PHR Mailbag: Larkin, Trocheck, Salary Cap, Wild, Canadiens

Topics in this edition of the PHR Mailbag include Dylan Larkin’s trade request from Detroit, a discussion about the implementation of the salary cap and how it could relate to MLB’s CBA talks, and more.  If your question doesn’t appear here, check back for it in one of our next two columns.

Johnny Z: Where does Larkin go and will his leaving spark a retool with more Detroit vets being traded. I don’t see Kane coming back either, now.

GBear: Simply, who makes the deal for Larkin?

Let’s jump right in with the big news of the week with the news of Dylan Larkin’s trade request getting leaked out.  By all accounts, this wasn’t from his agency and we know it wasn’t the Red Wings who put this out there as that’s the last thing they’d have wanted.  I note this as it’s quite possible that the request was made a little while ago and just got out now.

GM Steve Yzerman is known for his patience (sometimes to a fault) and also for not having his hand forced into doing things.  He had Jonathan Drouin in Tampa Bay who wanted out.  It took quite a while before that actually happened.  The scenario that no one is talking about is that Yzerman doesn’t budge and keeps Larkin in the fold.  This isn’t just a 1% chance thing; I think this is a legitimate option on the table here.

Look at how Detroit operated at the trade deadline, adding Justin Faulk and shoring up their veteran depth with an eye on making the playoffs.  That’s not the doings of a manager who is thinking about a retool.  He wants to win now and that’s much easier to do with Larkin on the roster than off of it.  Would it be a difficult situation?  Sure.  Might they have to take away the captaincy?  Perhaps.  But I suspect Yzerman would much rather do that than have his hand forced into a trade.

Now, having said that, the demand for impact centers is so high that Yzerman should be able to generate a substantial trade return for Larkin’s services.  The only way that doesn’t happen is if Larkin provides a very small list of teams that he’d waive his no-trade clause for.  And if that happens, Yzerman will tell him to expand the list or be ready to report for training camp in Detroit in September.

The types of offers that Yzerman receives over the next three-plus weeks will ultimately dictate if they stay the course or take a short-term step back.  I agree with the use of the word retool here and not rebuild as they’re not looking to start all over again.  Is there another disgruntled high-impact top liner out there looking for a change of scenery that forms the basis of a swap?  If so, they’re probably staying the course in terms of trying to make the playoffs.  If there’s an offer that features a quality veteran and some ready (or close-to-ready) youngsters, they’re again probably staying the course with the hopes of nabbing a free agent or making another trade to bridge the gap.  But if it’s more of a futures-based return, then the step back to try to take two steps forward later approach makes more sense.

As for where he goes, I’ll say Minnesota.  There’s a connection with GM Bill Guerin and USA Hockey.  Guerin, meanwhile, is under pressure to secure that elusive impact center to help his team try to take the next step forward in a crowded Central Division.  He’d likely be hoping that securing Larkin would make a contract extension for Quinn Hughes look more palatable for the defender as well.  There’s a lot of motivation to get things done.  I suspect a deal would be in the second category of the three I mentioned (a quality veteran plus some near-ready or ready youngsters like Danila Yurov, for example) so Detroit’s offseason approach will be to try to add to the roster, not subtract more veterans.

lgr34561: Will Larkin requesting a trade affect the Rangers on trading Vincent Trocheck and trying to maximize on a deal in a negative way?

I’d say no but it certainly doesn’t help either.  It’s a supply-and-demand thing and generally, more supply isn’t good.  But with the supply of impact centers being limited to only a handful of players and the number of potential suitors representing more than half the league, the demand for Trocheck’s services is still going to be really high.  Larkin being there isn’t going to make the quality of the offers drop.

But where it might hurt is that it takes GM Chris Drury out of the control seat on the market.  Maybe Nico Hischier becomes available but until contract talks reach a breaking point, he’s not in play.  Maybe Robert Thomas is still in play but that seems unlikely.  Without them, Trocheck was the top center available until this got out.  Now, if Yzerman is going to go ahead and make a trade, Larkin becomes the prized pickup, the one that teams will prioritize first.

