time you think about bowling, but you bat first. We lost the fifth test at the toss.

17.   Davey Warner. Couldn’t middle shit. You know you’re going busted when Stuart Broad gets you LB and doesn’t even bother turning around to appeal, he goes immediately from delivery stride into celebrating to gully. Was his brand new baby daughter on the eve of the Ashes a distraction enough? Perhaps. Was it just one bowler having him by the pills and otherwise, if Broad wasn’t playing he could have averaged say, 40? Possibly. Or, he averages 59 in Australia but averages less than 34 overseas. That’s telling. Remember, Steve Waugh and Allan Border, proper batsmen who don’t mind if your TV is an OLED TV or something from ALDI, they actually averaged higher overseas than at home. Proper batsmen.

18.   We need to find a new opening pair asap. Not bothered by playing Warner again, because if we do he’ll score a mount of runs against Pakistan and New Zealand on home conditions, but all it does is delay finding his successor for when we need to win tours, I dunno, in India, or England, or anywhere not at the SCG basically.

19.   Cam Bancroft, only averaged 11 from his two tests, sure, but gee, they swiftly moved him on because he was so bad, he was bringing such bad cricket juju to the place they brought in Marcus Harris who went on to average 60. No. That’s not right. Harris averaged 9 from his three tests.  Brilliant. Harris is now averaging 24 from 9 tests. Bancroft has 10 tests @ 26. Semantics perhaps but I’d be picking the sander before the Victorian first come the summer. But we have four Shield matches before the Gabba, I want to see Matty Renshaw ton up, get into the test team again and stick.

20.   And I love this, Steve Smith, missed a test and an innings but still amassed 333 runs more than the next best for most runs in the series. That man is a freak.

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Koivu Injured; Boyle Traded; Updates on Byfuglien and Larkin; Cap Leagues – February 7

  The Minnesota Wild announced that captain Mikko Koivu will miss the remainder of the season after tearing his ACL and meniscus in his right knee. He is set to have surgery on Friday and then we can probably expect some sort of time line.

Koivu has one year left on his current deal and will be heading into his age-36 season.

Until we know more about Koivu’s recovery, I won’t speculate there. Let’s just hope he can come back and be close to the player he’s been for the last several years.

As far as the rest of the team is concerned, I suspect this means Minnesota packs it in. They are currently in a wild card spot but there are seven teams within six points and they’re already without Mathew Dumba. This probably means Eric Staal is to be traded by the deadline, which is just a few weeks away. He is a pending UFA and can always re-sign him. I guess we’ll know more in the next couple weeks. If they go on a big win streak, it’ll make the decision tougher. If they start to lose ground, it makes it easier.

It should also mean a lot more minutes for Victor Rask. He’s averaging under 15 minutes a game so far with the Wild but with Koivu out and Staal potentially gone in the next couple weeks, we could be about 20 days away from Rask being on the top line and playing 19-20 minutes a night. Not that I’m a big Rask guy, but anyone earning those types of minutes playing with Jason Zucker and Mikael Granlund (or whomever), is worth the look. Just keep him in mind once the Staal trade chatter picks up.

*

Dylan Larkin was back in practice for the Red Wings just a few days after suffering that strain that took him out of the lineup for last Saturday’s game. He had been expected to miss up to two weeks, but it looks like he’ll be good to go for Thursday night’s contest against Vegas.

*

It took one game, but Jeff Skinner was back on Jack Eichel’s wing in practice on Wednesday. Quelle surprise.

*

Fantasy owners can expect Dustin Byfuglien back in the lineup Thursday night. I assume he’ll be back on the top PP unit as well, especially with the uncertainty around Josh Morrissey’s availability.

*

It also looks like the Flames should get Travis Hamonic back Thursday night. Whether that’s fantasy-relevant for you would depend on the size of your league, I suppose.

*

Nick Bjugstad was lined up on the top line for Pittsburgh in practice, alongside Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel. Did I mention that their game Thursday night is in Florida? Oh baby.

*

Nashville acquired New Jersey forward Brian Boyle on Wednesday in exchange for a second round pick in this year’s draft. The top-6 seems locked up (especially with Kyle Turris returning) and Boyle seems destined for the second power-play unit. A guy playing in the bottom-6 of almost any team isn’t usually worth much in fantasy, though Boyle will still be relevant in leagues that count hits. Overall, I don’t expect much change in his fantasy value.  

The Predators also traded for Cody McLeod. Sure? To replace McLeod, the Rangers called up Vinny Lettieri.

*

An interesting tweet came across my timeline on Wednesday:

  Past 10 NHL seasons: Tuukka Rask is first in save percentage, fourth in shutouts, seventh in wins.

Yet there is a crowd out there that still hates on this guy. I'll never understand it

— Matt Larkin (@THNMattLarkin) February 6, 2019

  This is, in fact, true. There are 41 goalies with at least 200 starts since the start of the 2009-2010 season. Of those 41 goalies, Rask is first in save percentage at .922. John Gibson is the only other goalie with at least a .920. Rask has a career .924 save percentage in the playoffs, including a Cup Final run in 2013 when he posted a .940. So I ask: is Tuukka Rask a Hall of Famer?

*

Michael Dal Colle was on a line with Mathew Barzal in Islanders practice. As for how long that remains a thing, we’ll call it TBD.

*

An interesting wrinkle in for the Bruins in their 4-3 shootout loss against the Rangers on Wednesday: they broke up the top line, moving David Pastrnak to the second line with David Krejci and Peter Cehlarik, lining Danton Heinen with Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron. Jake DeBrusk was bumped to the fourth line. Each of Pastrnak, Bergeron, and Heinen scored in defeat.

The overtime in this game was particularly nuts. It was odd-man rush after odd-man rush, featuring a spectacular sprawling glove save from Jaroslav Halak to briefly preserve the chance at a second point.

Mika Zibanejad scored in the win, keeping his point-per-game pace this year with 53 in 53. That makes 11 goals and 23 points in 18 games since the holiday break.

*

In Bob Cole’s final home call on a Maple Leafs broadcast, we had a good ol’ fashioned Battle of Ontario shootout. The Leafs ended up with the 5-4 win thanks to a lot of wizardry from Mitch Marner (two assists), John Tavares (one goal, one assist) and Zach Hyman (one goal, one assist). Auston Matthews also tallied, giving him four goals in his last five games.

Magnus Paajarvi tallied a pair of goals, boosting his season total by 40 percent. Thomas Chabot also scored, his 20th career goal, and his 40th point of the season. He officially becomes the ninth defenceman in the NHL to hit 40 points this season, and Chabot has played just 45 games. I’ve repeated it often but he’ll be in the Norris conversation sooner rather than later.

*

The biggest news this week is probably going to be the signing of Auston Matthews, who signed a five-year deal with an AAV over $11.6-million. That might seem like a weird deal given that the Leafs would likely have wanted to keep him around for eight more years rather than five, unless he signs another extension down the road. But as Cam pointed out in his Ramblings yesterday, the team only bought one year of unrestricted free agency, which kept the cap hit down. If they buy more UFA years, that number of $11.6-million goes even higher, and this is a team that needs every bit of cap space they can manage for 2019-20. I wouldn’t expect guys like Matthew Tkachuk or Sebastian Aho to sign five-year deals.

Does this change the landscape for RFAs, and what is the impact for cap league owners? This started with William Nylander in the summer (and fall) and has continued with Matthews and will finish with Marner.

The thing is, Nylander wasn’t really out of line with his ask or with what he ended with. Though the AAV this year is wonky, Nylander effectively signed to carry an AAV of $6.96-million under a salary cap of $79.5-million. Back in the summer of 2016, Filip Forsberg signed for six years with an AAV of $6-million, Nathan MacKinnon signed for seven years with an AAV of $6.3-million, and Mark Scheifele signed for eight years with an AAV of $6.1-million. At time of signing, Forsberg had a career points/game mark of 0.73, with MacKinnon at 0.70, and Scheifele was at 0.64. Nylander, when he signed his, was at 0.73. Those guys signed deals when the cap was $73-million, which means those three guys signed for anywhere between 8.2 percent and 8.6 percent of the cap. Nylander’s deal was 8.8 percent of the $79.5M cap (though it’s a higher AAV this year because of signing bonuses, and it’ll be lower next year when the cap goes up). Now, it’s obvious he doesn’t have the same upside as MacKinnon, but at the time the contracts were signed, they had produced at a very similar rate. Nylander’s contract, then, isn’t an outlier. He asked to be paid like those in recent history with similar performance had. It may be a bit higher than we’d expect (this year doesn’t matter too much because the cap crunch doesn’t come until the season is over), but certainly not extreme.  

As far as Matthews is concerned, we can debate length of the contract, the dollars, whatever, but if we just isolate the AAV, as Cam pointed out, he’s being paid a similar percentage to other top centres. The difference between Matthews and others is AM34 is coming out of his ELC. The only real comparable contracts we can point to recently are Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, and Jack Eichel. When Draisaitl signed his deal, he was 11.3 percent of the cap. Eichel’s this year is 12.6 percent, while McDavid’s is at 15.7 percent.  Matthews’s will be 14 percent next season, and as Cam pointed out, the team only bought one UFA year whereas Edmonton and Buffalo bought multiple UFA years. The difference being Eichel was a 0.85 points/game guy in his first three years, but Matthews is at 0.98 and looks to be one of the top-3 goal scorers in the league. In that sense, Matthews’s landing between Eichel and McDavid isn’t much of a stretch.  

Finally, we have Marner on the horizon. If he maintains close to his current point pace, he’ll have over 220 career points through his first three seasons. Since the 2005 lockout, there are just eight players with at least 220 points through their first three seasons: Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Patrick Kane, Steven Stamkos, Connor McDavid, and Artemi Panarin. If you exclude Panarin because he came over to the NHL at such a late point in his career, you have seven players. Of those seven, six are future Hall of Famers with Nicklas Backstrom being the only question mark, and he’s largely been Ovechkin’s centre for all these years. We can talk about more goals and a different game all we want, but if Marner’s agent can point to Patrick Kane and say “my client’s first three seasons are similar to his first three seasons,” the guy is going to get paid, and paid handsomely.

(for what it’s worth, the first two seasons of Kane’s career saw a similar goal rate league-wide as Marner’s first two seasons)

I know there’s a lot of freaking out about how much players are making coming off their ELCs. This would change the landscape for cap league owners. The thing is, I’m not sure a lot has really changed. As I explained, Nylander’s AAV was in line with production from guys before him, Matthews is probably a bit high considering it’s only one UFA bought but he’s an exceptional talent, and Marner is producing at a level few players in his position have over the last 15 years. The circus (Nylander not signing before the seasons, Marner’s agent, etc) aside, there isn’t anything extreme here. It’s an exceptional circumstance where you have three players of this calibre all coming off ELCs within a year of each other. The Jets have something similar coming up with Kyle Connor, Patrik Laine, and Jacob Trouba, but even those names aren’t at the same impact level as the Matthews-Nylander-Marner triumvirate, and Trouba is not coming off an ELC.

All this is to say, I don’t think anything is considerably different but this is rather just a unique situation. Players are being paid more in raw dollars but as a percentage of the cap, it’s not all that different than what we’ve seen in recent history. All eyes are on Marner now, though. If he were to sign a five-year deal with a similar cap percentage to what Kane signed with back in 2010 (which was a five-year deal), he’d be expected to earn about $8.8-million per season. Depending on the length of the contract, it could change the landscape. On the other hand, it might not. We’ll see when he actually signs the deal.

What I will say is that one change to keep an eye on is the length of contracts coming out of ELCs. Nylander signed for six years and Marner for five. Maybe Matthews does the same. I wonder if we see the upper-tier of players coming out of ELCs signing short deals (five, maybe six at most) as opposed to eight. Teams are more hesitant to sign 29- or 30-year olds to long-term deals than they had been in the past, which is the age players coming off eight-year RFA deals typically land. Teams will be a lot less hesitant to sign 26- or 27-year olds to long-term deals, which is the age players would be coming off five-year RFA contracts. This allows the player some level of guarantee to sign two big contracts in their careers, as opposed to risking getting short-term deals as they approach 30 years old.  

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-koivu-injured-boyle-traded-updates-on-byfuglien-and-larkin-cap-leagues-february-7/

[yahoo-puck-daddy-blog]

What We Learned: The NHL's other looming free agent apocalypse

Blake Wheeler will be difficult for the Jets to retain. (Jonathan Kozub/NHLI via Getty Images)

After all the attention that has been understandably paid to Toronto’s current and future salary cap situation, it got me thinking about other elite teams and what their cap situations look like going forward.

Obviously Tampa is going to have some big issues dealing with their roster, even before the potential addition of Erik Karlsson, simply because they have so many elite and very good players. They’re already close to a cap crunch of sorts, and next summer they will have to strike new deals for Nikita Kucherov, Yanni Gourde, Brayden Point, Anton Stralman, Slater Koekkoek, and Jake Dotchin, among other players.

