Habs Yemelin/Emelin talk and other links
by Kevin van Steendelaar on May 11, 2011 9:49 PM EDT
in Opinions and other Habs links
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The potential signing of Alexei Yemelin, by the Montreal Canadiens, has certainly sparked some interest on possibilities on the Habs blueline next season. Now keep in mind, it is merely a potential signing although both Marc De Foy and Bob McKenzie seem to think that the signing is just a formality.
Nothing is in concrete yet as Habs GM Pierre Gauthier will not be allowed to negotiate with agent Don Meehan until after the World Championships.The interesting clause, rumored to be in the deal, is a free ticket back to the KHL, if the Canadiens opted to demote him to the Hamilton Bulldogs. For all we know, this could end up as a dead end.
Meehan has declined comment, according to a report from CJAD. The agent also represents Andrei Markov and Andrei Kostitsyn, who are pending unrestricted free agent and restricted free agents respectively.
Eric Engels feels the possible signing could mean the end for Roman Hamrlik in Montreal.
A Winning Habit sees Andrei Markov as a good mentor for Yemelin.
Clearly there is no God as Jack Edwards gets a contract extension to call Boston Bruins games.
From earlier in the week, Steve Simmons on Hockey's coat of many colours. And no, he doesn't mean Don Cherry.
Quick shout out to Kamal Panesar of HabsAddict and a regular on TheTeam990's Sunday Shinny program. Kamal and his wife are expecting their first child in June. Kamal might use the early morning feedings as a jump-start on the rest of the Habs bloggers in the wee hours of the morning. Just a suggestion KP.
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Having gamed out quite a few scenarios, the potentially most attractive Habs blueline group for the future (starting around the beginining of next year) is
Markov-Subban
Gorges-Wisniewski
Emelin-Weber
As a unit I’d forsee it being both strong on the speciality and even strength and one of the league’s premier puckmoving bluelines. Spacek’s extra year will cover the bottom pairing while Emelin and Weber get ajusted to full time status.
There’s a real benefit to Emelin’s out clause, if he isn’t good enough to be a Habs regular then he can be sent away for no cost to money or cap, lessening the risk of bringing him over. It means no AHL apprenticeship, but Emelin is already a dominant player in a league stronger than the AHL, there probably isn’t much he could learn there that he couldn’t in a 6-7 role in the NHL.
by Stephan Cooper on May 12, 2011 12:52 AM EDT reply actions
I really wish we could keep Wisniewski, but I think the Spacek contract will stop it from happening. I’d say it’s more likely that Gill is back.
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by Andrew Berkshire on May 12, 2011 1:32 AM EDT up reply actions
Curious
What did Montreal give up to aquire Wisniewski?
A 2nd and a 5th rounder. 5th rounder was if he played in 50% or more of Montreal’s playoff games (basically protection in case he got hurt). Not a huge investment, but the Isles got him for only a 3rd rounder, so it was a win for them.
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by Bruce Peter on May 12, 2011 11:27 AM EDT up reply actions
Wisniewski basically would inherit Hamerlik’s capspace. Aso, if it comes down to it, I think Spacek is movable due to only having one year left on his contract.
by Stephan Cooper on May 12, 2011 12:58 PM EDT up reply actions
I think Spacek is moveable to a team like the Panthers, but don’t forget that Spacek also has a limited NTC, so the options aren’t there.
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by Andrew Berkshire on May 12, 2011 1:18 PM EDT up reply actions
the blueline
I think Yemelin is a done deal because he brings a lot of what the Habs require of their 5th/6th Dman for less than what they’d have to pay a guy like Sopel ($2MM+). And he has more upside. And he’s another Russian (for Markov) to soften the blow when AK is traded.
Here’s what I think PG has in mind for 7-man D corps in ‘11-’12 (with the 8th guy to be either young player or old vet at close to min)
PK – Gill
Gorges – Markov
Yemelin – Spacek
Weber
With PK, Markov, and Weber for PP duty, they really can’t afford and don’t need Wizniewski. And I’m hoping that PG realizes that Hamrlik really outperformed this year, playing for a new contract …. but the god-awful player of the prior 2 years is what you’ll get if you re-sign him.
Andrei Kostitsyn won’t be traded. Not a chance.
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by Andrew Berkshire on May 12, 2011 12:48 PM EDT up reply actions
AK is gone
by no later than draft day ….