Teams aren’t going to want to make their best offer for Trocheck in case those pieces are needed for a Larkin trade.  Eventually, if a deal gets done, there will be one less suitor for Trocheck but one less player available, potentially upping the desperation level from other general managers.  But they’re no longer necessarily in control of the timing.  If Drury wanted this done by the draft, for example, that might not happen if Larkin’s situation drags out.  And when you no longer control the timing, it has the potential to affect the rest of the offseason planning as one move typically leads to another.  If that first move is delayed, it could mess up the rest of the planning.

To be clear, this sounds more doom-and-gloom than it probably should be.  At the end of the day, the Rangers were poised to get a significant return for Trocheck before the Larkin news.  I still think they’re going to get one after this news.  From that standpoint, I wouldn’t worry.  But the timing of such a move gets a little trickier now and that’s where this news could wreak some havoc.

highflyballintorightfield: For a mailbag or even a separate post…how did the NHL handle the transition to a hard salary cap in 2005 (compliance buyouts, etc.)? This will be a helpful reference for the baseball side as commenters there argue about the upcoming MLB CBA negotiations.

Spending in the NHL wasn’t anywhere as prolific then as it is in MLB now so it’s not necessarily a great comparison.  A few teams had to trim some salaries but while there were compliance buyouts that were exempt from the cap, only 13 were utilized league-wide.  Everyone else was able to trade their way back into compliance or were already under the then-$39MM cap.  By comparison, when the 2012-13 lockout prevented the cap ceiling from reaching its projected amount, there was another round of compliance buyouts (over two seasons) where 28 were utilized.

Having said that, there are some other elements that came in with the NHL cap that I’d be intrigued to see if MLB puts in its offers as we settle in for what sure feels like a long battle.

One of those is the maximum salary.  It’s set at 20% in the NHL and when the cap first came in, the $7.8MM maximum was hit a couple of times.  Going off of MLB’s $245MM initial offer, 20% of that is $49MM which is well below what Juan Soto makes, for example.  Obviously, their Upper Limit is going to go higher in subsequent offers and there’s no guarantee they try to put in a maximum salary (or tie it at 20%) but that’s something to keep an eye on.  I’m also a little intrigued to see if anything happens with salary deferrals, something that was allowed when the cap came in but was actually outlawed this summer as part of the latest CBA agreement.

Another big element that could help the transition to a hard cap in MLB should one get done is the treatment of bonuses.  One of the things that’s allowed for cap creativity is the bonus cushion.  Only the base AAV of a contract is guaranteed to count against the books for any given season.  If bonuses are achieved on a contract, they apply against the current-year books but if not, they roll over and are charged against the following season.

I’ll use Max Scherzer’s contract with the Blue Jays as an example.  He gets a $3MM base salary with $10MM of incentives, plus $1MM at 65 innings pitched with $1MM extra every 10 innings after that until 155 innings.  So, with the way the NHL structures their cap, only $3MM is guaranteed to count against the cap this season.  If Toronto has additional cap space after the season, any reached bonuses count until they hit the ceiling, then the rest roll over to 2027.  Let’s say Scherzer pitches 100 innings, giving him $4MM in earned bonuses.  Toronto finishes $1.5MM under the hypothetical cap.  $1.5MM of his bonuses would count against the 2026 cap and the other $2.5MM would come off their 2027 spending limit.

To get around teams abusing this, there are restrictions on who can have performance bonuses in their contracts.  For the NHL, players on entry-level deals get them, as do players over 35 if they sign one-year agreements (multi-year pacts are ineligible).  There is also a provision for 400-game players who spent 100 days or more on injured reserve who aren’t 35 to receive a one-year deal with incentives.  For MLB players, I imagine it’d be a little more restrictive, something like 10-year veterans or 35-plus players (I know there’s not always a difference between the two) being eligible.