It’s therefore likely that seismic changes are on the way for that roster, but this is something that’s already pretty broadly acknowledged league-wide. However, there’s another top team that is going to be staring down some serious issues in the future and could end up having to make some difficult decisions in short order.

Winnipeg currently has the lowest cap obligation in the league as of this writing (less than $52.7 million, giving them about $26.8 million to play with right now). As we await word of new contracts for seven restricted free agents. While most of them aren’t going to be too expensive, the new deals for Connor Hellebuyck and Jacob Trouba will likely be significant. Altogether you can expect those seven guys to pull perhaps $20 million against the cap, which leaves the Jets with plenty of room this year.

That is, one supposes, a benefit of finding a buyer for Steve Mason’s contract and Paul Stastny bouncing for Vegas with no replacement in sight except probably from within.

But it’s next year that’s the problem. The Jets will enter the 2019 offseason with about as much money in cap obligations as they have this year, but a good chunk of the core likely locked up long-term. However, they will also have to re-sign Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor among their RFAs, and both will probably be quite costly. Laine especially could potentially command at least Leon Draisaitl money, if not more (one supposes this depends heavily on what the Leafs give their pending RFAs). Again, these are deals the Jets can comfortably fit under the cap.

But it’s the UFAs that pose some serious problems. Can they reasonably afford to retain or find replacements for Blake Wheeler and Tyler Myers? You can say what you like about Myers’ contributions to the team, especially vis a vis his $5.5 million cap hit, but he’s at least a second-pair defenseman and those seem to be getting fairly expensive these days; you can probably get an upgrade at the same price point, but not as much as one might think, even if the cap goes up substantially again (which it probably won’t).

However, you absolutely won’t find a reasonable replacement for Wheeler, who’s a point-a-game guy and makes just $5.5 million against the cap. So the question becomes how much do you pay him, since he’ll be 32 to start the new deal, and what do you reasonably expect from him? Because if you’re committing multiple years and a raise to a player that far past 30, you might be in a bit of trouble sooner than later.

And while there will be a few intriguing UFA forwards potentially hitting the market that same summer (Tyler Seguin, Jeff Skinner, Jordan Eberle) the question, again, becomes what you pay those guys to hopefully be almost as good as Wheeler.

The issue for the Jets isn’t so much the salary cap as it is the fact that they’re a budget team. They have a small venue in a small market and have traditionally shied away from really approaching the cap ceiling. Last year they were more than $5 million short of it, and the season before that their obligations were about $6.5 million short. So the question becomes not only if the Jets will be able to keep those guys, but if they have the stomach to push that close to the cap ceiling (likely over $80 million at the very least) to do it. They have never exceeded $70 million in cap obligations, and though they probably will this year, one wonders if there’s a natural stopping point south of whatever the cap’s upper limit is.

If so, that creates some potentially uncomfortable questions for Kevin Cheveldayoff. On the one hand, the Jets are likely to be a top-five team in the league again this season and that carries with it the need to be as competitive as possible with an elite roster. But can this team really afford to potentially let Wheeler and/or Myers walk in free agency and get nothing in return?

There is only one bad contract on the roster that could be moveable, because that ill-advised Dmitry Kulikov deal expires after 2019-20 and you might be able to talk someone into taking your $4.33 million bottom-pair defender if you sweeten the pot or pull off a stunning con.

I don’t know that there’s a comfortable answer in what to do here, especially if there’s an internal budget that must be adhered to. You probably can’t trade a Wheeler-type player if you’re in the thick of a divisional title and potentially going after the Presidents’ Trophy. But if you keep him, don’t win the Cup, and then maybe have to let him walk in free agency, that’s going to be tough to deal with organizationally.

Again, you don’t often get multiple years of a guy scoring a point a game for just $5.6 million, so the Jets have enjoyed a significant luxury. They likely won’t get anything like it again in this league.

This is, to be sure, a rich man’s problem. When you have so many good players it becomes difficult to pay them all, it’s a lot better than the alternative. And Cheveldayoff has really put the Jets in a position where they have relatively few contracts on the books that could even be considered “iffy.”

How he maneuvers out of this fix will be pretty telling when it comes to the future of one of the best young teams in the league.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: The Ducks’ power play wasn’t that good the past few years, but is it really something they can fix?

Arizona Coyotes: It’s good that we’re getting more stories about how it’s not easy to be a person of color and play this sport at a high level.

Boston Bruins: Yeah, pretty hard to disagree with this assessment.

Buffalo Sabres: Jack Eichel has been in the league too long to be able to change his number without also changing teams. It’s unacceptable.

Calgary Flames: If Spencer Foo makes the Flames’ roster, that’s probably not a good sign for the Flames’ depth.

Carolina Hurricanes: You really have to like that Calvin de Haan deal but at the same time, it’s not some sort of huge game-changer.

Chicago: Bowman hasn’t made a move to improve this team’s not-good defense, which seems like it’s not a good idea.

Colorado Avalanche: Where did anyone on earth get the idea that John Tavares might have even considered signing with Colorado? Come on.

Columbus Blue Jackets: That was a nice little extension for Boone Jenner. Can’t be mad at it.

Dallas Stars: If you get the chance to add Erik Karlsson, you take it regardless of what’s being asked. But Jeff Skinner wouldn’t be a bad consolation prize.

Detroit Red Wings: It’s possible that Filip Zadina would be able to play in the AHL if he doesn’t make the Red Wings roster, but he’ll probably make the Red Wings roster.

Edmonton Oilers: Who could have seen this Lucic deal turning into a nightmare on the day it was signed? No one!

Florida Panthers: The Panthers are gonna be a cap-limit team. Probably should have kept those Vegas guys, eh?

Los Angeles Kings: The Kings have invested in a startup with four employees and no headquarters that makes it cheaper to make good ice for hockey rinks. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Minnesota Wild: Remember when it used to be a big scandal to suggest the Wild didn’t have a lot of impact talent on the roster? Well…

Montreal Canadiens: This Shea Weber thing is so awful for the Canadiens and Marc Bergevin specifically. There are EIGHT years left on this guy’s deal.

Nashville Predators: The Preds just made a big free agency mistake.

New Jersey Devils: No. Next question.

New York Islanders: This is one of those “whether he likes it or not” things.

New York Rangers: A thing teams with cap space should always do is try to get in on trades as third-party negotiators, take on some salary and get picks and prospects out of it. Always use as much cap space as you can if it gets you something.

Ottawa Senators: This headline is bleak.

Philadelphia Flyers: Based on where Christian Folin went to college, this is a very savvy pickup.

Pittsburgh Penguins: Barring a bounceback year from Matt Murray (possible), the Pens are firmly outside the top five teams in the league but also probably somewhere solidly in the top eight.

San Jose Sharks: Nice little contract for Dylan DeMelo. Term and money look good for both sides.

St. Louis Blues: Dmitrij Jaskin never really panned out as expected, huh? He only had six goals last season.

Tampa Bay Lightning: Pretty amazing how fast you can go from “we might be done for the summer” to “we might trade for one of the best players alive.”

Toronto Maple Leafs: We’re still gonna act like the Leafs have the flexibility to trade for a defenseman of note, huh?

Vancouver Canucks: Im… improve the power play? Am I reading that right?

Vegas Golden Knights: I love this Colin Miller deal. Really good player signed cheap for his entire prime.

Washington Capitals: Real nervous to see how this Tom Wilson deal works out. It’s gonna be bonkers.

Winnipeg Jets: This is bold prognostication.

Gold Star Award

This is very nice from Vegas.

Minus of the Weekend

Just trade Karlsson already!!!

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Week

User “xNogaitx” has it figured out.

To Montreal: Carl Hagelin (4M) Daniel Sprong (750k) 2019 1st round pick Conditional 2021 2nd round pick *

To Pittsburgh: Max Pacioretty (4.5M) – Retained 2M Paul Byron (1.16M)

Signoff

No mother, it’s just the Northern Lights.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

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Unloved: Picking the Best XI of Players Who Haven't Yet Earned a Senior International Cap

With the 2018 World Cup to look forward to throughout the summer, football fans can expect to see some of the brightest talents in World football shining on the biggest stage of them all.

Throughout the years there have been some truly great national sides packed full of top talents and the World Cup in Russia will be no exception.

However, there remains a large pool of players who have eluded an international call up, in spite of their abundance of talent.

Some of these players still have much of their career ahead of them and subsequently have the potential to finally pick up that elusive international cap however, some have seen their chance at a career at international level pass them by without so much as a look-in.

Here is a 'World XI' of players who are yet to be capped by their country at senior level.  

1. GK: Timo Horn

24-year-old FC Koln goalkeeper Timo Horn is among one of Europe's most talented shot stoppers, having consistently proven himself to be one of Die Geißböcke's best players, keeping an impressive 66 clean sheets since graduating from the Bundesliga outfit's academy in 2011.

Assuming Horn was born in any other country in the world he would almost certainly be his country's number one. However, it's unfortunate for the Cologne born keeper that he has to compete against a host of top-class German shot stoppers in Manuel Neuer,  Marc-André ter Stegen, Bernd Leno, Kevin Trapp, Loris Karius and Oliver Baumann.

Although Horn has competed for Germany at every youth level, he is yet to be called up to the senior team, and assuming Die Mannschaft continue in their habits of producing some of the world's best goalkeepers, it is likely to stay that way.

Honourable mention: Gerónimo Rulli 

2. LB: Alex Telles

Unfortunately for Alex Telles, the FC Porto man was born into a generation of top-class Brazilian left backs, including the likes of Marcelo, Alex Sandro and Filipe Luís.

Perfectly embodying the modern full back, Telles has pace to burn and is just as capable going forward as he is in defence, often proving to be Os Dragões creative outlet down the left flank, notching two goals and 18 assists from 37 games throughout the 2017/18 campaign.

At 25, there remains a chance Telles may be called up to the Seleção, with the pacey defender attracting attention from a host of top clubs and current first choice Brazil left back Marcelo potentially coming towards the tail end of his international career.

Honourable mention: Marcos Alonso

3. CB: Aymeric Laporte

Just how Aymeric Laporte hasn't received a call-up to the France squad is a mystery. The young defender was a consistently stoic figure in the Athletic Bilbao back line since graduating from their second team midway through the 2012/13 season.

While competition for the position of centre back in the France squad is tight, Laporte is more than capable of matching, or even outclassing, his compatriots, with fellow Manchester City man Eliaquim Mangala picking up eight caps for Les Bleus.

As a confident ball-playing centre back, the 23-year-old defender would fit seamlessly into Didier Deschamps' France squad, paying alongside either Raphaël Varane or Samuel Umtiti, the Manchester City new boy could prove to be a revelation at the World Cup.

4. CB: Jamaal Lascelles

Since returning from his loan to Nottingham Forrest, Jamaal Lascelles has proven to be one of Newcastle United's key players, playing at the heart of the Magpies defence and playing a huge part in their return to the Premier League in the 2016/17 season as they were crowned champions of the second tier of English football, maintaining the joint-best defence in the league in the process.

Under the tutelage of former Liverpool and Real Madrid manager Rafael Benítez, Lascelles has steadily developed into onto of the finest English defenders in the league, pushing the likes of Chris Smalling and Phil Jones for their spots in the Three Lions squad.

Possessing versatility as well as the leadership qualities that are lacking from many of the players in the current national team squad, it wouldn't be surprising if Gareth Southgate handed the 24-year-old defender his first senior England cap before the World Cup this summer.

5. RB: Mariano

Throughout his career, Mariano has been a solid full back, plying his trade for the likes of Tombense, Fluminense, FC Girondins de Bordeux, Sevilla and now Galatasaray. Despite never playing for his native Brazil at a senior level, he did earn a call up to the Cananrinha squad twice in 2010 and 2017, although he didn't make a single appearance, being kept out of the side by Dani Alves and Maicon.

Following the arrival of Luis Muriel, Mariano made a move to Istanbul to play for current Turkish Süper Lig leaders Galatasaray, whereby his contributions have seen Aslanlar maintain the third-best defensive record in the league, behind only Beşiktaş and İstanbul Başakşehir. 

Throughout his career the tireless defender has made 396 appearances, winning the Coupe de France, the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A and the Europa League. However, at 31-years-old, it seems unlikely the veteran defender will ever earn himself a cap for Brazil.

6. CM: Gabi

Perhaps one of the best players in recent times not to receive international recognition, Atletico Madrid's captain Gabi is considered the complete footballer by many fans, with the Spanish midfiedler becoming known for his industrious efforts across the centre of the park.

Being kept out of the Spain national side by the likes of Xabi Alonso, Sergio Busquets and Marcos Senna seeing the former Real Zaragoza man fail to make a single appearance for an already top quality La Roja side.