For $3.4MM, Habs can’t afford to rely on this guy as top-6 fwd. Too unreliable, and given SK’s success in Nashville, his trade value should be okay.
If you think you’re going to be able spend $3.25m-$3.75m and get a “consistent” top-6 player who’s good enough defensively to play alongside Plekanec against the opposition top line you’re delusional.
halpern, moen
the Habs were forced to play both Halpern & Moen on 1 of the top 2 lines for most of the season …. the Isles just signed Grabner for avg of $3MM per for 5 years … AK’s greatest success came playing on the 3rd line with Eller & Moen.
Wake up & smell the coffee … time to cut ties with AK and Pouliot and find somebody that’s better than Halpern/Moen to play RW on your #1 line.
Agreed on Pouilot. The guy is maybe a 4th-liner who will be making 3rd/2nd-line RFA money.
Kostitsyn on the other hand can handle the defensive responsibility in the top-6 and produces at top-6 forward rate. If you can find someone clearly superior to Kostitsyn to play in the top-6, I don’t see why you wouldn’t acquire a better top-6 guy but it’s not that easy.
Who are the consistent top-6 players available for around $3.75 million next year?
fair enough
I think maybe go for a young rising talent like W Simmonds from LA, or a player like that who hasn’t exploded just yet. That’s what the scouts and GM are paid to do – find somebody that the average fan can’t identify. And then make it happen.
Trade the UFA rights of AK & Pouliot together (& draft pick, if necessary) for that young up&comer. $3MM should be enough to get a decent player who shoots right & can play both ways consistently. All we’re getting from AK is 20 goals/year anyway.
If you’re going to rely on an Authority for arguments discussion about player acquisitions why not do the same for the retention of players? If you’re comfortable enough to make an evaluation saying that Kostisyn is a waste of space in the top 6 I don’t see why you couldn’t propose alternative based upon evaluation of other players.
Pouliot has no value, maybe negative value with the need to qualify him with his RFA rights. I don’t see Simmonds (who has only been getting 15 goals/year anyway) being that easy to acquire and I don’t think he’s a clear upgrade on Kostitsyn next year anyway
Simmonds: 0.025QualComp .79G/60 .37A1/60 .61A2/60 49.5Ozone% 49.1OzoneFin% -9.6CorsiRel
Kostitsyn: 0.039QualComp .78G/60 .72A/60 .33A2/60 52% Ozone% 53%OzoneFIN -4.3CorsiRel
I see two top-6 players, the elder of which faces slightly better opposition and produces slightly more (Secondary assists are more volatile than primary assists and thus don’t have as much predictive value). The difference in Ozone% makes it difficult for me to unequivocally declare Kostitsyn better; it’s close and keeping Kostitsyn saves at least a first-round pick which could be used in another deal or at the draft.
If you’re going to get rid of Kostitsyn it should be as a result of getting a player who is clearly superior to him in order to make the team better. Simmonds does have that sexy upside that everyone loves, but at this point he isn’t a clearly a better player.
As an aside, I’ll tell you what my ideal moves for the off-season would be:
-Re-sign Markov
-Keep the top-6 as is with Pacioretty and Kostitsyn playing there.
-Go out and spend $5.5 million on third-line forwards to flank Eller (Brunette and Miettinen would be the ideal pair for me but at best only one would probably be available). Other options include Pisani, Higgins, Torres.
Bring Halpern back for the 4th line
Sign Gill or Hamrlik for 1 year to fill out the defense group (Gill at around $2m-$2.5m or Hamrlik for around $4m. With the UFA crop the way it is, I don’t think Hamrlik at $4m is all that realistic though).
Big moves
I’m thinking the Habs might finally make the big move that has eluded them over the last 5+ years, whiffing on Kovalchuk, Hossa, Sundin, and then inexplicably labeling Gomez a “#1 center” when he’s clearly not.
My big splash – trade for R Nash – rights to AK, Pouliot, Leblanc and #1 or 2 draft pick.
Move Cammy to RW, to play with Pleks & Nash, who’ll become our first 30 goal scorer since forever.
Keep Gionta & MaxP on 2nd line and give Gomez another chance to prove he belongs in NHL.
3rd line is Eller, Moen and Darche (or Halpern)
4th line is Desharnais, White, Weber and/or player at the min.
