The Canadiens, Kings, and Senators are among the teams showing the most interest in unsigned Detroit winger Andreas Athanasiou, reports Ken Campbell of The Hockey News. All three make some sense as potential fits as Montreal is in need of scoring help, Ottawa has been looking for more depth up front since training camp when Clarke MacArthur failed his physical, while Los Angeles is looking to play a faster pace this year and the 23-year-old is one of the speedier players in the league.
Darren Ferris, Athanasiou’s agent, noted to Campbell that this situation will be resolved within the next week. How it gets resolved remains to be seen. Obviously, he could re-sign with the Red Wings but there has been little movement on Detroit’s offers or his asking price over the past several weeks. An offer sheet at this point is unlikely considering it hasn’t been done already. That leaves signing with an international team with the potential for an NHL out-clause by December 1st, his NHL signing deadline.
Campbell adds that although the offer that Athanasiou had received from Ak Bars Kazan of the KHL has now been withdrawn, Avangard Omsk (also of the KHL) has put an offer on the table believed to be worth $2.5MM, the amount he’s seeking from Detroit. He has Swiss NLA offers from HC Lugano (where he’s currently skating), Lausanne HC, and one other team but from a financial standpoint, those teams won’t be able to offer close to that type of money.
MLive’s Ansar Khan suggests that part of the current stalemate may have something to do with his role with the team. Last season, Athanasiou was up and down in the lineup and also found himself a healthy scratch at one point. He averaged 13:28 per night in 2016-17 which is fairly low for a player who had 18 goals in 64 games. GM Ken Holland has reportedly assured him of a top-nine role with some power play time but that’s not really anything beyond the role he had last year.
If Ferris’ expectation that Athanasiou’s situation will be sorted out within the next week holds true, there should be an end to the standoff soon but there are a lot of different ways that this still can go in the coming days.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
With the reported asking price on AA being a “similarly aged player with the same(or higher) scoring potential”(according to Elliotte Freidman last Saturday), I do not see how Montreal is a fit as a trade partner. I’m sure Bergevin has asked about him but the only way I can see a deal being reached is if Galchenyuk is involved and even then, as much as he’s struggled early on, Galchenyuk still has far more trade value and the Wings don’t have the cap space.
Is Jeff Gorton high or just as mentally challenged as he appears? Wtf…. the Rangers are a joke and this guy is asleep at the wheel with Desharnsis and Paul Carey as our 3/4 centers?!?!? Wade Shattenkirk is a total joke of a turnover machine , and yet we are supposedly trying to contend for The King, while quality players like Shipachyov and AA are not even pursued? I’ve had it with Gorton / Sather and this nonesense
The Rangers have just under $2million in cap space, so that’s barely enough to go out and acquire a quality third center without sending some money back/sending more prospects/picks (you need to save some money during the season for callups). No team is going to take on a bad contract like Staal and the few good contracts are worth holding on to. Once Fast comes back, I would imagine (or at least hope) that they’d move Miller to third line center, Desharnais to fourth line and Fast or Grabner taking Miller’s spot on the third line wing.
They have important guys set to be free agents this offseason (Miller, Hayes, Garbner, Vesey, Skjei as well as Holden and Nash) so there is no reason to go out and make a panic move involving a guy with term on their contract when they need to save their money for their pending free agents. The Rangers are projected to have around $22 million in cap space and it’s likely that Miller, Hayes, Vesey, and Skjei eat up more than half of that alone. I wouldn’t be surprised if those 4 eat up about $15m (figure roughly $4m per year for Miller, Hayes, Skjei and $2-3m for Vesey) which would leave a couple of million left to round out the roster (additional bottom six guys, backup goalie, defensemen depth)/
Shipachyov is not available just because he is in the AHL. Vegas has him there because they have too many defensemen and risk exposing one or two to waivers in order to call Shipachyov up. Considering the rumored asking price of AA (both asset and salary wise), the Rangers are better off not trading for him. This isn’t baseball where a team can just throw money/prospects at the problem to fix it. And considering the Rangers window is barely open and their farm isn’t overflowing with prospects, they’re better off holding on to their few good prospects instead of trading them for a guy who won’t really be expected to contribute much. The Shattenkirk signing isn’t nearly as bad as you make it out to be as almost any other team would make the same move at the price that Shattenkirk signed for. The signing I had the most issue with was the Brendan Smith re-signing considering he was going to be a third-pair defensemen. $4.35m is too much for a team that is close to the cap and too much for a guy who doesn’t really do much.
Very well said,JT. You provided a wealth of information, thanks. Some of what you said, I didn’t know.
I think the Wings will regret it if they move AA. They need to trade someone else to free up money. The only reason he’s not signed is because of Holland’s cap mismanagement. Now they’re screwing with this kid because of their own incompetence.
Hey Brew, I am from Michigan & have been following the Red Wings for many, many years. At least part of the blame should be put on AA & especially his agent. Even though Holland is an awful GM, AA is an unproven but very talented young player. I have said it on here before that AA needs to get rid of his current agent & find someone better. After all, AA does not have a full season under his belt, but two partial seasons. Sign for the one or two years that the Wings have offered, go prove yourself & this will set him up for arbitration. AA is losing money at this point but more importantly, losing experience & respect.
AA needs to wake up and just sign with Detroit for the year. His value is only decreasing if he plays over seas. He needs to play this year for less then what he wants then cash in next summer when the wings have more cap space or more time to move him to a team that does
Diller, your take on this with AA is spot on. His agent seems to be giving AA all of the wrong advice. As of right now, he is losing a lot of money & more importantly the respect of his teammates that he may never get back. That is why so many players are traded after a lengthy holdout. I have said this before, AA needs to prove himself over a full season before demanding money. But, Ken Holland has gotten the Red Wings right at the very top of the cap because of the contracts given to Abdelkader, Helm & not just a few others but many others.