Playing as the beating heart of an immensely successful Atletico Madrid side in recent years, the 34-year-old midfielder has quality in numerous departments, a fantastic combative ball-winner with an unprecedented ability to distribute the ball and initiate the attack. As such, Gabi played a huge part in Los Rojiblancos 2013/14 La Liga winning campaign.

Honourable mention: Amadou Diawara

7. CM: Dani Parejo

An all-round midfielder, capable of being deployed in the centre of midfield or in a more advanced role, Valecia's captain Dani Parejo has become known for his extraordinary vision and passing ability since joining Los Murciélagos in 2011.

Despite being an integral member of Valencia's midfield since joining from Getafe with his metronomic passing has opening up numerous La Liga defences, seeing him rack up a total of 44 league assists from 272 appearances, Parejo has been kept out of the Spain squad by a wealth of world class talent, including Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Cesc Fabregas and David Silva.

Although his quality passing and attacking play has garnered the attention of the likes of Liverpool in recent years, the 28-year-old has remained loyal to the side he has made over 250 appearances for.

8. CM: Arthur

One of the best young Brazilians to burst onto the scene in the 2017 Brasileirão, Arthur has proven himself to be the future of the Seleção. The young midfielder's passing ability were second to none in Brazil last season, helping Grêmio to their third Copa Libertadores triumph.

Although Arthur doesn't operate as a traditional Brazilian midfielder, incorporating an abundance of fancy turns and flicks into his play, his transitional play and incisive passing have garnered him worldwide acclaim. 

Subsequently, Europe big clubs have come calling and Barcelona have agreed a deal that will allow them first refusal on the Brazil starlet. Arthur has already earned game time for his country at the Under-17 and Under-20 levels, and with the World Cup fast approaching it would be a surprise if Tite overlooked the 21-year-old for the trip to Russia.

9. LW: Leon Bailey

Eligible to play for Jamaica, the country of his birth, or (possibly?) England via ancestry, Bayer Leverkusen's talented young winger Leon Bailey is already being compared to legendary Bayern Munich and Netherlands winger Arjen Robben.

This season, Bailey has become an integral component of Heiko Herrlich's exciting Werkself outfit as they continue to cause problems for the rest of Germany's top teams. 

In turn, the youngster has attracted the attention of the media and the English FA who are courting the Jamaican-born attacker, as well as a host of top clubs across Europe including Manchester City. 

The player's agent and father however claims his son is prepared to wait until he is eligible to represent Germany. 

Bailey's pace and skill have allowed the 20-year-old to run rings around Bundesliga defences this season, racking up 11 goals and five assists from 25 appearances and helping Leverkusen compete with the likes of FC Schalke 04, Borussia Dortmund, Eintracht Frankfurt and RasenBallsport Leipzig for Germany's much sought after Champions League spots.

10. RW: Malcom

Brazil have an abundance of talent across the pitch at all age levels, and FC Girondins de Bordeux's Malcom is no exception. Between himself and Ajax's David Neres (who is also uncapped by Brazil) the Canarinha have their right wing covered for years to come.

Throughout his time with Les Girondins, Malcom has caused a innumerable amount of Ligue 1 defenders headaches, whether it be his ability to beat his marker effortlessly in a one-on-one scenario or pick out a teammate with an inch perfect pass, the 21-year-old Brazilian has all the skills in his locker to one day become a legend of the Seleção.

Competing for a place against the likes of Philippe Coutinho, Douglas Costa, Willian, Gabriel Jesus, Roberto Firmino and, of course, Neymar is no easy task. However, Malcom has continued in a stunning vein of form, pushing his seniors all the way for a place in Tite's squad.

11. ST: Wissam Ben Yedder

Wissam Ben Yedder has been enjoying a phenomenal season for Sevilla so far this campaign, moreover the Frenchman has consistently brilliant since breaking onto the scene at Toulouse, notching 80 goals across 206 games since the 2010/11 season.

At 27-years-old, the Sarcelles-born striker has had the option to represent Tunisia due to parental heritage, but has held out in the hopes he might one day represent Les Bleus on the international stage.

Unfortunately for Ben Yedder, he faces competition from a host of top attacking talent that hail from France however, his lethal form in the Champions League this season may just see Didier Deschamp's head turned in the direction of the Sevilla hitman as he considers his options for Russia.

Honourable mention: Lautaro Martínez

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DGB Grab Bag: Draisaitl's Deal, Icing the Rules, and the Devils Get Dramatic

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Phil Kessel. Good lord. This isn't Kessel dunking on the haters. This is him dunking on them, shattering the backboard, tearing off the rim, and then using that rim to teach cute little hoop-jumping tricks to their puppy, which immediately follows Kessel home because it loves him more now.

The second star: Phil Kessel. Look, the whole "Phil Kessel eats too many hot dogs" thing has been done to death, as has the backlash and then the backlash to the backlash. But this is next-level stuff. Seriously, take a minute to appreciate what's happening here.

The first star: Phil Kessel. He went and took the one thing that's come to symbolize everything the critics, cynics, and bullies have ever thrown at him and literally ate it out of the greatest accomplishment you can achieve in his line of work. Then he took a photo of it. Then he went back and took a better photo of it. Phil Kessel wins. Again.

(By the way, this is the second time in Grab Bag history that one person has swept all three stars with one shot. Go ahead and guess who the other one was.)

Outrage of the Week

The issue: The Edmonton Oilers' Leon Draisaitl finally signed his contract extension this week, locking in for the maximum eight years on a deal that totals $68 million and carries a cap hit of $8.5 million.

The outrage: Wow, that seems high.

Is it justified: Yes. Draisaitl is a very good player, but he's not some sort of generational talent like teammate Connor McDavid. That means we have plenty of similar players we can use to determine fair value for a comparable situation, and by virtually all of those measures this contract is way too high. The deal the Oilers signed was well above what even their most loyal fans were projecting as fair value.

Remember, this is just Draisaitl's second contract—he wasn't eligible for unrestricted free agency for four more years, so aside from the longshot chance of an offer sheet, he really had no leverage here. Other players who recently received monster contracts, like Patrick Kane, Carey Price, Steven Stamkos, or Anze Kopitar, were all within a year of UFA status, meaning they could plausibly threaten to walk away from their teams for nothing. Draisaitl was years away from that kind of negotiating power, but the Oilers panicked and paid him top dollar anyway.

So yes, the deal is way too high. But also: No, it isn't.

When you're going after the big bucks. Photo by Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

The NHL has a well-established system for paying star players. You work cheap on your entry deal, you get a better number on your second (and maybe third) contracts, and then you get the big bucks once you're nearing your UFA years. That system is fundamentally broken. It doesn't make any sense to pay top dollar to guys who are in their late 20s—those players are already past their prime. Most forwards, for example, have their most productive years between the ages of 22 and 25. It doesn't make any sense that players are expected to play at a steep discount during those seasons and then make it back years later when they're already in decline.

So what the Oilers are doing here makes sense. Unlike the Kane or Kopitar deals, they're actually paying top dollar for their player's best seasons. (Presumably, of course. We can never know for sure how a player's aging curve will play out, but as far as projections go, it's the most likely scenario.)

So which is it? Did the Oilers screw up because they overpaid based on how the market operates? Or did they get it right because they paid a fair price based on how the market should operate? It can't be both.

But right now, it kind of is both. That's because we don't know what kind of impact, if any, Draisaitl's signing will have on the way teams think about these deals. It's the kind of contract that could shift the market, leading other teams to pay top dollar to stars just entering their prime while shifting money away from older players approaching UFA status. If that happens, the Oilers will look like they were ahead of the curve, and Draisaitl's deal will probably turn out to represent decent value.

On the other hand, maybe the league shrugs and goes back to the old way of doing things. If that happens, the Oilers will have missed out on an opportunity to exploit a market inefficiency. Even if Draisaitl plays well enough that the deal represents fair value, it will still be a bad contract because the market dictates that he should have been underpaid.

Right now, we just don't know. It's Schrodinger's contract. But with Jack Eichel still waiting on an extension and Auston Matthews up for one next summer, we probably won't have to wait long to find out.

The NHL USA Hockey Actually Got Something Right

Recently, we found out that USA Hockey's development program will be making a fairly substantial rule change for players ages 14 and under. Starting this season, teams will no longer be allowed to ice the puck when killing a penalty. Doing so will now be treated as regular icing, with a face-off in the defensive zone. The move is meant to encourage young players to think through situations and handle the puck rather than just automatically flinging it down the ice.

It's a smart change, one that will hopefully encourage a little more creativity in a sport that so often lacks it. Youth hockey is all about having fun and learning, after all, and playing with the puck on your stick instead of reflexively dumping it down the ice serves both those ends. So kudos to USA Hockey for the change.

Now on to the bigger question: Should the NHL follow suit?

"I volunteer." Photo by Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports

Not immediately, of course, but is this something that the pros should be looking at doing someday? After all, it seems odd to penalize a team for an infraction but then give it a special set of rules that makes the game easier. If we're trying to increase scoring—and we should be—then a reasonably simple rule change to make it tougher to kill off a penalty seems like low-hanging fruit.

On the surface, it makes sense, but there are two problems with the concept. Let's start with the obvious issue, one pointed out by at least one former NHLer: Most teams would probably just keep icing the puck anyway.

Today's coaches are relentlessly conservative. It's not hard to imagine them deciding that killing off 10 or 15 seconds of a two-minute minor is worth an occasional face-off in their own end. Sure, players would try to execute a 180-foot flip that would fall just short of the icing line, but coaches would probably be fine with taking the icing a man down, just as an increasing number of teams seem fine with it late in the game when the other team has its goalie pulled. And that would mean fans being treated to more whistles, more milling around the face-off circle, and less momentum.

The other issue is one that I've raised before: Efforts to increase scoring should be focused on changes that will help at five-on-five, too. That's how most of the game is played, and we don't want to train fans to sit around and wait for powerplays. There's also the risk that officials who've been told for years not to decide a game will be even more reluctant to call penalties if they know that powerplays are more effective. It would likely be a small influence, but it could be enough to cancel out most of the offensive gains we'd otherwise see.

None of that means the NHL shouldn't explore making the change. Maybe they will someday. But it's not the slam dunk it should be for youth hockey, because in the NHL, the law of unintended consequences is always waiting just around the corner.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

This week's obscure player is winger Doug Brown because, well, we'll get to that in a bit.

Brown was a Boston College star who went undrafted before signing with the New Jersey Devils in 1986. He got a quick look in the NHL that year, and then made the full-time roster for the 1987-88 season, scoring 14 goals as a rookie and earning one second-place vote for the Calder Trophy. That lone vote left him tied with Ulf Dahlen for sixth, just slightly behind 51-goal-scorer Joe Nieuwendyk.

Brown was a useful piece for the Devils until 1993, when he signed with the Penguins as a free agent and got to play with his younger brother Greg. Like everyone else in the Mario Lemieux era, he had the best offensive season of his career in Pittsburgh, putting up 55 points. It wasn't enough to keep him out of the following year's waiver draft, where the Detroit Red Wings grabbed him.

He spent the last seven years of his career in Detroit, although the Predators did take him in the 1998 expansion draft before immediately trading him back to the Red Wings. He was part of two Stanley Cup winners before hanging his skates up in 2001.

As far as career highlights go, well, he scored the first playoff overtime goal in Devils' history in 1988, and had two goals in the Red Wings' Cup-clinching win in 1998. But let's face it, none of those come close to being the best Doug Brown videos you can find on YouTube. Meet me in the next section.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

It's tough time for the New Jersey Devils these days. The team is rebuilding. The team is rebuilding, they finished 27th last year, they may not be all that much better this year, and they just found out that Travis Zajac will miss a big chunk of the season. But hey, New Jersey fans can always look back on the glory days. No, not the three Stanley Cups. I mean the time the Devils were on General Hospital.

Yes, that actually happened. I'm sure it will be good wholesome fun for the whole family. Let's watch.

This clip appears to be from 1989. The Devils were coming off of their first ever playoff appearance a year earlier, one that involved dramatic overtime heroics and also referees getting called fat pigs. It was a mixed bag, but apparently it was enough for the producers of General Hospital to say, "Let's get those guys on daytime television."

Our scene begins with several young nurses rushing in to volunteer for duty. Apparently "one of the hockey players" has been injured and is coming to the hospital for treatment. Given how excited everyone is, I bet it's one of the team's big stars like Kirk Muller or Sean Burke.

Nope, it's our old friend Doug Brown. See how these sections all link together? That's called synergy, kids.

Brown's in the middle of his sophomore season, one that saw him post 25 points. That may not sound like much, but give the guy a break—as you can see, he was playing through a serious wrist injury that required a visit to the emergency room.

Can we just point out that Brown is walking around in full uniform?

At this point, things get a little awkward between Brown and one of the nurses. It's very subtle, but if you can get past the porn soundtrack that starts playing in the background, it's implied that they might be flirting.