Re-sign Markov for avg. of $4.5MM per, Gorges at $2.25MM per, Gill for $2MM per … with PK, Yemelin, Spacek & Weber rounding out 7-man D corps.
If you can’t afford Gomez & Nash, bury Gomez in the AHL. Then you either move Eller up to #2 center (he can’t be worse than Gomez in any respect) or you have to find “solid” #2 center for $3-4MM per …. but I don’t have time to outline exactly who that C would be in this post. If it’s Eller, then Desh or Halpern has to play 3rd line, with the other playing 4th line.
Depth on the 3rd & 4th lines was NOT the Habs problem this year, it’s the lack of production from the top lines. If you have Moen, Gomez and Halpern in your top 6, that’s bad … maybe makes AK46 seem like LESS of a problem, but he’s by no means the solution (long or short term).
Stranger things have happened (the Thornton trade comes to mind), but I doubt Nash will be available from Columbus for anything near what most would stomach. Pacioretty, Leblanc, and two first-round picks( I don’t think Kostitsyn would appeal to Columbus since he only has one more season of team control, and certainly not Pouliot) would probably be the low-end.
Eller hasn’t yet demonstrated he’s ready for top-6 duties yet though his progression last season was impressive. I think he might be top-6 capable in 2012-2013 making Gomez expendable.
The uncertainty of the CBA expiring after next season makes things a bit murky. I would plan on trading Gomez after next season (probably bounces back, salary less than cap-hit) but at this point you don’t know what the CBA is going to look like so it makes it difficult to plan.
Ideas like trading for Nash is one of the reasons that fan trade proposals get such a bad name. Nash is the franchise in Columbus, their only elite player. He doesn’t get traded for quantity unless they don’t think that they can keep him. But he resigned long term so that’s completely off the table.
When looking for a potential trade you have to look at both sides. Teams identify who is in their core and try to build around them and thus rarely trade them unless there has been a falling out. Same basic principle with Simmonds, he’s young, cheap, talented and most importantly, well liked by management. LA wouldn’t want to give him up unless they get something significant back.
AK is fine for the role that he is in. Take a look around the league and you’ll find that there are few teams (~5) that have better than him in their 6th forward role. He fits the team by virtue of being able to complement the Habs’ best center and plays well enough defensively to be trusted with significant minutes and is stronger and more physical than an average top-6 forward.
In my opinion, the best place to spend money in the UFA market is on the defense the Habs already have. History shows that resigning players is better value than open market and large money defenders pay off better than large money forwards (largely because d-men tend to peak in UFA years while a forward’s peek tends to lie during RFA years).
by Stephan Cooper on May 13, 2011 5:05 PM EDT up reply actions
Nash
Not saying that getting Nash would be easy, but there are facts to consider that might lead to him being available -
CLB has lost $25MM over last 2 years;
Team isn’t going anywhere (in the standings) with what they have today, including Nash;
A precedent would be Gaborik leaving MIN;
The entire team might be moving, and if not, having a few cheap players that aren’t signed long-term makes it easier to rebuild;
The Joe Thornton trade is another possible precedent and the B’s didn’t get anything equivalent to recent #1 pick (like Leblanc) or high draft picks;
Nash has had injury problems, including back, which are a risk for team acquiring him and possibly good justification for a losing team to NOT keep paying him $7MM per year
If AK46 is a top 6 fwd on a playoff team worth keeping, then adding him + NHL player with “potential” (Pouliot, who might be next year’s SK74 in a new uni) + top NHL prospect (Leblanc) + #1 or #2 draft pick = fair value for Nash IMO
Gaborik left as a UFA, Minnesota would have kept him if they could.
Thorton (and another comparible Heatley) only happened after conflict with management, which was my point. Star players are only traded when their relationship with the team degrades or the team thinks they’ll lose them to free agency.
by Stephan Cooper on May 13, 2011 7:03 PM EDT up reply actions
If Kostitsyn were under team control for more than 1 year he would be of value in a long-term trade like the one you’re proposing. As an UFA after this year though he won’t be worth much packaged along with futures for present-talent. Kostitsyn is valuable to teams trying to win next year and if Columbus trades Nash they probably are going back to Florida/Atlanta style “rebuilds” rather than improving the team for the next couple of years.
