Topics in this edition of the PHR Mailbag include what, if anything, is next for the Wild on the trade front, Chicago’s tough season, and much more. If your question doesn’t appear here, check back in our last two columns.
nolesfan75: Do players like Matthew Phillips and Kailer Yamamoto have any realistic chance of getting another opportunity in the NHL? They both are having strong years at their respective AHL clubs.
It’s unfortunate but it’s hard for smaller offensive players to get any sort of significant opportunity in the NHL once they get labeled as more of a minor leaguer. You’re definitely correct in stating that Phillips and Yamamoto are having strong seasons in the minors but the problem they run into is this. They’re good enough to be impactful players in the AHL but not good enough to be a top-six piece consistently in the NHL. Meanwhile, they’re often viewed as too small to play regular minutes in the bottom six for an NHL team. So, where does that leave them? Basically, they have to hope for a short-term injury to an offensive forward to have an opportunity for a short-term recall and if things go well from there, maybe stick around for a bit.
To make things even harder for them, there might be an NHL team or two who would be willing to give someone like that a chance after the trade deadline to avoid needing to recall someone from their farm team (helping in a playoff push down there). But because Phillips and Yamamoto are big producers in the minors, their respective NHL teams are unlikely to just give them away and weaken their farm team to do right by the player. It’s a tough cycle to get out of which is why these players often move around in free agency each summer, trying to find a new opportunity that gives them a better chance at an NHL look at some point.
letsgonats: Related, do teams target AHL players? Folks like Phillips or Ethan Bear that are all stars at AHL but they are not 21-year-olds but 25–28-year-olds with some NHL experience and can serve as depth. Ethen Frank is “old” at 28 but obviously was buried and stuck in AHL. Do teams try to grab AHL folks and give them the job over existing NHL folks?
There is an annual shuffle of top AHL players that I think at least partially qualifies as a yes to this question. But it’s not necessarily with the idea of having that player displace an NHL regular although they typically promise that the player will get that opportunity at least in training camp. That’s the biggest driver of top AHL players in free agency, just trying to upgrade the AHL teams.
The next level of targets for teams looking at AHL players are young players coming off an AHL contract that a team wants to sign to an NHL deal. Since you’re a Washington fan, I’ll give you a Capitals-specific example, Pierrick Dube. He had a strong first pro year on a minor league deal and that was enough for Washington to have to give him an entry-level contract to secure his NHL rights. There are usually a handful of those moves each summer league-wide.
There aren’t many comparisons to Frank out there. Waivers allow players in his situation to be snapped up if there’s an NHL team that thinks an AHL regular is worthy of a look at the top level and usually, if they’re that confident about that player’s ability to be an NHL regular, they’ll typically try to acquire the player in a small trade beforehand. So while there are some AHL players who are targeted for various reasons, it’s not too often that they’re being looked at as pieces to join an NHL roster full time.
Zakis: What, if anything, will the Wild do? Or be able to do?
I was really hoping that I could get away with pushing this question into this column as I figured that Minnesota would wait until closer to the trade deadline when they might have more clarity on the status of injured forwards Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek. Oh well.
Realistically, my logic still holds true today though. If one of them can’t return before the end of the regular season, the Wild will have the ability to spend several million to try to add another upgrade or two before Friday’s trade deadline. But if not, they’ll be in a spot where they need to cut down to close to the minimum-size roster to get back to cap compliance. At that point, they’re in a money-in, money-out situation which greatly affects what they’ll be able to do.
I don’t think they’re quite done yet up front beyond the Gustav Nyquist acquisition but that will probably be their biggest move of this stretch. With the struggles of their penalty kill, I suspect they’ll have their eye out for a fourth liner who can kill penalties. In a perfect world, that player would be a center but any shorthanded upgrade would be a welcome one.
It’s worth noting that Minnesota doesn’t have a first-round pick or a third-round selection this year, nor do they have second-rounders in 2026 and 2027 so their trade chips are somewhat limited here, assuming their top youngsters are off the table. But a mid-round pick for a checker making $1MM or less is something I still expect them to do regardless of what happens with Kaprizov and Eriksson Ek. Anything else will be dependent on one of them being out for the rest of the regular season.
Unclemike1526: When Brossoit makes it back to the Hawks, Soderblom will have played too many games to be sent down without passing through waivers. IMO, no player is more improved in the NHL this year than Soderblom. Last year whenever the other team crossed the red line, Soderblom would drop on his knees and wait for the other team to just shoot it over his shoulders. Now that he actually stays on his feet the change has been remarkable.
So, faced with having to keep three Goalies, is there any chance they can move Mrazek when he has next year remaining at $4 million bucks? Would a team need a G bad enough to take that on? Brossoit has no value having been hurt all year and Soderblom might be a keeper. One has to go IMO or we’ll have the same problem again next year as they’ll all have contracts. Thanks again.
I’m glad I got the Seth Jones question out of the way last week and as it turns out, that trade makes this question that much more important. With Spencer Knight now in the fold, Chicago has four netminders under contract for this season. Three are signed already for next year and Arvid Soderblom has done more than well enough to earn a contract for 2025-26 as well. For this year, I’m skeptical that Laurent Brossoit is going to return and they can just run with three goalies for the final seven weeks of this season so it’s not necessarily a problem just yet.
Petr Mrazek has a $4.25MM cap charge for next year which is on the high side but he’s also going to be on an expiring contract. I think it’s possible that there will be a team or two who doesn’t like the idea of signing a UFA to a multi-year deal but could afford an overpay on a short-term contract. If those are out there, then yes, I think Chicago can move him. And with two retention slots opening up on July 1st, the Blackhawks could use one to pay down part of that contract and actually get a bit of value in return (likely a mid-round draft pick). If it doesn’t happen, he’s probably on waivers and in the minors in October.