So let's address the elephant in the room: Why would you cast Doug Brown of all people in the starring role for this? It's not like there weren't any more famous Devils available, as we'll see in a minute. But they went with Brown. Why? Here's my best guess: He was the only player on the team who could string three words together. Seriously, have you ever seen hockey players try to act? It's not pretty. The pantheon of everyone who has ever tried is basically Basil McCrae absolutely nailing it and then dozens of guys doing variations of this. You take what you can get.

"I'm counting my blessings," says the nurse, before hanging a bright red "NO VISITORS" sign on the door. Like I said, it's very subtle.

We skip ahead, as an elevator opens to reveal two gentlemen who look a lot like Ken Daneyko and John MacLean if you CGI'd hair onto their heads. It is indeed them, as pointed out by one of the off-duty nurses. She also makes sure to mention that MacLean made the All-Star team, while Daneyko just gets labeled as "the big guy." Defensemen, man—they get no respect from anyone.

Daneyko and MacLean are here to pick up Brown and drive him home from the hospital. You know, the way NHL players do. But instead they immediately get to work hitting on the nurses, presumably because they both have a thing for 1980s sweaters and Kelly Kapowski haircuts. Which I'm not judging them for, just to be clear.

"I'll drop my defenses for you anytime." I think she likes them, you guys.

She also asks them how they skate backwards, but before Daneyko can answer, "Actually, it's the 80s, so most of us still can't," Brown returns from his examination. "You guys should try to get on the injured list," he tells them, before going in for a kiss on his nurse friend.

Can we just point out that Lou Lamoriello was running the Devils by this point? What do you think his reaction to all of this was? I think we may have found the genesis for his whole "never talk about injuries" policy.

The other nurses demand to know what happened in there, but Brown's companion refuses to answer while, um, rubbing her throat. I guess we'll never be able to crack the code. It will remain a mystery forever.

And that ends our clip. Tragically, the Devils missed the playoffs that year. Brown stuck with the team until 1993, but never had the kind of breakout season fans were expecting. For some strange reason, he never managed to go an entire season without getting injured.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com .

DGB Grab Bag: Draisaitl's Deal, Icing the Rules, and the Devils Get Dramatic published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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DGB Grab Bag: Draisaitl’s Deal, Icing the Rules, and the Devils Get Dramatic

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Phil Kessel. Good lord. This isn’t Kessel dunking on the haters. This is him dunking on them, shattering the backboard, tearing off the rim, and then using that rim to teach cute little hoop-jumping tricks to their puppy, which immediately follows Kessel home because it loves him more now.

The second star: Phil Kessel. Look, the whole “Phil Kessel eats too many hot dogs” thing has been done to death, as has the backlash and then the backlash to the backlash. But this is next-level stuff. Seriously, take a minute to appreciate what’s happening here.

The first star: Phil Kessel. He went and took the one thing that’s come to symbolize everything the critics, cynics, and bullies have ever thrown at him and literally ate it out of the greatest accomplishment you can achieve in his line of work. Then he took a photo of it. Then he went back and took a better photo of it. Phil Kessel wins. Again.

(By the way, this is the second time in Grab Bag history that one person has swept all three stars with one shot. Go ahead and guess who the other one was.)

Outrage of the Week

The issue: The Edmonton Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl finally signed his contract extension this week, locking in for the maximum eight years on a deal that totals $68 million and carries a cap hit of $8.5 million.

The outrage: Wow, that seems high.

Is it justified: Yes. Draisaitl is a very good player, but he’s not some sort of generational talent like teammate Connor McDavid. That means we have plenty of similar players we can use to determine fair value for a comparable situation, and by virtually all of those measures this contract is way too high. The deal the Oilers signed was well above what even their most loyal fans were projecting as fair value.

Remember, this is just Draisaitl’s second contract—he wasn’t eligible for unrestricted free agency for four more years, so aside from the longshot chance of an offer sheet, he really had no leverage here. Other players who recently received monster contracts, like Patrick Kane, Carey Price, Steven Stamkos, or Anze Kopitar, were all within a year of UFA status, meaning they could plausibly threaten to walk away from their teams for nothing. Draisaitl was years away from that kind of negotiating power, but the Oilers panicked and paid him top dollar anyway.

So yes, the deal is way too high. But also: No, it isn’t.

When you’re going after the big bucks. Photo by Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

The NHL has a well-established system for paying star players. You work cheap on your entry deal, you get a better number on your second (and maybe third) contracts, and then you get the big bucks once you’re nearing your UFA years. That system is fundamentally broken. It doesn’t make any sense to pay top dollar to guys who are in their late 20s—those players are already past their prime. Most forwards, for example, have their most productive years between the ages of 22 and 25. It doesn’t make any sense that players are expected to play at a steep discount during those seasons and then make it back years later when they’re already in decline.

So what the Oilers are doing here makes sense. Unlike the Kane or Kopitar deals, they’re actually paying top dollar for their player’s best seasons. (Presumably, of course. We can never know for sure how a player’s aging curve will play out, but as far as projections go, it’s the most likely scenario.)

So which is it? Did the Oilers screw up because they overpaid based on how the market operates? Or did they get it right because they paid a fair price based on how the market should operate? It can’t be both.

But right now, it kind of is both. That’s because we don’t know what kind of impact, if any, Draisaitl’s signing will have on the way teams think about these deals. It’s the kind of contract that could shift the market, leading other teams to pay top dollar to stars just entering their prime while shifting money away from older players approaching UFA status. If that happens, the Oilers will look like they were ahead of the curve, and Draisaitl’s deal will probably turn out to represent decent value.

On the other hand, maybe the league shrugs and goes back to the old way of doing things. If that happens, the Oilers will have missed out on an opportunity to exploit a market inefficiency. Even if Draisaitl plays well enough that the deal represents fair value, it will still be a bad contract because the market dictates that he should have been underpaid.

Right now, we just don’t know. It’s Schrodinger’s contract. But with Jack Eichel still waiting on an extension and Auston Matthews up for one next summer, we probably won’t have to wait long to find out.

The NHL USA Hockey Actually Got Something Right

Recently, we found out that USA Hockey’s development program will be making a fairly substantial rule change for players ages 14 and under. Starting this season, teams will no longer be allowed to ice the puck when killing a penalty. Doing so will now be treated as regular icing, with a face-off in the defensive zone. The move is meant to encourage young players to think through situations and handle the puck rather than just automatically flinging it down the ice.

It’s a smart change, one that will hopefully encourage a little more creativity in a sport that so often lacks it. Youth hockey is all about having fun and learning, after all, and playing with the puck on your stick instead of reflexively dumping it down the ice serves both those ends. So kudos to USA Hockey for the change.

Now on to the bigger question: Should the NHL follow suit?

“I volunteer.” Photo by Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports

Not immediately, of course, but is this something that the pros should be looking at doing someday? After all, it seems odd to penalize a team for an infraction but then give it a special set of rules that makes the game easier. If we’re trying to increase scoring—and we should be—then a reasonably simple rule change to make it tougher to kill off a penalty seems like low-hanging fruit.

On the surface, it makes sense, but there are two problems with the concept. Let’s start with the obvious issue, one pointed out by at least one former NHLer: Most teams would probably just keep icing the puck anyway.

Today’s coaches are relentlessly conservative. It’s not hard to imagine them deciding that killing off 10 or 15 seconds of a two-minute minor is worth an occasional face-off in their own end. Sure, players would try to execute a 180-foot flip that would fall just short of the icing line, but coaches would probably be fine with taking the icing a man down, just as an increasing number of teams seem fine with it late in the game when the other team has its goalie pulled. And that would mean fans being treated to more whistles, more milling around the face-off circle, and less momentum.

The other issue is one that I’ve raised before: Efforts to increase scoring should be focused on changes that will help at five-on-five, too. That’s how most of the game is played, and we don’t want to train fans to sit around and wait for powerplays. There’s also the risk that officials who’ve been told for years not to decide a game will be even more reluctant to call penalties if they know that powerplays are more effective. It would likely be a small influence, but it could be enough to cancel out most of the offensive gains we’d otherwise see.

None of that means the NHL shouldn’t explore making the change. Maybe they will someday. But it’s not the slam dunk it should be for youth hockey, because in the NHL, the law of unintended consequences is always waiting just around the corner.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

This week’s obscure player is winger Doug Brown because, well, we’ll get to that in a bit.

Brown was a Boston College star who went undrafted before signing with the New Jersey Devils in 1986. He got a quick look in the NHL that year, and then made the full-time roster for the 1987-88 season, scoring 14 goals as a rookie and earning one second-place vote for the Calder Trophy. That lone vote left him tied with Ulf Dahlen for sixth, just slightly behind 51-goal-scorer Joe Nieuwendyk.

Brown was a useful piece for the Devils until 1993, when he signed with the Penguins as a free agent and got to play with his younger brother Greg. Like everyone else in the Mario Lemieux era, he had the best offensive season of his career in Pittsburgh, putting up 55 points. It wasn’t enough to keep him out of the following year’s waiver draft, where the Detroit Red Wings grabbed him.

He spent the last seven years of his career in Detroit, although the Predators did take him in the 1998 expansion draft before immediately trading him back to the Red Wings. He was part of two Stanley Cup winners before hanging his skates up in 2001.

As far as career highlights go, well, he scored the first playoff overtime goal in Devils’ history in 1988, and had two goals in the Red Wings’ Cup-clinching win in 1998. But let’s face it, none of those come close to being the best Doug Brown videos you can find on YouTube. Meet me in the next section.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

It’s tough time for the New Jersey Devils these days. The team is rebuilding. The team is rebuilding, they finished 27th last year, they may not be all that much better this year, and they just found out that Travis Zajac will miss a big chunk of the season. But hey, New Jersey fans can always look back on the glory days. No, not the three Stanley Cups. I mean the time the Devils were on General Hospital.

Yes, that actually happened. I’m sure it will be good wholesome fun for the whole family. Let’s watch.

This clip appears to be from 1989. The Devils were coming off of their first ever playoff appearance a year earlier, one that involved dramatic overtime heroics and also referees getting called fat pigs. It was a mixed bag, but apparently it was enough for the producers of General Hospital to say, “Let’s get those guys on daytime television.”

Our scene begins with several young nurses rushing in to volunteer for duty. Apparently “one of the hockey players” has been injured and is coming to the hospital for treatment. Given how excited everyone is, I bet it’s one of the team’s big stars like Kirk Muller or Sean Burke.

Nope, it’s our old friend Doug Brown. See how these sections all link together? That’s called synergy, kids.

Brown’s in the middle of his sophomore season, one that saw him post 25 points. That may not sound like much, but give the guy a break—as you can see, he was playing through a serious wrist injury that required a visit to the emergency room.

Can we just point out that Brown is walking around in full uniform?

At this point, things get a little awkward between Brown and one of the nurses. It’s very subtle, but if you can get past the porn soundtrack that starts playing in the background, it’s implied that they might be flirting.

So let’s address the elephant in the room: Why would you cast Doug Brown of all people in the starring role for this? It’s not like there weren’t any more famous Devils available, as we’ll see in a minute. But they went with Brown. Why? Here’s my best guess: He was the only player on the team who could string three words together. Seriously, have you ever seen hockey players try to act? It’s not pretty. The pantheon of everyone who has ever tried is basically Basil McCrae absolutely nailing it and then dozens of guys doing variations of this. You take what you can get.

“I’m counting my blessings,” says the nurse, before hanging a bright red “NO VISITORS” sign on the door. Like I said, it’s very subtle.

We skip ahead, as an elevator opens to reveal two gentlemen who look a lot like Ken Daneyko and John MacLean if you CGI’d hair onto their heads. It is indeed them, as pointed out by one of the off-duty nurses. She also makes sure to mention that MacLean made the All-Star team, while Daneyko just gets labeled as “the big guy.” Defensemen, man—they get no respect from anyone.

Daneyko and MacLean are here to pick up Brown and drive him home from the hospital. You know, the way NHL players do. But instead they immediately get to work hitting on the nurses, presumably because they both have a thing for 1980s sweaters and Kelly Kapowski haircuts. Which I’m not judging them for, just to be clear.

“I’ll drop my defenses for you anytime.” I think she likes them, you guys.

She also asks them how they skate backwards, but before Daneyko can answer, “Actually, it’s the 80s, so most of us still can’t,” Brown returns from his examination. “You guys should try to get on the injured list,” he tells them, before going in for a kiss on his nurse friend.

Can we just point out that Lou Lamoriello was running the Devils by this point? What do you think his reaction to all of this was? I think we may have found the genesis for his whole “never talk about injuries” policy.

The other nurses demand to know what happened in there, but Brown’s companion refuses to answer while, um, rubbing her throat. I guess we’ll never be able to crack the code. It will remain a mystery forever.

And that ends our clip. Tragically, the Devils missed the playoffs that year. Brown stuck with the team until 1993, but never had the kind of breakout season fans were expecting. For some strange reason, he never managed to go an entire season without getting injured.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you’d like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com .