The NHL’s salary cap also brought on the concept of Long-Term Injured Reserve, or LTIR.  For players out long-term, the general concept of LTIR allows teams to exceed the cap by up to the amount of the player’s salary less any existing cap room.  For example, a player making $4MM lands on LTIR on a team that has $1MM in cap space.  They can then exceed the cap by the difference of $3MM.  If the injured player returns, the team then has to get back into cap compliance.  This has long been a contentious subject with loopholes that an 18-wheeler could drive through, leading to some pretty significant controversies and rule changes.  But the concept of that would likely appear, giving some teams near the cap ceiling some potential flexibility if injuries arise.

aka.nda: I wanted to ask about the Wild’s goaltending situation when it appeared Gustavsson and Wallstedt were both healthy because Hlavaj looked very good in the Olympics and the Wild were keen on a few costly moves. I was going to ask what you think Gustavsson would fetch, but I guess now I’m wondering if they’re going to “show their hand” more with Hlavaj by needing someone to pair with Wallstedt, and if you think they’ll get less of a return because other GMs will become more acutely aware that Guerin is trying to sell from a surplus rather than negotiate from a more “even” pool? Or am I just way overvaluing Hlavaj based on my Olympic viewing, or as some might suggest, under-estimating the stupidity of 50+% of the league’s GMs?

I’ll answer the last bit first.  You’re overvaluing Samuel Hlavaj.  He does well when he plays for Slovakia internationally but it has failed to translate to success in the pros.  My understanding is that he wants a change of scenery and that Minnesota tried to give it to him at the trade deadline but trade interest was basically non-existent.  A pending RFA, I suspect he’s hoping for a non-tender and that if Minnesota qualifies him, he’ll probably go back overseas.  If he gets non-tendered, he’ll hope to land in another organization but still might not be valued more than as a fourth option.

Filip Gustavsson’s injury complicates things for the Wild as he or Jesper Wallstedt could have plausibly been trade candidates this summer.  Now, it’d be hard to part with one unless Gustavsson’s post-surgery rehab is going really well.  So, for this summer, I suspect their goalie plan will be to add a James Reimer-type of veteran, one who could start in the NHL if Gustavsson isn’t ready to start the year, could stay as a serviceable enough backup if one of the two incumbents are traded, or serve as a viable third-string option in the minors.  But I’d be very surprised if Hlavaj is in their plans.

hasamadsnarl666: So Kent Hughes decides to attack the Leafs, hmm what has his teams ever won?? He hasn’t won anything; it’s been five years before his team made the ECF, but didn’t show up in ECF but he has something to say? Keep in mind that the East had a shift; NY was out, Islanders were out, Leafs out, Buffalo in. Not a year to attack other teams. Didn’t they “own” the Canes in the regular season??

For those who didn’t see this, during his end-of-playoffs presser, Montreal’s GM awkwardly referenced Toronto’s top players not necessarily being their top players in the playoffs in the past.  It came as a random add-on to a comment about the marketability of the Montreal market, a high-pressure one like Toronto.  Montreal’s top players weren’t their best in the playoffs either but the narrative around them feels different than it did when Toronto’s top players underperformed.  That happens when one team is just starting out while the Maple Leafs kept stalling out early; they haven’t been to a Conference Final since 2002 in large part due to their top players underachieving.  I think he was maybe going for something about the narrative being more forgiving and that patience is needed but yeah, it was a little odd.

Part of me wonders if he just saw an opportunity to take a shot at Toronto given the now-leaked details of the failed trade at the deadline that would have seen Matthew Knies in Montreal had then-GM Brad Treliving filed the paperwork on time.  Or that president Keith Pelley randomly name-dropped (and butchered) Michael Hage’s name in one of his press conferences earlier.  But yes, this was clumsy at best and probably unnecessary altogether.

Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images.