I still don’t see how Pouliot has any positive value. He’s a fairly talented 4th-liner but he has to be qualified which means he will be overpaid for his role and Pouliot in Minnesota/Montreal hasn’t been as good of a player as Sergei was in Montreal. Saying he might breakout at age 25 and become a quality NHL player is painting him in the best possible light.
If Kostitsyn isn’t a Hab next year, I will be very surprised and likely very disappointed in Gauthier. He is the kind of player good GMs steal from bad GMs. He’s a very strong 5-on-5 player with consistent year-over-year production, with an underrated two-way game, capable of playing a complementary role on a top line or dominating third-line comps, all that without breaking the bank.
But he doesn’t perform as much as his draft rank and perceived talent level says he should, and this along with his nationality has led to accusations about his work ethic. That leads to his value appearing depressed.
If I’m Gauthier, I’m looking to add a player of this type, not remove one.
by MathMan on May 13, 2011 8:07 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Pouliot
After his performance over last 2 yrs in playoffs, I don’t want to sound like I’m defending Pouliot, but he’s scored 15 and 13 goals playing ~12min/game on 3rd line over last 2 years. Better than what SK74 accomplished. If you put him on a line with a good center & give him steady ice time, w/o benching him whenever he takes stupid penalty, his confidence will rise and you could easily have a 25 goal scorer. Easily.
Teams will gamble on that for $1.3MM/year the same way NSH gambled on SK74, and who’s laughing now … the Habs with D Boyd, or NSH with SK?
The problem is that Pouliot has no two-way game. He has to be sheltered or he gets torched. SK had a real two-way game and was a capable third-liner and possible top-6 stopgap even before Montreal traded him. And he was younger.
He’s nowhere near as good as SK was for the Habs, and keep in mind SK’s scoring this year is heavily inflated by his 25% shooting percentage. His real goal-scoring is probably in the 11-13 range still.
Mind you, trading Kostitsyn for nothing was stupid. But he was, and is a much better player than Pouliot.
SK
had the potential to be a very good player for the Habs, but really didn’t accomplish much in his last 2 years.
My point is that Pouliot is mis-cast as a 3rd line winger, which role is better filled by players like Moen and Darche.
But if Pouliot isn’t good enough to play top 6 for Habs (and he’s certainly not equal to Cammy or MaxP), then his future is either top 6 at LW for a lesser team or top 6 overseas … J Leclair he’s not, but I have a real fear that we’ll see him scoring 25-30 goals in Atl, or Phx, or Winnipeg within 2 years, although he might be a minus player.
You have a fear that Pouliot might be a 30 goal scorer but you want to dump Kostitsyn?
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by Andrew Berkshire on May 14, 2011 11:15 PM EDT up reply actions
AK should be a 30 goal scorer
but I won’t pay him $3.5MM to play the way he’s played for the last 2 seasons … and 20 goals ain’t 30 or we wouldn’t be having this little talk
The way he’s played the last 2 seasons, with consistent 5-on-5 production and the ability to handle first-line comps, AKost is absolutely worth 3.5 million. That’s actually pretty cheap, considering. If AK will resign for that money, IMO Gauthier should jump on that.
There’s more to hockey than boxcar stats. Uncontextualized goals and points are some of the least significant stats there are — and even AKost’s uncontextualized stats over several years are worth the money.
How common do you think 30-goal scorers are, anyway, and how much do you think they cost, especially as UFAs?
My issue with this line of thinking is that we don’t know what the coaching staff in NSH has done differently to put a fire under SK. I doubt he has free reign of the way he plays (likely something he felt was lacking in Montreal to complain so much about minutes etc).
One player being traded feels differently by being traded. Maybe he needed to be playing with more euro players to fee comfortable….we have no idea what change had occur for SK to manage this great season. Yes he’s talented and NSH gave him a shot in more situations than the Habs were ready to gamble on him in. That’s ok. No ill will toward SK who, when playing with the Habs seemed disinterested in playing a system, in being a team player. But that’s just my take on what I saw. Ignorant fan without stats knowledge I am, so maybe there is more that explains his increase in production?