DGB Grab Bag: Draisaitl’s Deal, Icing the Rules, and the Devils Get Dramatic syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

[junker-town]

NHL’s best players under age 25 for 2017: Leon Draisaitl just got paid, and ranks No. 7

He may be the second fiddle in Edmonton, but Draisaitl is still a star in his own right.

Note: This is SB Nation NHL’s top 25 players under age 25 series! We’ll be covering each player from No. 25 to No. 1 over the next few weeks leading up to training camp time. See the complete list and information on how the rankings were compiled.

As if there were any need for further proof about the Oilers’ commitment to Leon Draisaitl, the team gave him an eight-year, $68 million contract on Wednesday that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the league. He’s also one of the highest-ranked players on our Top 25 Under 25 list, coming in at No. 7.

It’s not been easy to peg just how good Draisaitl is given his partnership with Connor McDavid, arguably the best player in the world. The 21-year-old forward put up 29 goals and 77 points in 82 games with the Oilers last season, but he undeniably benefitted from the time he spent cashing in goals on McDavid’s wing.

That didn’t stop the Oilers from paying a premium to lock up Draisaitl as a restricted free agent this week. The team not only gave him the max term of eight years, but also forked up one of the highest average annual values ever for an NHL player on his second contract.

It’s not like the $12.5 million per year territory that McDavid will occupy when his new deal starts in 2018-19, but Draisaitl also isn’t that caliber of player. In fact, it’s probably fair to wonder whether he’s even worth the $8.5 million per year when you consider how much of his new deal covers RFA years, when players typically make less than UFA years.

But ignoring his massive new contract for a moment, it’s clear that Draisaitl is one of the most impressive young talents in the NHL. He finished eighth in point production last season, and McDavid could only account so much for that. Benefitting from a supernatural playmaker doesn’t take away from the fact that Draisaitl is pretty great on his own.

It’s just not totally clear how good he would be without McDavid, and we not get an answer soon unless he shifts full-time to being the No. 2 center.

Still, the big numbers speak for themselves, and they sold our voters on a high place in the rankings (although he beat out Jack Eichel for No. 7 by a mere point).

Past accomplishments

Draisaitl was selected by the Oilers with the No. 3 pick in the 2014 NHL Draft after Aaron Ekblad and Sam Reinhart. He put up monster numbers (105 points in 64 games) during his draft year in the WHL, then split his first professional season between juniors and the Oilers.

His first full NHL season came in 2015-16, when he recorded 51 points in 72 games. The Oilers didn’t go anywhere with McDavid missing a chunk of the season due to injury, but the pieces were being put into place for Edmonton’s return to relevance.

Then came the 2016-17 season, when everything came together for Draisaitl and the Oilers as they reached the Western Conference semifinals. He put up a team-high 16 points in 13 games during his first playoff run, showing he’d be the kind of guy who wouldn’t wilt under the pressure of postseason hockey.

Draisaitl is also the best player on the German national hockey team, which finished seventh at the 2016 World Championships behind his effort. Winning medals with Germany will be almost impossible given how far it lags behind in overall talent compared to other nations, but he gives them a star player.

Future impact

Draisaitl should continue putting up big numbers in Edmonton for the next eight years, especially if he plays on McDavid’s wing. However, it seems more likely that the Oilers will push him to become the No. 2 center and anchor his own line, given how lucrative his new deal is.

Ideally, the Oilers would be able to rock McDavid and Draisaitl on separate lines to spread out their star talent. That’s what the Penguins have typically done with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, and the same goes for the Blackhawks with Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. Having two stars team up can be dangerous, but if they’re good enough, it’s often better to separate them and create a deeper lineup.

It’s unclear exactly what the future holds for Draisaitl in Edmonton, but now we know he’ll be there for a long time. If he’s a star winger who can give them 30 goals and 80 points each season next to McDavid, that’d be great. But it’d be even better if he could put up similar numbers on his own, letting someone else benefit from all of McDavid’s playmaking prowess.

Is this ranking too high or too low?

Draisaitl deserves to be this high if he can make the transition to an elite center on his own. It’s harder to justify if he’s merely a high-scoring wing next to Connor McDavid, who could make pretty much anyone look good over the course of 82 games.

The best players in the world typically don’t need the support of a McDavid to get their numbers, and we haven’t seen yet whether Draisaitl can produce at that level without that kind of help. But recording 77 regular season points, plus 16 points in 13 playoff games, at age 21 is nothing to sneeze at.

Highest rank: No. 4 Lowest rank: Not ranked

[thrashermaxey]

Capped: Players in the Last Year of Entry-Level Status

  Last week’s Capped article went over some key players who are going into contract years, that you should pay attention to next year. It is no secret that there has been a trend of players putting up career numbers right before they are due a new contract. As a result, just like looking for the fourth-year breakout, and the player jumping up the depth chart, targeting some players in contract years for the next season can pay off in spades.

On the flip side, in cap leagues, we have to be aware of the possibility of a big pay-day. Having an unexpectedly large contract dropped on your fantasy team can throw a wrench in even the best laid plans. Even coming out of entry-level contracts (ELCs), many players are opting to jump straight into a long-term deal, rather than taking the bridge contracts, so we have to be ready for big paydays earlier than ever.

All the players listed below will be coming off entry level contracts next summer and can sign extensions at any time. Some of them will be sooner rather than later.

  ****

Auston Matthews & Mitch Marner – Toronto Maple Leafs

Toronto’s young duo is going to get a well-deserved pay raise, while the team seems to be trying to emulate the strategy out of Pittsburgh from the last ten years. If these contracts come in at the expected prices, The Maple Leafs will soon have over a third of their cap space tied up in Marner, Matthews and John Tavares.

Matthews and Tavares should be forming an incredible duo at the centre ice position for the next number of years, and it would not be surprising to have Matthews sign a very similar contract to the one Tavares inked just under two weeks ago. Coming in on a long-term contract at an AAV of $11 million, Matthews would be paid according to his talent and potential, while not completely tying the hands of new GM Kyle Dubas.

Meanwhile, Marner projects somewhere in the $7-8 million range, between the recent contracts of Leon Draisaitl and David Pastrnak. If he keeps up his point per game play from the second half of last season – and there is absolutely no reason he can’t while flanking one of Tavares or Matthews – Marner should continue to be a sought-after commodity in cap leagues, even after the extension.

  ****

Patrick Laine & Kyle Connor – Winnipeg Jets

After having put up one of the most under-the-radar 30-goal seasons in recent memory, you would think Connor could step out from behind Laine’s shadow. That doesn’t appear to be the case however, as Laine put up a 40-goal season, and seems to just be in the process of taking off.

This situation doesn’t differ much from the pair in Toronto, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Laine end up with a very similar contract to Matthews’, and then Connor come in with a price tag just a shade under Marner’s. With all of the other pieces of the core in Winnipeg already set however, these two may need to take a tiny bit more of a pay cut if they want to try and keep the whole gang together. The recent signing of Connor Hellebuyck certainly helps though (and at almost exactly the cap-hit we discussed here in January!).

  ****

Brock Boeser – Vancouver Canucks

Due to Boeser burning a year off of his ELC at the end of the 2017 season, and then having his 2018 campaign cut short due to an injury, we have yet to see what a full season would be like. His 62 games last year were a career single-season high.

Had Boeser played a full season, would he have gotten worn down and tailed off? Can we expect a sophomore slump coming this year after he started last year off so well? Will there be any lasting effects from the small fracture in his lower back? Only time will tell on all of these questions, but let’s take a stab.

The initial recovery timeline was 4-6 weeks, and the only updates thus far are saying he is probable to be back to full health in time to train for the season. The longer time off however, in addition to the new focus on him by opposing teams could certainly lead to a bit of a sophomore slump. What this means, is that both Boeser and the Canucks are likely going to want to see how the first part of the season plays out before engaging in contract talks. We could see this pushed even as far as next spring before the two sides have enough to go on for the next contract. Teammate Bo Horvat signed in September 2017 as a restricted free-agent, and received a six-year, $5.5 million AAV contract. Boeser may get a little raise on top of that due to inflation, but the benchmark has been set before in Vancouver.

  ****

Will Butcher – New Jersey Devils

Butcher is an interesting case, as he didn’t sign his first pro contract until the age of 22. As a result, he only has a two-year ELC. What this means, is that New Jersey has a much shorter time frame in which to evaluate what they have in Butcher, and what he is worth long-term. Butcher has one season under his belt and has already passed the 40-point threshold.

As a comparable, Colin Miller just received a four-year, $3.875 million AAV after posting his first 40-point season. Meanwhile teammate Damon Severson landed himself a six-year, $4.167-million AAV contract last fall. He has yet to hit the magical 40-point mark in a season, and he wasn’t used exceptionally in a defensive role either. Butcher could use those as a floor for his contract talks, perhaps settling close to the $5 million mark when all is said and done.

  ****

Charlie McAvoy – Boston Bruins

McAvoy, like Butcher, only has one season under his belt, yet he only has a year left on his initial contract. McAvoy burned his first year off by emerging as a future stud blueliner in the 2017 playoffs. The young Bruin followed up a stellar playoff with a 40-point pace in his first regular season, eating up big minutes, and taking over from an aging Zdeno Chara.

McAvoy is going to turn into a number one defenceman and it seems likely that Boston will want to get him locked up long-term with all the other contracts set to expire soon. Brandon Carlo and Chara each only have a year left on their contracts, while Torey Krug is an unrestricted free agent in two summers.

On a long-term deal, McAvoy would likely look at Cam Fowler, Aaron Ekblad and Marc-Edouard Vlasic as comparables, seeking something in the $7 million range per season. As is the case with all three of those comparables, this would be one of those contracts that turns out to be a better deal in real life than in fantasy, as McAvoy’s ceiling will be limited both by playing defensive minutes, as well as Torey Krug soaking up the prime powerplay minutes.

  ****

Ivan Provorov and Travis Konecny – Philadelphia Flyers

Provorov played the majority of the Flyers’ first round series with one shoulder and still managed to be the most reliable Flyers defenceman on the ice. He is blossoming into one of the best value ROTO defencemen around as the only defenceman last season to post 200+ shots while also putting up over 300 combined hits and blocks (Shea Weber and Alex Edler had a chance at the marks but didn’t play the full season). Provorov also added 41 points, and a plus-17 rating. Doing this all on a rookie deal is unheard of. He is turning into the next Dustin Byfuglien (without the size).

Fantasy owners can take solace in the fact that Byfuglien has been worth every cent of his contract and Provorov won’t be earning more than his $7.6 million AAV for a number of years now. Teammate Gostisbehere signed a six-year deal with a $4.5 million AAV last summer. At the time, many people lauded the deal as a potential steal for the Flyers. Perhaps they can pull off the same thing with Provorov, but don’t keep your hopes up.

Konecny on the other hand has nothing to blame for a disappointing playoff showing, in which he averaged under 14 minutes a night. He ended up with one point in the six-game series against Pittsburgh. Add in that Konecny is entering next season with added competition on the wing in the form of James van Reimsdyk, coupled with the continued emergence Nolan Patrick, and it’s tough to see Konecny building much off last season.

His 2017-18 campaign was a nice step forward after his rookie year, however his shooting percentage was high (but not unreasonably – 13.6%), his PDO was high (especially for a team with poor goaltending), and he was riding the coattails of the Claude Giroux / Sean Couturier tandem. The line mates are not a guarantee next season, neither is the puck luck. We may see a small step back from Konecny, before signing a bridge deal, which allows him to break out in his fourth season, earning his bigger paycheck down the line.

  ****

Kevin Fiala – Nashville Predators

Fiala was the most popular vote when readers were asked both on twitter and on the forum, who the last feature in this week’s Capped should be (other options were Jacob Chychrun and Jake Guentzel).

Best known at this point for some highlight reel rushes and breaking his femur in the playoffs in 2017, Fiala seems poised to put it all together in 2018-19. You could even call last year a breakout (48 points), after he tripled his output from the year before. A large part of that was from a 12-point explosion in nine games. Coincidentally, that barrage of points came very soon after Kyle Turris was acquired from the Senators. The third member of the trio, Craig Smith, is a volume shooter, but may be usurped next season. Eeli Tolvanen seems like he may have the inside track on a top-six-spot and would fit in well with Fiala and Turris. Tolvanen is quite the dynamic scorer himself, and with that added presence, Fiala may be able to boost his totals up over the 50-point mark for the first time.

On the flip side, without first unit power-play time, Fiala’s ceiling will only be so high. He scored 13 points with the man advantage last season, and don’t expect that to improve as long as the JoFA line is still around. A modest increase in points seems to be in the cards, and with it, a shiny new contract for the start of the 2019 season. David Poile will certainly be on top of it and never seems to wait long to lock up any part of his core.