Assuming that Chicago intends to give Knight a long look, I suspect their ideal tandem for next year is him and Soderblom. Brossoit coming off an injury-riddled year has minimal value so he’d either be the third-string option or on waivers and in the minors himself assuming he’s healthy by training camp. If he and Mrazek were both in the AHL, I expect one would then be loaned to another team with the other partnering with Drew Commesso in Rockford. There’s a way to get through this with the four but if they can find a taker for Mrazek or Brossoit (which seems less likely given the injury trouble), that would certainly help things.
samwise1313: Are the Blackhawks going in the right direction?
From a longer-term standpoint, I think so. They already have one of the stronger prospect pools in the league and with nine picks in the first two rounds between the next two drafts (four first-rounders and five second-rounders), they’re set to make it even stronger pretty quickly. I think they’d be a bit disappointed with how things have gone in Rockford but they’re at least in a play-in spot so there’s a chance that young group gets a bit of a postseason taste. So as far as the long-term future goes, they’re doing alright.
But this season hasn’t been a great one. The results have been ugly under both coaches and even Connor Bedard’s sophomore year hasn’t seen him take a big step forward as expected. I didn’t have an issue with them getting some veterans to avoid having a bunch of young guys in spots they’re not necessarily ready for but they haven’t done well at moving the needle, so to speak. In terms of progression, there hasn’t been much which is not what you want to see from a rebuilding squad. In that sense, it feels like a bit of a wasted year but in the long run, they’re still on the right track when it comes to asset accumulation.
GBear: The Ducks have been flying high of late and have migrated up the standings a bit, so would one be a quack to think they could waddle their way into a Wild Card spot?
Entering play today, Anaheim is six points out of the last spot with a game in hand. It’s unlikely that they could make up that gap but it’s far from impossible either. I wouldn’t say it’s likely that they’d do it but one wouldn’t be a quack for suggesting it’s possible.
Here’s the problem though. This team can’t score. They’re second-last in the NHL in the goals scored department and Anaheim only has one player with more than 36 points. If you go out and add a top-six forward or two, it’s still a group that isn’t going to be very good offensively which is going to make a playoff push unlikely and if they did get there, they’d be a pretty easy out most likely.
While GM Pat Verbeek would probably never admit it publicly, deep down, he’s probably thinking that it’s at least a year too early for them to make a semi-realistic push for a playoff spot. But the fact that they’re going to be playing at least some semi-meaningful games in March from a standings perspective is going to be a positive to help prime the young core for what’s supposed to come down the road. But getting to the postseason dance would be a bit of a shocker.
Schwa: When news comes out that a team/player are discussing an extension – is this typically a leak by the team in an effort to drive up trade value? Or is this usually legit?
I’d posit that a team leaking that they’re working on an extension with a player doesn’t affect his trade value in a lot of circumstances. If you’re an acquiring team, are you going to suddenly up your offer enough to the point where the other team ends negotiations and trades the player? It’d have to be a pretty big add to make a team change their mind about re-signing someone they’re interested in keeping.
For rental players where the team is on the fence about keeping or trading the player, maybe a leak like that ups an offer to try to flip the other from signing to trading but that’s a pretty small window we’re working in. But generally speaking, if a team wants to sign a player to an extension, their focus most often is going to stay on an extension.
Now, as to who leaks it, that’s a bit more fun. It wouldn’t shock me if it’s sometimes teams leaking to try to get the player to accept whatever offer is on the table (or close to it) with the hope that some public pressure might seal the deal. Other times, it might be the agent who leaks it hoping to put some public pressure on the team to up their offer. I’d say more often than not, the leak is legitimately true.
vh33: Is a team allowed to extend a player’s contract which takes them (far) above the salary cap limit for next year? If not, what are the rules? And was it a few months ago (when the salary cap for the next years weren’t official) possible to extend a contract, exceeding the limit for next year, but knowing that the limit would probably raise? Could they speculate on that?
This used to be what was called the tagging rule. Teams could only add salary for the following season to the point where their projected payroll for the future year was the same as the current year’s cap. So if the Upper Limit was $80MM, a team could only have $80MM in commitments for a future season, at least until the trade deadline. This was a relatively obscure rule that last made an impact back in 2019 when Anaheim had a verbal extension agreement with Jakob Silfverberg but couldn’t register it right away as they lacked the tagging room to do with some other extensions already on the books. That rule was eliminated when the CBA was last extended to something much more simple.
Below is the blurb from the CBA MOU in 2020 (point #61) about the rule change:
“Projected Off-Season Cap Accounting” (as currently applied per Article 50.5(d)(i)(A)) for the period of the first day of the NHL Regular Season through and including June 30, provided, however, that during this period the calculations under Article 50.5(d)(i)(A) will be based on the Averaged Amounts relevant for the following League Year and may not exceed the Club’s current Upper Limit plus ten (10) percent. Any such Averaged Amounts that are attributable at a rate reflective of a Player’s time on NHL roster (e.g. Two-Way SPCs and Two-Way Qualifying Offers) will be based on the Player’s currently projected time on NHL roster for the current League Year as reflected within the In-Season Cap Accounting.
So now, instead of teams being capped at spending only to the current year’s Upper Limit for future-year spending, they can now go 10% above that limit. So to answer your question, yes, a team could extend a player that took them several million above the current $88MM cap ceiling but that ability is far from unlimited.
Photo courtesy of Imagn Images.
Great post Brian with lots of good research and input.