But to ask whether NSH or Habs faired better in this deal?? Who knows. But SK wasn’t working out here, and how long do you work with a guy that needs benchings and to be sent to the AHL to get it?? NSH obviously is a turning point for SK… good for him. And good for the Habs not to waste further time fitting a round peg in a square hole…
by Cruisin4aBruisin on May 15, 2011 8:44 AM EDT up reply actions
NSH did nothing to light a fire under SK. He’s doing exactly what he did for the Habs with one exception: he shot 25%. Incidentally, poor SK is bound to be a disappointment next year because it’s extremely unlikely he ever shoots 25% again.
Which doesn’t remove the core issue: Montreal had a player who was effective for them, in a third-line offensive role, could kill penalties, could do spot duty on the top-6, very cheap. This is what he was doing for the Habs already, no kick in the pants or change of scenery needed. They gave him away, got nothing in return. How is that possibly not a worse deal for the Habs than for the Preds?
Gauthier’s first obvious, clear mistake as a GM.
But he wasn’t. Listen we’re going to argue every time you throw out percentages of what a guy did or didn’t do to prove he was good in a Habs uniform. SK did not do what he did in NSH in MTL. Regardless of shooting percentage.
They didn’t use him the same way. He isn’t getting 3rd line minutes, he is getting pp time. Montreal felt that they already had those things covered. Never needed to use him that way. He never scored 50 points in Montreal, and based on EFFORT (not stats) he didn’t get the time, he got shipped. Scoring 50 points for another team does not mean he would have ever gotten the chance to do it in Montreal. But… stats can’t read the future to say he would have.
I have no idea how one generalizes the greatness of former Habs on what they do with new teams. LeClair is the Epitome of players that were not used in Montreal the way they ended up being used by their other team. Montreal does not play a big mans game, so they didn’t put LeClair in situations where he would be used in that way.He would never have scored the way he did in Philly in the Montreal system at the time. So….why cry over spilt milk??
Sitting here and moaning about the greatest players that never lived in Montreal after they are gone never makes the GM reconsider…why not?? Because they did what was best for the team. Sour grapes players moaning about their playing time can only last so long.
Losing a player who WAS NOT and likely NOT going to live up to expectations is not a loss….
by Cruisin4aBruisin on May 15, 2011 9:08 PM EDT up reply actions
But he was. He did do everything he is doing in NSH, except shoot 25%. Heck, he probably was better for the Habs; NSH doesn’t have anywhere near the same depth so SK was asked to play a role over his head. And it showed in the playoffs.
I don’t care one whit about the appearance of effort. Because make no mistake, usually we’re talking about the appearance of effort, not necessarily actual effort. For one thing, that argument is bandied about a lot in the media, often to stigmatize players they don’t like or feel aren’t performing at the level that they should, or whose contributions they do not understand, or whose style they dislike on an aesthetic level. A guy doesn’t need to be pumping his legs or hitting everything that moves to be effective. Because of endless chatter about “effort” in the media, the Montreal fanbase has a completely skewed view of hockey players (mind you, it is hardly alone in this regard). Heck, I prefer cerebral players that think the game well and don’t need to look like they’re killing themselves to perform, as an aesthetic preference. But those guys would get villified in Montreal.
And as for “living up to expectations”… For some reason, if player A and player B provide the same performance for the same cap hit, it matters to a lot of people whether player A was a first-round pick expected to be a 40-goal scorer and player B is a never-drafter grinder who worked his way through the ECHL. In reality, this is irrelevant.
What matters is performance, and Sergei K was a useful player for the Habs with a very reasonable cap hit and a good amount of upside. He was an asset that the Habs just gave away, and that was an obvious mistake. Making up excuses to explain it because he is a disliked player does not change the fact.
Seriously, do you honestly think SK had negative value for the Habs?
The guy was benched in the playoffs by the coach and sent down to the minors twice and refused to report.
This factor CANNOT be ignored when discussing why he was traded.
You are making assumptions about media reports without any internal knowledge of what was said, discussed etc. between him, Gauthier, Gainey etc. etc. The numbers are irrelevant when discussions of why it was a bad trade without any corroborating evidence by you in regards to the reason he was traded.
It is a fact that he failed to report to Hamilton twice and was suspended. Ignoring that and claiming it was a “big mistake” is unfair to Gauthier because numbers cannot mask facts that you or I do not know.
by Chris Boyle on May 16, 2011 7:18 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
All right, I’ll amend: speaking from “a purely hockey standpoint”, it was a horrible trade.