On top of that, with extensions to both Filip Forsberg and Viktor Arvidsson coming after they had produced only one 60+ point season each, having two seasons close to 50 points for Fiala would likely warrant something in a similar range. Fiala’s draft pedigree is also eerily close to Forsberg’s, meaning a $5 million AAV for the Swiss winger should be the expectation, if not the minimum that his cap-league owners are planning for. Planning for and hoping for are not always the same thing though, and with David Poile running a tight salaried ship in Nashville, it’s possible Fiala ends up with a deal close to Arvidsson’s.

  ****

Recent Capped articles:

Looking Ahead to Significant Contract Extensions

Reviewing the Free Agent Frenzy

  And stay tuned for DobberHockey’s “Bubble Keeper Week” starting next Sunday!

  ****

That caps off another Thursday.

  Over the last week there have been quite a few signings. If you want my quick take on those with fantasy relevance, you can follow me on twitter here @alexdmaclean

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/capped/capped-players-in-the-last-year-of-entry-level-status/

[thrashermaxey]

Top 10 RFAs due for a big raise

There is never an offseason for fantasy general managers in cap leagues.

Even if rosters, trades and waiver claims are frozen, GMs still need to keep atop of the players on their teams that are free agents and what their potential salaries might be. Too many big raises could put you way over your league’s salary cap.

Last year, David Pastrnak went from a cap hit of $925,000 to $6.67 million, Leon Draisaitl from $925,000 to $8.5 million, Evgeny Kuznetsov from $3 million to $7.8 million and Jonathan Drouin from $925,000 to $5.5 million.

All of a sudden, a fantasy GM who owned these four guys saw their cap hits go from a combined $5.775 million to $28.7 million. That would have forced some owners into making bad trades to get under the league cap.

Below are 10 players that fantasy general managers are keeping a close eye on.

  10. Noah Hanifin

If Hanifin wants a significant raise, he doesn’t need to look further than what his teammates are earning. In the past year, Brett Pesce signed a six-year deal that sees him get paid $4 million per year, while Jaccob Slavin signed a six-year deal that will see him earn $5.3 million. However, Hanifin has easily been the team’s number two power play QB and led the Hurricanes dmen in goals and points. He only made $925,000 this past season.

  9. Jason Zucker

It might be tough to keep Zucker in Minnesota, even though he just posted his third 20-goal season and had a career-high 33 goals and 64 points. He’ll be looking for a significant raise from the $2 million he was making. The problem is Minnesota has $7 million in cap space and also has to re-sign Matt Dumba. The team already has seven forwards making at least $3.2 million next year. Do they want to add an eighth to the list?

  8. William Nylander

Will William Nylander get a huge pay raise from his current deal of $894,167 after back-to-back 61-point seasons? Will he be locked up long-term to a big money deal as part of a core, similar to what Edmonton did years ago to Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins? Or will he be forced to sign a lower bridge deal so the Leafs can first deal with long-term contracts to Auston Matthews and Mitchell Marner? Truthfully, I can see almost any scenario happening with Nylander, including him being dealt as was rumoured this season.

  7. Elias Lindholm

Carolina can’t dicker around with Lindholm on these negotiations, but they need to be wary of a big-money deal. Despite giving Lindholm top minutes and lots of power-play time, the 23-year-old centre has a career high of 45 points from two seasons ago and had just nine power-play points this year. However, he is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent in two summers from now. That means Carolina needs to lock him up long-term, but this contract could look really bad in two years if he’s paid as a top-line player but produces like a third-line player.

  6. Colin Miller/Shea Theodore

I combined these two guys into one grouping as they are pretty much in the same situation as Vegas defensemen. Miller made $1 million this year, but led the Knights defense in goals, assists, points, shots and power play points. Theodore made $863,333, but after missing some games due to AHL time and injuries, took a significant amount of power play minutes and is expected to be the top defenseman in Vegas for years. The Knights have plenty of cap space, but fantasy owners may not have that same luxury.

  5. Jacob Trouba

Trouba might be the most interesting free agent on this list. Remember, he sat out the Jets first 13 games of the 2016-17 season and demanded a trade, before eventually signing a two-year deal for $3 million per. Will he demand another trade? Will he be able to command $6-million plus, considering he’s only played more than 65 games once in five seasons, doesn’t play the power play and isn’t an offensive player? Can the Jets afford to keep him with the bevy of talent that are going to be free agents in the next few years?

  4. Dylan Larkin

Detroit could be in trouble unless they can convince some other teams to take on some salary. The Wings are paying too many players too much money to be average to below-average. They have just $18 million in cap space, but have to re-sign Anthony Mantha, Mike Green and either a number one goalie or a backup goalie (depending on your thoughts on Jimmy Howard). Then there’s Larkin, who is at the end of his rookie contract, and led the Wings in points with 63. Pretty impressive for a 21-year-old who should be getting two-thirds of the power play time (but gets just 46 per cent).

  3. Mark Stone

Stone will be the first real big test for this Ottawa Senators regime in their quest to show the management really does want to ice a competitive team and make the fans happy. Stone is at the end of a three-year deal that saw him make $3.5 million a year, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he at least doubled that number. Stone was a fairly consistent player in his first main three seasons (his points-per-game mark ranged from 0.76 to 0.81), but this year he took that next step with a 1.07 points-per-game mark (62 points in 58 games). Cody Ceci is the only other key free agent on Ottawa, who will have about $15.5 million of cap space for next year, so this should be fairly easy for the Sens.

  2. Connor Hellebuyck

The 24-year-old goalie is about to get paid, big-time. In his first season as the Jets’ number one goalie, he led the league in wins at 44, posted a 2.36 GAA and a .924 SV %, netted six shutouts, and is shining in the postseason. Imagine his contract if the Jets win the Stanley Cup. His deal is going to be extremely tricky though. He’s about to enter his prime years, so he’ll want a big deal, but the Jets have 10 free agents this year, and Blake Wheeler, Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor to sign next year. The Jets will have to move some players if they plan on paying Hellebuyck and Trouba what they are worth.

  1. William Karlsson

It might weird to say it, but it is quite conceivable that William will be the highest-paid Karlsson in the league at the start of next season. Currently earning $1 million, Karlsson was easily the biggest surprise of the league this year, finishing third in goals with 43, first in plus-minus at 49 and 23rd in points with 78. His 11 points in 11 playoff games is only helping him in negotiations. The Golden Knights have almost $25 million in cap space for next season, so he will be paid. It will just be a question of how much.

    from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/fantasy-hockey-top-10/top-10-rfas-due-for-a-big-raise/

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Draisaitl's Deal, Icing the Rules, and the Devils Get Dramatic

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Phil Kessel. Good lord. This isn't Kessel dunking on the haters. This is him dunking on them, shattering the backboard, tearing off the rim, and then using that rim to teach cute little hoop-jumping tricks to their puppy, which immediately follows Kessel home because it loves him more now.

The second star: Phil Kessel. Look, the whole "Phil Kessel eats too many hot dogs" thing has been done to death, as has the backlash and then the backlash to the backlash. But this is next-level stuff. Seriously, take a minute to appreciate what's happening here.

The first star: Phil Kessel. He went and took the one thing that's come to symbolize everything the critics, cynics, and bullies have ever thrown at him and literally ate it out of the greatest accomplishment you can achieve in his line of work. Then he took a photo of it. Then he went back and took a better photo of it. Phil Kessel wins. Again.

(By the way, this is the second time in Grab Bag history that one person has swept all three stars with one shot. Go ahead and guess who the other one was.)

Outrage of the Week

The issue: The Edmonton Oilers' Leon Draisaitl finally signed his contract extension this week, locking in for the maximum eight years on a deal that totals $68 million and carries a cap hit of $8.5 million.

The outrage: Wow, that seems high.

Is it justified: Yes. Draisaitl is a very good player, but he's not some sort of generational talent like teammate Connor McDavid. That means we have plenty of similar players we can use to determine fair value for a comparable situation, and by virtually all of those measures this contract is way too high. The deal the Oilers signed was well above what even their most loyal fans were projecting as fair value.

Remember, this is just Draisaitl's second contract—he wasn't eligible for unrestricted free agency for four more years, so aside from the longshot chance of an offer sheet, he really had no leverage here. Other players who recently received monster contracts, like Patrick Kane, Carey Price, Steven Stamkos, or Anze Kopitar, were all within a year of UFA status, meaning they could plausibly threaten to walk away from their teams for nothing. Draisaitl was years away from that kind of negotiating power, but the Oilers panicked and paid him top dollar anyway.

So yes, the deal is way too high. But also: No, it isn't.

When you're going after the big bucks. Photo by Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

The NHL has a well-established system for paying star players. You work cheap on your entry deal, you get a better number on your second (and maybe third) contracts, and then you get the big bucks once you're nearing your UFA years. That system is fundamentally broken. It doesn't make any sense to pay top dollar to guys who are in their late 20s—those players are already past their prime. Most forwards, for example, have their most productive years between the ages of 22 and 25. It doesn't make any sense that players are expected to play at a steep discount during those seasons and then make it back years later when they're already in decline.

So what the Oilers are doing here makes sense. Unlike the Kane or Kopitar deals, they're actually paying top dollar for their player's best seasons. (Presumably, of course. We can never know for sure how a player's aging curve will play out, but as far as projections go, it's the most likely scenario.)

So which is it? Did the Oilers screw up because they overpaid based on how the market operates? Or did they get it right because they paid a fair price based on how the market should operate? It can't be both.

But right now, it kind of is both. That's because we don't know what kind of impact, if any, Draisaitl's signing will have on the way teams think about these deals. It's the kind of contract that could shift the market, leading other teams to pay top dollar to stars just entering their prime while shifting money away from older players approaching UFA status. If that happens, the Oilers will look like they were ahead of the curve, and Draisaitl's deal will probably turn out to represent decent value.

On the other hand, maybe the league shrugs and goes back to the old way of doing things. If that happens, the Oilers will have missed out on an opportunity to exploit a market inefficiency. Even if Draisaitl plays well enough that the deal represents fair value, it will still be a bad contract because the market dictates that he should have been underpaid.

Right now, we just don't know. It's Schrodinger's contract. But with Jack Eichel still waiting on an extension and Auston Matthews up for one next summer, we probably won't have to wait long to find out.

The NHL USA Hockey Actually Got Something Right

Recently, we found out that USA Hockey's development program will be making a fairly substantial rule change for players ages 14 and under. Starting this season, teams will no longer be allowed to ice the puck when killing a penalty. Doing so will now be treated as regular icing, with a face-off in the defensive zone. The move is meant to encourage young players to think through situations and handle the puck rather than just automatically flinging it down the ice.

It's a smart change, one that will hopefully encourage a little more creativity in a sport that so often lacks it. Youth hockey is all about having fun and learning, after all, and playing with the puck on your stick instead of reflexively dumping it down the ice serves both those ends. So kudos to USA Hockey for the change.

Now on to the bigger question: Should the NHL follow suit?

"I volunteer." Photo by Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports

Not immediately, of course, but is this something that the pros should be looking at doing someday? After all, it seems odd to penalize a team for an infraction but then give it a special set of rules that makes the game easier. If we're trying to increase scoring—and we should be—then a reasonably simple rule change to make it tougher to kill off a penalty seems like low-hanging fruit.

On the surface, it makes sense, but there are two problems with the concept. Let's start with the obvious issue, one pointed out by at least one former NHLer: Most teams would probably just keep icing the puck anyway.

Today's coaches are relentlessly conservative. It's not hard to imagine them deciding that killing off 10 or 15 seconds of a two-minute minor is worth an occasional face-off in their own end. Sure, players would try to execute a 180-foot flip that would fall just short of the icing line, but coaches would probably be fine with taking the icing a man down, just as an increasing number of teams seem fine with it late in the game when the other team has its goalie pulled. And that would mean fans being treated to more whistles, more milling around the face-off circle, and less momentum.

The other issue is one that I've raised before: Efforts to increase scoring should be focused on changes that will help at five-on-five, too. That's how most of the game is played, and we don't want to train fans to sit around and wait for powerplays. There's also the risk that officials who've been told for years not to decide a game will be even more reluctant to call penalties if they know that powerplays are more effective. It would likely be a small influence, but it could be enough to cancel out most of the offensive gains we'd otherwise see.

None of that means the NHL shouldn't explore making the change. Maybe they will someday. But it's not the slam dunk it should be for youth hockey, because in the NHL, the law of unintended consequences is always waiting just around the corner.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

This week's obscure player is winger Doug Brown because, well, we'll get to that in a bit.

Brown was a Boston College star who went undrafted before signing with the New Jersey Devils in 1986. He got a quick look in the NHL that year, and then made the full-time roster for the 1987-88 season, scoring 14 goals as a rookie and earning one second-place vote for the Calder Trophy. That lone vote left him tied with Ulf Dahlen for sixth, just slightly behind 51-goal-scorer Joe Nieuwendyk.

