Elliotte Friedman reported today that Vancouver Canucks recent trade acquisition Nikita Zadorov never received a formal contract extension offer from the Calgary Flames. Friedman went on to add that Calgary and Zadorov had different opinions on the length of a potential extension as the Flames wanted to be cautious while Zadorov was looking for long-term security.
It’s an understandable position from both sides given the circumstance they both find themselves in. Calgary has several undesirable long-term contracts on the books and was likely hesitant to add another one, while Zadorov has never had more than two years of security on a contract (outside of his ELD). The differences were too much for both sides to overcome which led to the Flames dealing the pending unrestricted free agent to Vancouver.
In other evening notes:
- Curtis Pashelka of The Mercury News is reporting that San Jose Sharks defenseman Marc-Édouard Vlasic is unlikely to be traded anytime soon. While that news isn’t surprising, the timing is interesting given that Vlasic was re-inserted into the Sharks lineup two nights ago after being a healthy scratch for a stretch. It seems that for the right price any contract in the NHL can be moved, however, there hasn’t been a contract situation quite like Vlasic’s. The 36-year-old has no points in 15 games this season and is playing under a $7MM cap hit for this season, and two more years after that. He has a modified no-trade clause that allows him to submit a list of three teams in which he would accept a trade. The other wrinkle in a potential trade is that if the Sharks were to retain salary, it would represent the final time they can do that until one of the current retained contracts expires.
- The Philadelphia Flyers announced tonight that center Ryan Poehling would miss their game against the Arizona Coyotes due to an illness. No word yet on whether Poehling is expected to be out of Flyers lineup for any length of time. Poehling has already missed three games this season as a healthy scratch as the 24-year-old has struggled during his first season in Philadelphia. Poehling has had a far more advantageous deployment in Philadelphia than he did in Pittsburgh last year, but his analytics and defensive metrics aren’t what they were despite being given more offensive opportunities.
Moral of the story: only morons give guys already in their thirties max term, max money and NTC/NMCs.
For every one of these that work out, there are several that don’t, and some that turn out very badly indeed.
The worst part is that Vlasic was already on the decline when they signed him and the advanced stat metrics were pretty darn clear about that.
Not even so much worst as *typical* in these cases. Athletic peak is ages 27-28. The players who *aren’t* in decline by their thirties are few, and the ones who actually improve significantly in their thirties … is there an elite skater in the league other than Brad Marchand who has?
(Yeah, yeah, someone will quote Joe Pavelski, and he’s great of course. Thing is, how many in his draft class are still active? Just Fleury, Burns, Carter and Suter left, out of 292 chosen.)