Whether there were factors that justified giving away a valuable player for essentially nothing, well, neither you nor I actually know if it went that far. I will say, however, that the situation had best become completely untractable before the decision that Sergei Kostitsyn had negative value was made — and I hope that whatever led to the situation degenerating this far, it was corrected. Because this was not really an isolated incident, now, was it?
Montreal has developped a bit of a reputation for trading away useful players, especially young, with “attitude problems”. Not all of it this rep is warranted, and you can’t win all the trades, and Montreal in general has developped so many NHL-caliber young players that they’ve had to offload some of them out of sheer volume. But there were some other terrible hockey trades besides SK; there’s no way to deny there HAS been a bit of a trend there, one that the Habs need to squelch.
They can afford only so many Ribeiro-for-Niiniimas, Latendresse-for-Pouliots, and Kostitsyn-for-Boyds. And it’d be nice to see the Habs steal a kid from some other organization in this fashion too, once in a while.
SK and AK
Can’t we ask the same question about AK46, which is what I’m doing: how long do you work with a guy that needs benchings and to be sent to the AHL to get it??
AK is better, more disciplined & won’t end up in Hamilton, but WHEN is he ever gonna turn the corner and become reliable, top 6 performer … for 80 games/every shift vs. 50 games/ocassional shifts?
If players like Nash were so easy to obtain, blockbuster trades would happen all the time. If Nash were made available the bidding war would be massive. He’s one of the best wingers in the NHL and can play both sides, not to mention his two way game is spectacular as everyone saw in the Olympics. In the end Montreal wouldn’t be the team to put up the biggest package because our management just doesn’t gamble that heavily unless forced. How often has Montreal put up big trade packages in recent years? I can only think of Gomez and that’s because a center was absolutely necessary.
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by Andrew Berkshire on May 14, 2011 1:28 AM EDT up reply actions
Yemelin today vs Canada.
-Very good positionally
-Managed to box Eberle out in front of the net with ease, tough to handle the shifty players
-Gets into the lanes pretty well and blocks some shots
-Got caught with Spezza behind him on the opening goal of the game, back-checked hard to catch Spezza but couldn’t get there in time
-Very smooth skater, has a lot of speed for a stereotypical defensive guy
-Deceptive wrist shot that he likes to let go against the grain. Basically if he’s skating to the right he shoots to the left of the net, and vice versa.
-Looks like he’ll be a good guy to have around in post whistle scrums. He mauled Skinner behind the net at one point. Might get a few roughing calls throughout the year, but I’m guessing most will be coincidental minors.
-A couple ill advised pinches in the offensive zone, JM will beat that out of him I’m guessing.
-He seems to be pretty good at keeping the puck in the offensive zone though. Not Markov good, but not Hamrlik bad.
-Takes a crosschecking penalty on Skinner will attempting to box him out. Wasn’t actually a crosscheck, but it WAS interference.
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by Andrew Berkshire on May 12, 2011 4:39 PM EDT reply actions
Salary note
Yemelin could get a hefty bonus package. He’s a 2004 draft pick, so he’s not subject to the post-lockout rookie deals. And all bonuses count against the cap next year since its the last year of the CBA. He could very well come with a $2m+ cap hit.
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If Subban (Happy B-day, BTW) didn’t reach his bonuses, doubt we should be concerned too much about Emelin doing so.
Its not about reaching them, though… its about the cap space. We have to leave the cap space for him to achieve them, unlike what happened the past couple years.
So even if he doesn’t get paid $2.5m or whatever, we have to plan our team to assume he will be paid that. This is a clause in the CBA that takes place when it could be the final year of the agreement, which is what next year is.
Puck Worlds: Chasing Pucks from here to Turku.
For Twitter Updates on Puck Worlds, follow @puckworlds. For updates plus additional witty banter from yours truly, follow @saskhab.
by Bruce Peter on May 13, 2011 11:19 AM EDT up reply actions
I imagine that as this will be known for the upcoming year, most bonuses for a player like Emelin will be configured to be easy to reach so they become a player’s effective salary as there is no cap-incentive for them not to be reached. They’ll be used as a work around for Emelin’s the salary limit. I imagine he’ll clock in for around 1.1-1.3 million for the upcoming year.
by Stephan Cooper on May 13, 2011 11:25 AM EDT up reply actions
I don’t think the Habs will have cap-space issues next season, especially if Emelin comes over and is capable of playing on the bottom-pairing. He’ll basically take up Gill’s cap-space and spot, which means you need just one more guy on defense. Spend another $5 million on a defenseman and you still have about $5 million to fill out the bottom-6 forwards which should be plenty unless the veteran bottom-6 forward stops getting squeezed in the salary cap.