Brown was a useful piece for the Devils until 1993, when he signed with the Penguins as a free agent and got to play with his younger brother Greg. Like everyone else in the Mario Lemieux era, he had the best offensive season of his career in Pittsburgh, putting up 55 points. It wasn't enough to keep him out of the following year's waiver draft, where the Detroit Red Wings grabbed him.

He spent the last seven years of his career in Detroit, although the Predators did take him in the 1998 expansion draft before immediately trading him back to the Red Wings. He was part of two Stanley Cup winners before hanging his skates up in 2001.

As far as career highlights go, well, he scored the first playoff overtime goal in Devils' history in 1988, and had two goals in the Red Wings' Cup-clinching win in 1998. But let's face it, none of those come close to being the best Doug Brown videos you can find on YouTube. Meet me in the next section.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

It's tough time for the New Jersey Devils these days. The team is rebuilding. The team is rebuilding, they finished 27th last year, they may not be all that much better this year, and they just found out that Travis Zajac will miss a big chunk of the season. But hey, New Jersey fans can always look back on the glory days. No, not the three Stanley Cups. I mean the time the Devils were on General Hospital.

Yes, that actually happened. I'm sure it will be good wholesome fun for the whole family. Let's watch.

This clip appears to be from 1989. The Devils were coming off of their first ever playoff appearance a year earlier, one that involved dramatic overtime heroics and also referees getting called fat pigs. It was a mixed bag, but apparently it was enough for the producers of General Hospital to say, "Let's get those guys on daytime television."

Our scene begins with several young nurses rushing in to volunteer for duty. Apparently "one of the hockey players" has been injured and is coming to the hospital for treatment. Given how excited everyone is, I bet it's one of the team's big stars like Kirk Muller or Sean Burke.

Nope, it's our old friend Doug Brown. See how these sections all link together? That's called synergy, kids.

Brown's in the middle of his sophomore season, one that saw him post 25 points. That may not sound like much, but give the guy a break—as you can see, he was playing through a serious wrist injury that required a visit to the emergency room.

Can we just point out that Brown is walking around in full uniform?

At this point, things get a little awkward between Brown and one of the nurses. It's very subtle, but if you can get past the porn soundtrack that starts playing in the background, it's implied that they might be flirting.

So let's address the elephant in the room: Why would you cast Doug Brown of all people in the starring role for this? It's not like there weren't any more famous Devils available, as we'll see in a minute. But they went with Brown. Why? Here's my best guess: He was the only player on the team who could string three words together. Seriously, have you ever seen hockey players try to act? It's not pretty. The pantheon of everyone who has ever tried is basically Basil McCrae absolutely nailing it and then dozens of guys doing variations of this. You take what you can get.

"I'm counting my blessings," says the nurse, before hanging a bright red "NO VISITORS" sign on the door. Like I said, it's very subtle.

We skip ahead, as an elevator opens to reveal two gentlemen who look a lot like Ken Daneyko and John MacLean if you CGI'd hair onto their heads. It is indeed them, as pointed out by one of the off-duty nurses. She also makes sure to mention that MacLean made the All-Star team, while Daneyko just gets labeled as "the big guy." Defensemen, man—they get no respect from anyone.

Daneyko and MacLean are here to pick up Brown and drive him home from the hospital. You know, the way NHL players do. But instead they immediately get to work hitting on the nurses, presumably because they both have a thing for 1980s sweaters and Kelly Kapowski haircuts. Which I'm not judging them for, just to be clear.

"I'll drop my defenses for you anytime." I think she likes them, you guys.

She also asks them how they skate backwards, but before Daneyko can answer, "Actually, it's the 80s, so most of us still can't," Brown returns from his examination. "You guys should try to get on the injured list," he tells them, before going in for a kiss on his nurse friend.

Can we just point out that Lou Lamoriello was running the Devils by this point? What do you think his reaction to all of this was? I think we may have found the genesis for his whole "never talk about injuries" policy.

The other nurses demand to know what happened in there, but Brown's companion refuses to answer while, um, rubbing her throat. I guess we'll never be able to crack the code. It will remain a mystery forever.

And that ends our clip. Tragically, the Devils missed the playoffs that year. Brown stuck with the team until 1993, but never had the kind of breakout season fans were expecting. For some strange reason, he never managed to go an entire season without getting injured.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com .

DGB Grab Bag: Draisaitl's Deal, Icing the Rules, and the Devils Get Dramatic published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Draisaitl's Deal, Icing the Rules, and the Devils Get Dramatic

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Phil Kessel. Good lord. This isn't Kessel dunking on the haters. This is him dunking on them, shattering the backboard, tearing off the rim, and then using that rim to teach cute little hoop-jumping tricks to their puppy, which immediately follows Kessel home because it loves him more now.

The second star: Phil Kessel. Look, the whole "Phil Kessel eats too many hot dogs" thing has been done to death, as has the backlash and then the backlash to the backlash. But this is next-level stuff. Seriously, take a minute to appreciate what's happening here.

The first star: Phil Kessel. He went and took the one thing that's come to symbolize everything the critics, cynics, and bullies have ever thrown at him and literally ate it out of the greatest accomplishment you can achieve in his line of work. Then he took a photo of it. Then he went back and took a better photo of it. Phil Kessel wins. Again.

(By the way, this is the second time in Grab Bag history that one person has swept all three stars with one shot. Go ahead and guess who the other one was.)

Outrage of the Week

The issue: The Edmonton Oilers' Leon Draisaitl finally signed his contract extension this week, locking in for the maximum eight years on a deal that totals $68 million and carries a cap hit of $8.5 million.

The outrage: Wow, that seems high.

Is it justified: Yes. Draisaitl is a very good player, but he's not some sort of generational talent like teammate Connor McDavid. That means we have plenty of similar players we can use to determine fair value for a comparable situation, and by virtually all of those measures this contract is way too high. The deal the Oilers signed was well above what even their most loyal fans were projecting as fair value.

Remember, this is just Draisaitl's second contract—he wasn't eligible for unrestricted free agency for four more years, so aside from the longshot chance of an offer sheet, he really had no leverage here. Other players who recently received monster contracts, like Patrick Kane, Carey Price, Steven Stamkos, or Anze Kopitar, were all within a year of UFA status, meaning they could plausibly threaten to walk away from their teams for nothing. Draisaitl was years away from that kind of negotiating power, but the Oilers panicked and paid him top dollar anyway.

So yes, the deal is way too high. But also: No, it isn't.

When you're going after the big bucks. Photo by Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

The NHL has a well-established system for paying star players. You work cheap on your entry deal, you get a better number on your second (and maybe third) contracts, and then you get the big bucks once you're nearing your UFA years. That system is fundamentally broken. It doesn't make any sense to pay top dollar to guys who are in their late 20s—those players are already past their prime. Most forwards, for example, have their most productive years between the ages of 22 and 25. It doesn't make any sense that players are expected to play at a steep discount during those seasons and then make it back years later when they're already in decline.

So what the Oilers are doing here makes sense. Unlike the Kane or Kopitar deals, they're actually paying top dollar for their player's best seasons. (Presumably, of course. We can never know for sure how a player's aging curve will play out, but as far as projections go, it's the most likely scenario.)

So which is it? Did the Oilers screw up because they overpaid based on how the market operates? Or did they get it right because they paid a fair price based on how the market should operate? It can't be both.

But right now, it kind of is both. That's because we don't know what kind of impact, if any, Draisaitl's signing will have on the way teams think about these deals. It's the kind of contract that could shift the market, leading other teams to pay top dollar to stars just entering their prime while shifting money away from older players approaching UFA status. If that happens, the Oilers will look like they were ahead of the curve, and Draisaitl's deal will probably turn out to represent decent value.

On the other hand, maybe the league shrugs and goes back to the old way of doing things. If that happens, the Oilers will have missed out on an opportunity to exploit a market inefficiency. Even if Draisaitl plays well enough that the deal represents fair value, it will still be a bad contract because the market dictates that he should have been underpaid.

Right now, we just don't know. It's Schrodinger's contract. But with Jack Eichel still waiting on an extension and Auston Matthews up for one next summer, we probably won't have to wait long to find out.

The NHL USA Hockey Actually Got Something Right

Recently, we found out that USA Hockey's development program will be making a fairly substantial rule change for players ages 14 and under. Starting this season, teams will no longer be allowed to ice the puck when killing a penalty. Doing so will now be treated as regular icing, with a face-off in the defensive zone. The move is meant to encourage young players to think through situations and handle the puck rather than just automatically flinging it down the ice.

It's a smart change, one that will hopefully encourage a little more creativity in a sport that so often lacks it. Youth hockey is all about having fun and learning, after all, and playing with the puck on your stick instead of reflexively dumping it down the ice serves both those ends. So kudos to USA Hockey for the change.

Now on to the bigger question: Should the NHL follow suit?

"I volunteer." Photo by Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports

Not immediately, of course, but is this something that the pros should be looking at doing someday? After all, it seems odd to penalize a team for an infraction but then give it a special set of rules that makes the game easier. If we're trying to increase scoring—and we should be—then a reasonably simple rule change to make it tougher to kill off a penalty seems like low-hanging fruit.

On the surface, it makes sense, but there are two problems with the concept. Let's start with the obvious issue, one pointed out by at least one former NHLer: Most teams would probably just keep icing the puck anyway.

Today's coaches are relentlessly conservative. It's not hard to imagine them deciding that killing off 10 or 15 seconds of a two-minute minor is worth an occasional face-off in their own end. Sure, players would try to execute a 180-foot flip that would fall just short of the icing line, but coaches would probably be fine with taking the icing a man down, just as an increasing number of teams seem fine with it late in the game when the other team has its goalie pulled. And that would mean fans being treated to more whistles, more milling around the face-off circle, and less momentum.

The other issue is one that I've raised before: Efforts to increase scoring should be focused on changes that will help at five-on-five, too. That's how most of the game is played, and we don't want to train fans to sit around and wait for powerplays. There's also the risk that officials who've been told for years not to decide a game will be even more reluctant to call penalties if they know that powerplays are more effective. It would likely be a small influence, but it could be enough to cancel out most of the offensive gains we'd otherwise see.

None of that means the NHL shouldn't explore making the change. Maybe they will someday. But it's not the slam dunk it should be for youth hockey, because in the NHL, the law of unintended consequences is always waiting just around the corner.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

This week's obscure player is winger Doug Brown because, well, we'll get to that in a bit.

Brown was a Boston College star who went undrafted before signing with the New Jersey Devils in 1986. He got a quick look in the NHL that year, and then made the full-time roster for the 1987-88 season, scoring 14 goals as a rookie and earning one second-place vote for the Calder Trophy. That lone vote left him tied with Ulf Dahlen for sixth, just slightly behind 51-goal-scorer Joe Nieuwendyk.

Brown was a useful piece for the Devils until 1993, when he signed with the Penguins as a free agent and got to play with his younger brother Greg. Like everyone else in the Mario Lemieux era, he had the best offensive season of his career in Pittsburgh, putting up 55 points. It wasn't enough to keep him out of the following year's waiver draft, where the Detroit Red Wings grabbed him.

He spent the last seven years of his career in Detroit, although the Predators did take him in the 1998 expansion draft before immediately trading him back to the Red Wings. He was part of two Stanley Cup winners before hanging his skates up in 2001.

As far as career highlights go, well, he scored the first playoff overtime goal in Devils' history in 1988, and had two goals in the Red Wings' Cup-clinching win in 1998. But let's face it, none of those come close to being the best Doug Brown videos you can find on YouTube. Meet me in the next section.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

It's tough time for the New Jersey Devils these days. The team is rebuilding. The team is rebuilding, they finished 27th last year, they may not be all that much better this year, and they just found out that Travis Zajac will miss a big chunk of the season. But hey, New Jersey fans can always look back on the glory days. No, not the three Stanley Cups. I mean the time the Devils were on General Hospital.

Yes, that actually happened. I'm sure it will be good wholesome fun for the whole family. Let's watch.

This clip appears to be from 1989. The Devils were coming off of their first ever playoff appearance a year earlier, one that involved dramatic overtime heroics and also referees getting called fat pigs. It was a mixed bag, but apparently it was enough for the producers of General Hospital to say, "Let's get those guys on daytime television."

Our scene begins with several young nurses rushing in to volunteer for duty. Apparently "one of the hockey players" has been injured and is coming to the hospital for treatment. Given how excited everyone is, I bet it's one of the team's big stars like Kirk Muller or Sean Burke.

Nope, it's our old friend Doug Brown. See how these sections all link together? That's called synergy, kids.

Brown's in the middle of his sophomore season, one that saw him post 25 points. That may not sound like much, but give the guy a break—as you can see, he was playing through a serious wrist injury that required a visit to the emergency room.

Can we just point out that Brown is walking around in full uniform?

At this point, things get a little awkward between Brown and one of the nurses. It's very subtle, but if you can get past the porn soundtrack that starts playing in the background, it's implied that they might be flirting.

