Ex-Penguins Update: January 22, 2017

1. Hey Rick,

   As always, thanks for all the leg work on things like this. I always love to see what some of my more favorite ex Pens are doing.

   Okay part 2 Game on for all of you arm chair GMs.
   Pick 2 ex Pens you either would love to see still wearing the Black – n -Gold or would at least not object to if the JR traded for them now through the deadline. (Even if for sentimental reasons, Jayelene please wade in on this too, if you see it. I would love to hear what you think on this)

   1. Hey Coach,
      You sure like to stir the pot…..that is for sure. One of the reasons I enjoy blogging with you…. No second guessing where you stand on a issue.
      Jordan Stall…. My favorite Pen that got away. By far the best # 3 center in the league when he was playing with us. His offensive skills were often over looked.
      Now my turn to stir the pot my friend. Everybody chirp in if you wish. 🙂

      Pittsburgh,we have a problem !!! Not now,but come 150 days from now. We are in real trouble…. About 10 million dollars worth of trouble come July.
      Conner Sheary. He scored 2 more goals and an assist tonight. 17 goals and 17 assist for 34 points in 39 games. He is number 4 in points and number 3 in scoring right now. The 3 guys ahead of him are paid 10 million, 12 million and 12 million in real salary. I think he makes 625 K this year, maybe less. ????
      Yup , just our luck he is a restricted free agent come July. Can you imagine for just 1 minute, if he gets 35+ goals this year and 40 assists, what we will have to pay him to stay as a Penguin ? Last July the free market was paying 6 million+ a year for a 3 or 4 year mid term contract with players having similar numbers. Ouch !! If he continues to play like he has,he deserves it.
      On top of that, the 5th player on the Pens scoring chart is defense man Justin Schultz, with 7 goals,26 assists for 33 points and a plus 27.One the tops in the league. He used to make about $ 4.5 million + a year, and took a pay cut to $ 1.4 million a year to try and get his game back.
      He is doing that alright and he too is a restricted free agent come July.
      If he ends up with 17 goals and 50 assists for the season, he will get $ 6.0 million plus for a new long term contract easily, because we all know that offensive d men are expensive to keep.Sure we lose Chris K. $ 3.85 million salary if he retires, or if he signs for 1.1 million like Cullen did, you only save $ 2.75 million on the Cap. The NHL have already said the Cap is not increasing and may go down for 2017. More ouch ? 10 million ouchs.
      So do you really think guys and gals, MAF and his $ 5.75 million contract will be here in July ? Not a chance.
      Plus, it gets even better…
      We still need to sign Mick Bonino and Brian D. and Matt Murray’s new $ 2.5 million pay increase starts July 1st as well. Another 5 to 6 million !
      Money grows on trees they say but unfortunately NHL Cap space does not .

      Hey Coach, did I stir up the pot enough for you ???
      Cheers. 🙂

      1. Hey Jim,

         I guess you did. Most people probably don’t want to think about those questions and hope that they just go away.

         I would love to see the Pens resign Schultz, but that may be asking for much. However, the Pens need to resign Sheary. I like Bonino but with the way Fehr looks at Center and the the way Sundqvist is playing in WBS may cause me to get a little cheap here. I like Domoulin but again, I am not sure I am willing to open the purse strings too much. In both cases, My stance of cheap is not a lack of appreciation for what either Bonino or Domoulin can do, but just an acknowledgement of the problems facing the team financially and prioritizing signings.

         I am not sure MAF makes it through this season if I am incharge. AS much as I like MAF and as much as I understand the frailty of the position of Goalie in todays game, I think the team is more in need of someone who can cut down the zone time of opponents.

         Which leads me to offer my thoughts on former Penguins. There are more than 2 former Pens I would have like to stay a Penguin. I will start with your man Staal, I really didn’t want him to leave at that time either. Along with him I wanted to see Orpik retire a Pen, I liked Niskanen but not for what he signed for, Martin is on my list of Pens I hated to see go as well Goligoski, Despres, and Jokinen.

         However, with that list of former Pens that I liked and hated to see go, the 2 I would love to have on this team right now are Despres and Condon. If Despres were with the Pens, chances are great that he isn’t facing the same injury he is now facing and while he was here he did a yeoman’s job even under MJs system and Bylsma’s yo yo blaming him, the rookie, for the ills of the team and giving him mixed signals on rougher play. As for Condon, had the Pens pulled the trigger earlier in the year and dealt MAF, they would have been able to use that 5.75 mil in other ways (or whatever was left between MAF and Condon’s salary) and Condon actually has been having a better season than MAF (Mainly due to MAF being misused, using him as a back-up goalie or at best a rotated goalie, not getting enough starts to actually be effective).

         1. Great choices Coach.
            Condon is doing well in Ottawa and I totally agree that we would be a better team if we had the 5.75 million properly spent on an upgrade to the d corps.
            If Sheary keeps scoring a point a game he will be an answer to Crosby needing a good scoring linemate.
            Sheary is an oportunistic goal scorer.He has that unique ability to go where the puck will be.The open ice or 8 ft from the net. He is there.
            You know my obsession with 1 st round draft picks Coach so if we do not resign Shultz and Sheary due to Cap space reasons, at least we will end up with a possible 3 first round, 2 second and 2 third round picks as compensation. Not a bad days work considering where we came from drafting 3 rd round and lower under Shero.
            Cheers

            1. Agreed Jim,

               Even if the Pens lose Sheary as a RFA they will get good compensation, I think that he does resign.

               Even if the Pens don’t get a shut down D directly for MAF, they could have parlayed what they did get into the D they need. Consider if the Pens had traded MAF for the 2nd Cal Pick and then used that money to sign Veasy. They now could have either traded Veasy or some other top notch FWD for a Hedberg or other big mobile D. (With Stamkos’ problems they may be willing to deal maybe not Hedberg but you understand the point)

            2. First, a disclaimer – I don’t have a great understanding of how the salary cap works. I tend to look at questions like this from the heart, and not from the purse. So suspending reality for the moment, I’d like to see Brooks Orpik back. There’s been so much discussion here about how we’d like to see the Pens add a solid defenseman to the mix, and Orpik is that. He hasn’t missed a game this year, and leads the Caps in +/-. He doesn’t add much in the way of scoring, but considering what the Pens are doing offensively, I don’t think we care.

               But then there’s reality – money, money, money. I agree with both you guys – it’s a shame they let Condon go. (It hurts to say that, too … MAF has been such a key part of this team for so long.) But, Condon would have provided a solid backup, and given the team so much more cap flexibility in trying to bolster the defense.

               Interesting discussion, as always! The bottom line is they need to get some help at the blue line, and as much as I’d love to see it come from within, I have my doubts.

               1. Jaylene
                  A younger and cheaper Orpik would do wonders for this club.
                  Exactly what they need. Good choice.
                  Cheers

               2. Hey Jayelene,

                  I certainly wouldn’t be upset at all if Orpik was still on this roster. I really wanted to see him retire a Penguin. I remember when he first came up just like it was yesterday. And, financially, Cap-wise speaking, if MAF had been traded, there just may have been enough $$$ swing to flip those 2-players.

                  Maybe the only reason I didn’t mention him, I mentioned Despres, was age.

                  I am glad to hear from another Orpik fan!

               3. Jim – is there a younger, cheaper Orpik out there?

                  And the Other Rick – remember my disclaimer, Brooks was a choice of the heart … which is probably not a great basis for GM’s to use in their decision-making. 😉 )

               4. Hey all,

                  Sorry to get to the dance so late. But great thoughts and comments, as always.

                  Aside from the lack of a big forward and defenseman who can bang, I really like our team. However, if I had to pick two guys to get back, it would be Ben Lovejoy and Mike Condon.

                  I still think Lovejoy could help on the PK and in an all-around way, although Ruhwedel is showing signs of filling that void.

                  And…while hindsight is 20/20…I agree with Jayelene that Condon would’ve been an ideal backup for Murray if we decided to move Fleury.

                  Rick

               5. You’re right, Rick – singling out Condon could be a case of cashing in on 20/20 hindsight. He did fill in pretty well for Kerry Price last year, but it was a short sample. I’ll have to admit that I didn’t give it much more than a passing hmmm when they let him go earlier this season.

                  I mentioned earlier that I really don’t understand the nuances of the NHL salary cap, but I’m thinking that if I’m going to try to run with the Big Dogs here at PenguinPoop, I’d better learn to bark. (Sorry, that doesn’t even make sense!) Anyway, I know it’s too complicated to explain in our context and structure here, but do any of you know of a good online source where I can educate myself?

               6. Hey Jayelene,

                  I’m not super cap knowledgeable myself. But whenever I want to look up a team’s cap info, I go to either http://www.spotrac.com or http://www.capfriendly.com.

                  Both do a nice job of presenting cap info in a way that even I can understand … 🙂

                  If you’re just looking for general info about the cap itself, Wikipedia usually does a decent job of explaining things.

                  And don’t worry about barking with the big dogs. We sound like we know a lot more than we really do … 🙂

                  Your comments are always welcome.

                  Rick

               7. Hey Jayelene
                  FYI
                  Here are 3 good sources for Cap information that I use. There others sites but I found these to be the best for me.

                  1. NHL Numbers .com
                  2. Cap Friendly.com
                  3.Hockey Buzz.com

                  All are good.
                  The very best was , but closed on January 2015 was Cap Geek.com
                  This guy did it all and due to health reasons he ceased operations. He was the Gold standard.
                  These others are poor imitations.

                  The Hockey Cap is everything when looking at how hockey really works.There many regulations when dealing with the Cap. So start slowly and ask a lot of questions my new friend.

                  Always remember the Cap was put in place so that big market teams could not exploit smaller ones.
                  But there are ways around the Cap.
                  For example Toronto pays 1.2 million of Phil’s salary
                  and thus must carry it on their books.
                  We pay 6.8 million of his salary so we only get charged for 6.8 million on our Cap total.

                  Hope this helps ☺
                  Cheers

               8. Rick & Jim, thanks SO much for pointing me in the right direction. This should give me some light reading, and keep me out of trouble. And Jim, thanks for offering the opportunity to come back with questions. Although … you may regret it, my new friend. 😉

               9. Jaylene
                  The Cap is set by the NHL and is based on total revenues received by the league according to the CBA agreement negotiated by the NHL and NHL PA.
                  The league splits revenues 50 % with the players and 50% with the owners.
                  The Cap this year was 73.4 million for 2016/ 2017.
                  That is the max a team can spend on salaries. There is a minimum that a franchise must spend in order to keep their charter as well.
                  Because of the large Canadian revenue sources for the NHL, the cap is directly impacted by the Canadian dollar. When our dollar drops our large media companies pay the NHL less money.
                  For example the English media contract in Canada pays each NHL team about 30 million dollars annually. The NBC contract pays far less, because Hockey in the USA nationally draws far few viewers.
                  Another point is the Cap takes the total value of a players contract and divides it by the number of years on the players contract. But the team can front load a players contract.
                  Case in point Sid Crosby is paid 12 million this year but his cap hit is only 8.7 million.Because in Sidney Crosby contract last year he is paid 2 million but we have to still take a 8.7 million dollar cap hit.
                  The good and the bad.
                  Hope this is helpful.
                  Cheers

               10. Hey everyone,

                   Looks like we all agree that Condon is a great hindsight keeper.

                   I am not going to argue with anyones other choices, Jim liked Staal and although I like Bonino, Staal on a 3rd line with Kessel and Hegelin would sound interesting.

                   Jayelene’s choice of Orpik, the guy is still a top +/-man even at his age and I always liked him. (Sentiment is a good enough reason too)

                   And Rick, we talked about it, and although he wouldn’t be my first choice, I would welcome Loovejoy back most happily. I do appreciate what he did last year and there is no reason to think that he could do it again. Your idea that NJ may entertain a trade (from the last time we talked) is interesting. It is one of those under the radar moves that may actually happen.

               11. Hey Jim! Thanks so much for the explanation – it’s very helpful. It never occurred to me that the cap would be impacted by the exchange rate. And you also helped me with one question I knew I’d be coming back with – why a player’s “Total Salary” often differs from his “Total Cap Hit” (or “Adj. Cap Hit”). Thanks!

                   By the way, I like the idea of getting Lovejoy back, too, and I think Rick has shown that it could be more than a pipe dream. He’d obviously be a good fit from a team perspective, and I think he brings the kind of steady play that we don’t seem to be getting consistently from the WBS kids. (Although in fairness, they all need a little more time – both to get acclimated to the NHL, and then to show what they can really do. Of those who have been spinning in and out through the revolving door so far, Ruhwedel seems to demonstrate the most promise.)

               12. Hi Jaylene
                   I am watching the Ottawa and Capitals game. Condon is in net. OTTAWA leads 3 to 0 at the end of the second period.
                   Condon is playing really well. The Capitals should have at least 5 goals of their own but Condon robbed them.
                   They announced Condon has played the last 14 games straight and he is stealing the starters job from Anderson.
                   Oh yeah we gave him away for a fifth round pick.

                   Just crazy.

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