The cap crunch potentially comes in 2012-2013.
Yeah, I just realised that. If I wasn’t unimpressed with the top-end of the UFA market I would have some interesting thoughts about what Gauthier should do this off-season with that in mind.
The growing trend seems to be that good forwards don’t become UFA’s. The year the Habs picked up Cammaleri and Gionta was a much better than either this year or the last. Last year the three biggest fish (Kovalchuk, Marleau and Plekanec) all resigned with their current team. This year if Richard’s resigns then there really isn’t a forward that is a clear cut top line player availible. The only forward that remotely interests me for the Habs top-6 is Laich, and in this market I see him being wildly overpriced.
Next year may or may not be better. Semin, Hemsky, Penner, Doan and Sharp are the current headliners, maybe 2 or 3 of them make open market.
Current talk is that in light of the bonus cushion not being availible next year, the union will vote to use the 5 percent escalator to bring the cap to 62.2 million and the floor to 46.2. If that’s the case, expect the rather paltry crop of free agents to get far more than they are worth as teams with extra money chase players. If the floor gets that high we might finally see bottom budget teams deliberately take on players with higher salaries than cap hits.
by Stephan Cooper on May 13, 2011 5:25 PM EDT up reply actions
Bruce, from what you stated above initially, Emelin’s a 2004 pick. I think Canadiens will simply make him a flat offer, no bonuses.
Hopefully. Or like Stephan said, they’ll keep the bonuses attainable but low, so like $1.5m max or something. We don’t want a crazy bonus package where he potentially could make $4m or something if he wins the Calder and the Conn Smythe while leading the league in +/- like those old rookie deals had in them.
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In other news, Habs sign Rafael Diaz of the Swiss league. Swiss league is about as strong as the AHL, so his numbers of 31 and 39 points in 49 and 45 games during the last two seasons is strong. Has played a big role on Swiss national teams. Should get a year in Hamilton then a chance to compete for a roster spot on the big club next year, kind of like Engqivst.
That signing intrigues me. I’m wondering if that spells out the end of Mathieu Carle in the Canadiens organization?
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by Andrew Berkshire on May 13, 2011 6:36 PM EDT up reply actions
Carle does seem like a redundant asset at this point. I imagine he’ll be moved like Maxwell.
by Stephan Cooper on May 13, 2011 6:40 PM EDT up reply actions
Diaz
I think it points to PG wanting to spend less on the bottom 3-4 Dman this year, vs. big dollars paid to guys like Sopel, Spacek and Hamrlik this year due in part to injury. If you can pay each of PK (1A), Weber (6), Yemelin (7) and Diaz (8) basically the league min to be your D, then overpaying Spacek for 1 more year doesn’t prevent you from resigning Markov, Gorges and Gill for a combined $9.0 – $10.0MM … which is a solid D corps.
More importantly, he’d be a guy you can let develope in Hamilton and only bring up as needed.
by Stephan Cooper on May 13, 2011 7:35 PM EDT up reply actions
There’s talk that he is better than Streit at his age. But it’s from his agent. “Might become the best Swiss player ever” was also mentioned.
But I think that’s what Montreal is trying to do with this — recreate Mark Streit.
I really think the comparisons to Mark Streit need to stop. I don’t think every offensive minded Swiss defenseman is the exact same player. I’m not accusing you of this in particular, but I think it happens too often with Weber and now Diaz is instantly labelled the same. This Diaz guy does look very promising though, but I’m guessing Weber is still ahead of him on the depth chart.
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by Andrew Berkshire on May 14, 2011 1:19 AM EDT up reply actions
Comparing to were Streit was at his age is a bit disingenous anyway. Streit was one of those rare players that continued to get better over the course of his career.
by Stephan Cooper on May 14, 2011 4:26 AM EDT up reply actions
comparisons
what they really want is to be able to compare Diaz to B Rafalski, which would be wonderful to hear in 1 or 2 years
My point above was also that by saving some $$ on the D corps, hopefully that frees up $$ to improve the top 6 … that’s my hope.
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