So let's address the elephant in the room: Why would you cast Doug Brown of all people in the starring role for this? It's not like there weren't any more famous Devils available, as we'll see in a minute. But they went with Brown. Why? Here's my best guess: He was the only player on the team who could string three words together. Seriously, have you ever seen hockey players try to act? It's not pretty. The pantheon of everyone who has ever tried is basically Basil McCrae absolutely nailing it and then dozens of guys doing variations of this. You take what you can get.

"I'm counting my blessings," says the nurse, before hanging a bright red "NO VISITORS" sign on the door. Like I said, it's very subtle.

We skip ahead, as an elevator opens to reveal two gentlemen who look a lot like Ken Daneyko and John MacLean if you CGI'd hair onto their heads. It is indeed them, as pointed out by one of the off-duty nurses. She also makes sure to mention that MacLean made the All-Star team, while Daneyko just gets labeled as "the big guy." Defensemen, man—they get no respect from anyone.

Daneyko and MacLean are here to pick up Brown and drive him home from the hospital. You know, the way NHL players do. But instead they immediately get to work hitting on the nurses, presumably because they both have a thing for 1980s sweaters and Kelly Kapowski haircuts. Which I'm not judging them for, just to be clear.

"I'll drop my defenses for you anytime." I think she likes them, you guys.

She also asks them how they skate backwards, but before Daneyko can answer, "Actually, it's the 80s, so most of us still can't," Brown returns from his examination. "You guys should try to get on the injured list," he tells them, before going in for a kiss on his nurse friend.

Can we just point out that Lou Lamoriello was running the Devils by this point? What do you think his reaction to all of this was? I think we may have found the genesis for his whole "never talk about injuries" policy.

The other nurses demand to know what happened in there, but Brown's companion refuses to answer while, um, rubbing her throat. I guess we'll never be able to crack the code. It will remain a mystery forever.

And that ends our clip. Tragically, the Devils missed the playoffs that year. Brown stuck with the team until 1993, but never had the kind of breakout season fans were expecting. For some strange reason, he never managed to go an entire season without getting injured.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com .

DGB Grab Bag: Draisaitl's Deal, Icing the Rules, and the Devils Get Dramatic published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Draisaitl's Deal, Icing the Rules, and the Devils Get Dramatic

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Phil Kessel. Good lord. This isn't Kessel dunking on the haters. This is him dunking on them, shattering the backboard, tearing off the rim, and then using that rim to teach cute little hoop-jumping tricks to their puppy, which immediately follows Kessel home because it loves him more now.

The second star: Phil Kessel. Look, the whole "Phil Kessel eats too many hot dogs" thing has been done to death, as has the backlash and then the backlash to the backlash. But this is next-level stuff. Seriously, take a minute to appreciate what's happening here.

The first star: Phil Kessel. He went and took the one thing that's come to symbolize everything the critics, cynics, and bullies have ever thrown at him and literally ate it out of the greatest accomplishment you can achieve in his line of work. Then he took a photo of it. Then he went back and took a better photo of it. Phil Kessel wins. Again.

(By the way, this is the second time in Grab Bag history that one person has swept all three stars with one shot. Go ahead and guess who the other one was.)

Outrage of the Week

The issue: The Edmonton Oilers' Leon Draisaitl finally signed his contract extension this week, locking in for the maximum eight years on a deal that totals $68 million and carries a cap hit of $8.5 million.

The outrage: Wow, that seems high.

Is it justified: Yes. Draisaitl is a very good player, but he's not some sort of generational talent like teammate Connor McDavid. That means we have plenty of similar players we can use to determine fair value for a comparable situation, and by virtually all of those measures this contract is way too high. The deal the Oilers signed was well above what even their most loyal fans were projecting as fair value.

Remember, this is just Draisaitl's second contract—he wasn't eligible for unrestricted free agency for four more years, so aside from the longshot chance of an offer sheet, he really had no leverage here. Other players who recently received monster contracts, like Patrick Kane, Carey Price, Steven Stamkos, or Anze Kopitar, were all within a year of UFA status, meaning they could plausibly threaten to walk away from their teams for nothing. Draisaitl was years away from that kind of negotiating power, but the Oilers panicked and paid him top dollar anyway.

So yes, the deal is way too high. But also: No, it isn't.

When you're going after the big bucks. Photo by Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

The NHL has a well-established system for paying star players. You work cheap on your entry deal, you get a better number on your second (and maybe third) contracts, and then you get the big bucks once you're nearing your UFA years. That system is fundamentally broken. It doesn't make any sense to pay top dollar to guys who are in their late 20s—those players are already past their prime. Most forwards, for example, have their most productive years between the ages of 22 and 25. It doesn't make any sense that players are expected to play at a steep discount during those seasons and then make it back years later when they're already in decline.

So what the Oilers are doing here makes sense. Unlike the Kane or Kopitar deals, they're actually paying top dollar for their player's best seasons. (Presumably, of course. We can never know for sure how a player's aging curve will play out, but as far as projections go, it's the most likely scenario.)

So which is it? Did the Oilers screw up because they overpaid based on how the market operates? Or did they get it right because they paid a fair price based on how the market should operate? It can't be both.

But right now, it kind of is both. That's because we don't know what kind of impact, if any, Draisaitl's signing will have on the way teams think about these deals. It's the kind of contract that could shift the market, leading other teams to pay top dollar to stars just entering their prime while shifting money away from older players approaching UFA status. If that happens, the Oilers will look like they were ahead of the curve, and Draisaitl's deal will probably turn out to represent decent value.

On the other hand, maybe the league shrugs and goes back to the old way of doing things. If that happens, the Oilers will have missed out on an opportunity to exploit a market inefficiency. Even if Draisaitl plays well enough that the deal represents fair value, it will still be a bad contract because the market dictates that he should have been underpaid.

Right now, we just don't know. It's Schrodinger's contract. But with Jack Eichel still waiting on an extension and Auston Matthews up for one next summer, we probably won't have to wait long to find out.

The NHL USA Hockey Actually Got Something Right

Recently, we found out that USA Hockey's development program will be making a fairly substantial rule change for players ages 14 and under. Starting this season, teams will no longer be allowed to ice the puck when killing a penalty. Doing so will now be treated as regular icing, with a face-off in the defensive zone. The move is meant to encourage young players to think through situations and handle the puck rather than just automatically flinging it down the ice.

It's a smart change, one that will hopefully encourage a little more creativity in a sport that so often lacks it. Youth hockey is all about having fun and learning, after all, and playing with the puck on your stick instead of reflexively dumping it down the ice serves both those ends. So kudos to USA Hockey for the change.

Now on to the bigger question: Should the NHL follow suit?

"I volunteer." Photo by Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports

Not immediately, of course, but is this something that the pros should be looking at doing someday? After all, it seems odd to penalize a team for an infraction but then give it a special set of rules that makes the game easier. If we're trying to increase scoring—and we should be—then a reasonably simple rule change to make it tougher to kill off a penalty seems like low-hanging fruit.

On the surface, it makes sense, but there are two problems with the concept. Let's start with the obvious issue, one pointed out by at least one former NHLer: Most teams would probably just keep icing the puck anyway.

Today's coaches are relentlessly conservative. It's not hard to imagine them deciding that killing off 10 or 15 seconds of a two-minute minor is worth an occasional face-off in their own end. Sure, players would try to execute a 180-foot flip that would fall just short of the icing line, but coaches would probably be fine with taking the icing a man down, just as an increasing number of teams seem fine with it late in the game when the other team has its goalie pulled. And that would mean fans being treated to more whistles, more milling around the face-off circle, and less momentum.

The other issue is one that I've raised before: Efforts to increase scoring should be focused on changes that will help at five-on-five, too. That's how most of the game is played, and we don't want to train fans to sit around and wait for powerplays. There's also the risk that officials who've been told for years not to decide a game will be even more reluctant to call penalties if they know that powerplays are more effective. It would likely be a small influence, but it could be enough to cancel out most of the offensive gains we'd otherwise see.

None of that means the NHL shouldn't explore making the change. Maybe they will someday. But it's not the slam dunk it should be for youth hockey, because in the NHL, the law of unintended consequences is always waiting just around the corner.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

This week's obscure player is winger Doug Brown because, well, we'll get to that in a bit.

Brown was a Boston College star who went undrafted before signing with the New Jersey Devils in 1986. He got a quick look in the NHL that year, and then made the full-time roster for the 1987-88 season, scoring 14 goals as a rookie and earning one second-place vote for the Calder Trophy. That lone vote left him tied with Ulf Dahlen for sixth, just slightly behind 51-goal-scorer Joe Nieuwendyk.

Brown was a useful piece for the Devils until 1993, when he signed with the Penguins as a free agent and got to play with his younger brother Greg. Like everyone else in the Mario Lemieux era, he had the best offensive season of his career in Pittsburgh, putting up 55 points. It wasn't enough to keep him out of the following year's waiver draft, where the Detroit Red Wings grabbed him.

He spent the last seven years of his career in Detroit, although the Predators did take him in the 1998 expansion draft before immediately trading him back to the Red Wings. He was part of two Stanley Cup winners before hanging his skates up in 2001.

As far as career highlights go, well, he scored the first playoff overtime goal in Devils' history in 1988, and had two goals in the Red Wings' Cup-clinching win in 1998. But let's face it, none of those come close to being the best Doug Brown videos you can find on YouTube. Meet me in the next section.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

It's tough time for the New Jersey Devils these days. The team is rebuilding. The team is rebuilding, they finished 27th last year, they may not be all that much better this year, and they just found out that Travis Zajac will miss a big chunk of the season. But hey, New Jersey fans can always look back on the glory days. No, not the three Stanley Cups. I mean the time the Devils were on General Hospital.

Yes, that actually happened. I'm sure it will be good wholesome fun for the whole family. Let's watch.

This clip appears to be from 1989. The Devils were coming off of their first ever playoff appearance a year earlier, one that involved dramatic overtime heroics and also referees getting called fat pigs. It was a mixed bag, but apparently it was enough for the producers of General Hospital to say, "Let's get those guys on daytime television."

Our scene begins with several young nurses rushing in to volunteer for duty. Apparently "one of the hockey players" has been injured and is coming to the hospital for treatment. Given how excited everyone is, I bet it's one of the team's big stars like Kirk Muller or Sean Burke.

Nope, it's our old friend Doug Brown. See how these sections all link together? That's called synergy, kids.

Brown's in the middle of his sophomore season, one that saw him post 25 points. That may not sound like much, but give the guy a break—as you can see, he was playing through a serious wrist injury that required a visit to the emergency room.

Can we just point out that Brown is walking around in full uniform?

At this point, things get a little awkward between Brown and one of the nurses. It's very subtle, but if you can get past the porn soundtrack that starts playing in the background, it's implied that they might be flirting.

So let's address the elephant in the room: Why would you cast Doug Brown of all people in the starring role for this? It's not like there weren't any more famous Devils available, as we'll see in a minute. But they went with Brown. Why? Here's my best guess: He was the only player on the team who could string three words together. Seriously, have you ever seen hockey players try to act? It's not pretty. The pantheon of everyone who has ever tried is basically Basil McCrae absolutely nailing it and then dozens of guys doing variations of this. You take what you can get.

"I'm counting my blessings," says the nurse, before hanging a bright red "NO VISITORS" sign on the door. Like I said, it's very subtle.

We skip ahead, as an elevator opens to reveal two gentlemen who look a lot like Ken Daneyko and John MacLean if you CGI'd hair onto their heads. It is indeed them, as pointed out by one of the off-duty nurses. She also makes sure to mention that MacLean made the All-Star team, while Daneyko just gets labeled as "the big guy." Defensemen, man—they get no respect from anyone.

Daneyko and MacLean are here to pick up Brown and drive him home from the hospital. You know, the way NHL players do. But instead they immediately get to work hitting on the nurses, presumably because they both have a thing for 1980s sweaters and Kelly Kapowski haircuts. Which I'm not judging them for, just to be clear.

"I'll drop my defenses for you anytime." I think she likes them, you guys.

She also asks them how they skate backwards, but before Daneyko can answer, "Actually, it's the 80s, so most of us still can't," Brown returns from his examination. "You guys should try to get on the injured list," he tells them, before going in for a kiss on his nurse friend.

Can we just point out that Lou Lamoriello was running the Devils by this point? What do you think his reaction to all of this was? I think we may have found the genesis for his whole "never talk about injuries" policy.

The other nurses demand to know what happened in there, but Brown's companion refuses to answer while, um, rubbing her throat. I guess we'll never be able to crack the code. It will remain a mystery forever.

And that ends our clip. Tragically, the Devils missed the playoffs that year. Brown stuck with the team until 1993, but never had the kind of breakout season fans were expecting. For some strange reason, he never managed to go an entire season without getting injured.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com .

DGB Grab Bag: Draisaitl's Deal, Icing the Rules, and the Devils Get Dramatic published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv