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Salary Cap Report: Central Division

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As the hockey world takes its collective breath before the World Cup, training camps, and the regular season, most teams have checked off their boxes and marked their ledgers. Some teams are not finished building their rosters, with RFAs still to sign and trades to explore. Some teams have plenty of space to maneuver with; other teams will need to get creative to stay under the cap.

We’ll complete our Salary Cap Reports by taking a look at the Central Division. Of note:

  • The Central Division has the two highest paid players in the NHL in Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. The Blackhawks captain and leading scorer signed matching eight-year, $84MM extensions in the summer of 2014.
  • After June’s blockbuster trade, the NHL’s highest paid defenseman is now in the Central: P.K. Subban and his $9MM cap hit are now members of the Nashville Predators. The Predators also have the highest paid goalie in the division, with Pekka Rinne making $7MM per season.
  • With Dallas captain Jamie Benn signed to a long-term extension already, there aren’t any superstar pending-UFAs in the Central, but veteran scoring wingers Patrick Sharp and Alex Steen are both up at the end of this season. Calder Trophy winner Artemi Panarin and Ryan Johansen headline next summer’s RFAs.

By the numbers:

Also in the Salary Cap Report series: Atlantic Division, Metropolitan Division, and Pacific Division.

Snapshots: Hudler, Pirri, Vesey, Ward

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Much has been written about the best free agents available and Ian McLaren reports that of the top three teams should look at, one isn’t available until August 15th. Add McLaren to the Jimmy Vesey fan club as he lists him behind Jiri Hudler and Brandon Pirri as the three best potential additions to teams still kicking the tires. Hudler, McLaren writes, will come at a significant discount from the $4MM he made last season. He also notes that despite a fall off, Hudler still brings value to any team willing to invest in him. McLaren believes that Pirri is one of the more under appreciated players available. Pirri scored goals on limited ice time, and if given a bigger role, could show flashes of brilliance while also coming dirt cheap.

McLaren saves Vesey for last, listing the Maple Leafs, Bruins and Blackhawks as three of the top suitors for the 23-year-old Hobey Baker winner. The buzz continues to rise as August 15th approaches–the date that Vesey can meet with teams and make his final decision. McLaren writes that should Vesey’s college production continue into the pros, one NHL team will be rewarded handsomely.

In other NHL news:

  • Cam Ward’s best season may have been when he was 21-years-old writes NBC’s Adam Gretz. Ward, Gretz argues, played to a peak and rode a two month hot streak back in 2006 that backstopped the Hurricanes to their first–and only–Stanley Cup championship. Since then, Ward has held the Hurricanes back on more than one occasion, and last season, along with Eddie Lack, Ward was a prime reason the Hurricanes underachieved. Gretz writes that despite being a top 1o possession team, the ’Canes sputtered due to poor goaltending. He further points out that Ward’s numbers have been in the bottom third of the league for the past few seasons. It’s Ward’s year, he continues, to prove the Hurricanes right for their loyalty. Should Ward have even an average year, Carolina could be looking at a playoff appearance. But another substandard season could spell doom for both the Hurricanes playoff hopes and Ward’s playing time.

What’s Next For Antoine Vermette?

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After the shocking news today that the Coyotes bought out Antoine Vermette’s contract, hockey insiders and analysts deconstructed the transaction.  The big question now is if Vermette will find another team to land with before the start of the 2016-17 season.

Puck Daddy’s Greg Wyshynski sees this as a logical move for both sides.  A deep dive shows the wisdom in Wyshynski’s words.

The Eye Test

Vermette was owed $3.75MM over the next two seasons. He previously made the same amount when he inked a five-year, $18.75MM deal with the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2010. Thanks to a career year during the 2009-10 season that saw a 65 point campaign, Vermette cashed in. He never reached that total again, but still had productive seasons.

His playoff totals also helped his stock with the Coyotes in 2011-12, and then scored some timely goals during the Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup run in 2014-15.  He found his way back to the desert the following season, registering 38 points (17-21) in 76 games.

Though he did see his ice time decrease with the Blackhawks, Vermette was still viewed as a valuable commodity. The value certainly was there, and the Coyotes simply re-signed a player they were comfortable with.

Other factors

Puck Daddy’s Josh Cooper shared a tweet that honed in on the advanced stats attached to Vermette. The results revealed a player with declining performance. Vermette was not justifying the $3.75MM he was costing the Coyotes. This is a team being rebuilt by an analytics strategist with young talent waiting in the wings. There wasn’t a lot of motivation for general manager John Chayka to take ice time away from players he purportedly would rather see out there.  The full reasoning was laid out in Chayka’s team release.

Where will he go?

Vermette still has value, it’s just a matter of what he would want financially and in terms of ice time. He’s still only 34 years old, and presumably has at least 2-3 years of hockey left in him.  Though teams wouldn’t acquire him via trade, that was when he held a nearly $4MM cap hit. Now a free agent, acquiring a 40 point player at a significant discount is certainly an attractive option. Craig Morgan tweets that he expects Vermette to generate some interest.

In terms of compatibles, 26-year-old Sam Gagner fetched just $650K on the open market. Sure, he had a significant drop off in terms of production (41 points to 16), but he’s still younger. Compared to his past performance, it appeared an anomaly to his normally consistent self. But that anomaly cost him financially.

Expect Vermette to be plucked off the free agent heap–just at a more cap friendly price.

Snapshots: Hossa, Barrie, Vesey

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The Athletic’s Scott Powers writes that Blackhawks forward Marian Hossa is just fine with whatever comes his way during the 2016-17 season. The 37-year-old winger has slowed a bit since joining the Hawks in 2009-10 and had his lowest point total since the 1998-99 season. Powers reports that Hossa is cognizant of where he is in his career, and that the extra rest following a first round playoff loss to the Blues has recharged Hossa mentally and physically.

Hossa is comfortable with a more defensive-minded role, Powers adds. The gifted two-way forward’s impact on possession should remain stable even while his numbers decline. Underrated throughout the seven seasons of his Blackhawk career is the impact he has on the ice disrupting plays defensively, and then setting up scoring chances at the other end–oftentimes in the same shift.

Though he climbs in age, Hossa’s value to the Hawks is anything but diminished. If the Hawks are fortunate enough to land Jimmy Vesey, the offense that Vesey could generate would more than compensate for Hossa’s drop off. If anything, a full-out defensive minded Hossa would only ratchet up the Stanley Cup expectations in Chicago.

In other NHL news:

  • Adrian Dater argues that the purported angst between Tyson Barrie and the Colorado Avalanche  isn’t as bad as many think. He also shoots down the rumor that the Avs will deal the young d-man. Dater indicates that the Avs still own Barrie’s rights for another three seasons and wouldn’t dream of dealing him unless the trade package was significant. Dater writes that the Avs are in the “driver’s seat” when it comes to Barrie and that both sides see this negotiation as business, not personal.
  • Dater also weighs in on the Vesey-to-Blackhawks speculation and claims that the Hawks would likely use Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane as recruiting tools to bring the young forward into the fold. With every organization being bound to the same financial constraints, Dater writes that the Hawks are head and shoulders above other teams because of their prestige and standing in the league. Vesey would also be an affordable top six forward for the Hawks. In true Dater fashion, he concludes by saying “he’s been wrong before.” Regardless, Dater joins the cacophony of voices reporting the Hawks’ high chance of landing the coveted winger.

The Latest In The Jimmy Vesey Saga

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The story of highly-sought-after pending UFA Jimmy Vesey has taken a few twists and turns in the last few months: Vesey allegedly told the Predators he would sign with them, then didn’t and denied ever saying he would. He was traded to Buffalo, where he would have the chance to play with good friend Jack Eichel. Despite the opportunity in Buffalo, Vesey has remained firm about getting to free agency on August 15.

It’s believed the Bruins, Maple Leafs, and Sabres are among the frontrunners to land Vesey; he played in Harvard, his dad and brother are currently in Toronto as a scout and draft pick respectively, and the Sabres have his friend Eichel and paid a third round pick to acquire him. However, Vesey’s agent Peter Donatelli told Powers his camp won’t “pigeonhole” themselves by making a decision before speaking to teams. Now it appears that a new team has entered the sweepstakes: the powerhouse Chicago Blackhawks.

Donatelli told The Athletic’s Scott Powers that Chicago “will be a team we want to talk to on August 15”.

On the surface, there appears to be a great fit with Chicago on the top line with Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa. The pairing played with several different players last season after Brandon Saad was traded to Columbus last summer. The Blackhawks can offer him a big chance to play with two of the best players in the game and a chance to win now, whereas the other teams believed to be on the list are all in various states of rebuilding or re-tooling. Vesey would also give the Blackhawks a cheap young talent to help offset the recent losses of Teuvo Teravainen and Andrew Shaw.

With the power squarely in Vesey’s hands to choose his destination, Donatelli said it will be up to each team to sell their program to Vesey.

Blackhawks Cut Ties With Rundblad, Free Up Cap Space

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The Chicago Blackhawks have freed up an additional $100K for next season after agreeing to a mutual termination of defenseman David Rundblad’s contract, according to salary cap tracking website General Fanager. Rundblad cleared waivers on July 1 but was never bought out. A buyout of his contract would have counted against the Blackhawks’ cap to the tune of $133,333K for 2016-17 and $183,333K in 2017-18. At the time Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman told CSN Chicago he wanted to “let him find a spot where he knows he’ll be a regular player every day”.

