Archives for May 2021

Topics in this edition of the PHR Mailbag include the Department of Player Safety, the possibility of compliance buyouts, a creative Arizona trade idea, teams that could be heading for a sizable shakeup, Nashville’s regular season struggles, Philadelphia’s offseason, and NHL officiating.  If your question doesn’t appear here, watch for it in next weekend’s mailbag.

pawtucket: How would you fix the Department of Player Safety and its obvious flaws and inconsistencies?

When it comes to its flaws, I’m not sure everyone in the league and the NHL Players Association necessarily sees it that way.  I’m not going to weigh in on the Tom Wilson incident which is what I suspect led to this question aside from noting that the view of general managers who were willing to speak off the record about it was hardly unanimous.  I’m fairly confident the same can be said of the players as well.  If someone wants to see stiffer discipline handed out, there is someone else who likes things the way there are now.  That makes meaningful changes hard to accomplish.

The fine system has largely been ridiculed given its lack of teeth but that’s how both sides (the NHL and NHLPA) seem to want it.  The threshold for levying a fine without a disciplinary hearing is $5K and is collectively bargained (Section 18 for anyone who wants to look up the details).  That’s why most fines have been for that amount; it’s the most they can give without calling a hearing.  It can actually be higher (up to $15K for multiple fines in a 12-month period) but a hearing would have to happen each time.  If they want it to be higher, it needs to be agreed upon in the CBA.  They just extended the CBA and didn’t touch it.  Until a large percentage of players and league executives believe things need to change, they’re not going to change.

As to what I might change?  That’s a hard one as the ideas I have certainly have flaws to them but here they are.  Having an independent party make the decision could be more objective than an NHL employee but that would cost more money and chances are, the league would be more hesitant to refer matters to that independent person which would mean even more of the current system.  Maybe some sort of panel makes a ruling – one with a league representative, an NHLPA representative, and one other party (perhaps a former player).  Each makes their ruling and the suspension or fine becomes the average or median amount of those three.  I’ll admit, that’s not a great system either but in terms of changes that I can think of, those are the ones that come to mind.

Joe422: With so many teams up against the salary cap… is there any chance the league allows a compliance buyout this offseason? And if yes, we know Ladd, Neal, etc will be bought out but what surprise names could we see?

If there was going to be a compliance buyout that was allowed, it would have been last year when teams were caught off guard by the cap flattening out instead of continuing to increase.  Everyone has now had a season to operate under the new system and have signed contracts knowing what the new economic reality is.  And while there are some large-market, cap-strapped teams that would welcome the ability for a cap-exempt buyout, there are others that want to see those teams suffer, for lack of a better term.  I’d be surprised if one was allowed this summer.

But, just for fun, a name that came to mind that might be viewed as a surprise when I saw this question was Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky.  He has not fared well with the Panthers; a .902 SV% wasn’t what they were expecting when they gave him $10MM a year for seven years.  They have Spencer Knight who is their goalie of the future.  Clearing Bobrovsky’s deal off the books would also allow them to be able to afford to re-sign pending UFA Chris Driedger, bring in a veteran backup/platoon option, and still come out with cap and real dollar savings.  GM Bill Zito isn’t the GM who gave Bobrovsky the contract so there’s no situation where the GM isn’t willing to admit his mistake – it was Dale Tallon who made it.

The Mistake of Giving Eugene Melnyk a Liver Transplant: Could Arizona expose Phil Kessel for the draft, then give up an asset to trade to get him back after the $5MM signing bonus has been paid?

Technically, this is legal, sort of.  In the Vegas draft, teams were allowed to trade back for the players that they lost and a few of those teams went down that road but couldn’t work something out.  However, as Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic noted back in 2017 (Twitter link), it can’t be part of a pre-arranged transaction.  Assuming that the purpose of this is to have Seattle repay Kessel’s July 1 signing bonus to Arizona (which is how it technically would work), that certainly feels like a pre-arranged transaction.  They’d have to get a little creative as a result.

For a deal to not appear as pre-arranged, some time would need to elapse before Arizona would re-acquire Kessel.  I’m thinking a couple of months or more with the deal coming just before (or during) training camp.  By then, the Coyotes could plausibly argue that they were unable to replace him in free agency or the trade market and having had time to re-assess their team, now believe that they need to bring him back (and would be paying a fairly significant cost to do so).  Is losing a good pick/prospect or two and potentially drawing the ire of the league worth saving $5MM in costs?  Even with their financial situation, I’m not sure they’d see it that way but I like the creative thinking.

MoneyBallJustWorks: What teams if they are eliminated in Round 1 can you see making big changes this offseason?

For example, if Edmonton is eliminated in Round 1, do they shake up their core outside of Leon, Connor and Darnell?

Edmonton certainly seems like the obvious choice to be bolder in their team building.  The forward depth isn’t the greatest which is a by-product of having players like Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on their roster.  Their defense isn’t elite by any stretch either.  I don’t think they’d move one of McDavid, Draisaitl, or Darnell Nurse but I don’t think there would be many untouchables beyond those three either.  If they go down to Winnipeg with the offense continuing to sputter, GM Ken Holland will have a hard time justifying keeping things the way they are now.

Washington also stands out as a possibility and with them down 3-1 to Boston, them losing also stands out as a possibility.  It has been a weird year for them and it certainly feels like Evgeny Kuznetsov’s time with them could be in jeopardy.  Any time a center of his caliber becomes available, that’s shaking up the core.  If they wind up exposing and losing T.J. Oshie to Seattle as some have speculated, that would be another big change to their core group.

Gbear: Despite getting into the playoffs, the Predators have been awful at shot suppression, shot creation and special teams throughout John Hynes’ tenure as coach. Is merely squeezing into the playoffs reason to allow him to keep his job in Nashville?

Related to that, it would seem that if any team needed to make a play for Jack Eichel, it would be Nashville. Would it not be reasonable for GM Poile to offer up two first-rounders, and any of their prospects not named Tomasino or Farrance for him?

Speaking of a team that could try to shake things up with a first-round exit, Nashville would certainly qualify as well.  They’ve been sputtering for a while now and it’s clear the composition of players they have don’t work in terms of maximizing their individual talents.  A swap of high-priced underachievers is one of the ways that teams can make moves without creating cap problems as long as the deals are similarly priced and the Predators look like a prime candidate to do that.

The hiring of Hynes was a little surprising at the time and frankly was underwhelming as nothing he had done in New Jersey suggested he was a ‘must-hire before anyone else gets a chance to get him’ coach.  But it wouldn’t be fair to just lay it at his feet as the core wasn’t exactly doing much under Peter Laviolette either.  I think it’s more of a roster composition issue than a coaching one at this point.  And for what it’s worth, Hynes has only been behind the bench for 84 regular season games, barely one full season.  Coaches, especially ones that they moved quickly to get like they did, typically get a longer leash than that, playoff success or not.

As for targeting Eichel, sure, they’d be wise to show interest in him.  However, the cost to get a franchise player is going to be considerably higher than a couple of first-round picks that will be near the middle of the round and some prospects that aren’t at the top of their pool.  Eichel will be looked at in more detail next week but if Buffalo isn’t getting elite talent in return, they shouldn’t be moving him.  That package isn’t going to yield elite talent.

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