Rundblad had one season remaining on his contract at $1.05M. Had he decided to go back to play in Europe, the Blackhawks would have been hit with a $100K cap hit. The $100K is the difference between Rundblad’s salary and $950K, the maximum amount of cap relief per buried player.

Rundblad split the 2015-16 campaign between Chicago, their AHL affiliate Rockford Ice Hogs, and Zurich SC in the Swiss-A league. He left for Switzerland shortly after being assigned to the AHL, but returned in time to appear in three playoff games, going pointless as the Blackhawks were eliminated by St. Louis.

Once a highly-touted prospect, Rundblad played a total of 63 games with Chicago over three seasons after being acquired at the 2014 trade deadline from the then-Phoenix Coyotes for a second round pick. Runblad was originally picked 17th overall by the St. Louis Blues in 2009, but never played a game for them. At the 2010 draft, the Blues traded him to Ottawa for the 16th overall pick, which was used to select Vladimir Tarasenko. He lasted just 24 games with the Senators before being traded to Phoenix alongside a second round pick for disgruntled center Kyle Turris. Rundblad has scored 4 goals and 25 points in 113 NHL games over five seasons. Because Rundblad is right-handed and has shown offensive ability in the past (he has a 50-point campaign in Sweden and a 39-point one in the AHL), he would likely be a candidate for a training camp tryout this fall if he doesn’t return to Europe.

The Blackhawks now have $2.54MM in cap space for next season.

More On The Blackhawks, Jimmy Vesey

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Kristi Loucks of Today’s Slapshot writes today on the emerging speculation surrounding Buffalo Sabres’ prospect Jimmy Vesey, who can become an unrestricted free agent on August 15th, when his draft rights expire, and the Chicago Blackhawks. We’ve discussed before the talk surrounding Vesey and the Blackhawks, and the news that Stan Bowman has been going to Foxboro, Massachusetts to watch Vesey play summer games.

Loucks mentions the Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres, Detroit Red Wings, Edmonton Oilers, Philadelphia Flyers, and Toronto Maple Leafs as other teams that will be in the running for Vesey’s services. In season-long speculation involving Vesey, his ties to Sabres’ forward Jack Eichel are often brought up, as are his having been raised in Boston, and the fact that his father Jim is a scout for the Leafs, and his brother Nolan is a Leafs prospect himself.

Loucks discusses the benefits available in Chicago for Vesey. Obviously they’re a legitimate contender, having won the Stanley Cup three times this decade, but they’re unique for a contender in that they offer a large amount of playing time immediately for a young player. The Blackhawks aren’t particularly deep at left wing, and assuming Calder Trophy winner Artemi Panarin stays on the second line with Artem Anisimov and Patrick Kane, Vesey could find the opportunity to play top minutes with future Hall of Fame linemates in Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa.

Snapshots: Tanev, Ohlund, Barrie, Kreider, Vesey

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Jason Botchford of the Province writes today asking about the future of Canucks defenseman Chris Tanev. Botchford compares the possibility of such a deal to the Adam Larsson for Taylor Hall trade, suggesting that since Tanev is also a right handed defensive defenseman, but better at it, one should wonder what the Canucks could get in exchange for him if Larsson was able to bring a player of Hall’s caliber back to the Devils.

Botchford discusses Tanev’s prowess at things measured by analytics, and his conclusion is fairly tempered. He writes that the Canucks should certainly explore the possibility, but not be looking to give him away. Given Tanev’s age, that seems like a fair assessment. The Canucks may enter a rebuild stage if they don’t succeed this year. They’ll have a head start, given their relative wealth of young players. Because Tanev is just 26, it’s not hard to imagine him still being useful by the time the Canucks are ready to compete. If they can get high end young pieces from a team more desperate to win now, it would be worth exploring long term, but Tanev has too much value and is too young to be just dumped for the sake of getting younger. Tanev also plays the right side, something that is currently scarce, and highly valued. Data suggests that defense pairings should involve one player who shoots each way.

Here are some more links to start your hockey morning:

  • Speaking of skilled defensemen to have played for the Canucks, Aftonbladet in Sweden reports that Mattias Ohlund has retired at the age of 39. Ohlund, who also spent two seasons in Tampa Bay, has been out since 2011 with a knee injury, and has been on the Lightning’s long-term injured reserve ever since. It’s a sad way to go out, but Ohlund had a really strong career, and signed one of the earlier bonus-laden offer sheets with the Toronto Maple Leafs, though it was matched by the Canucks. Ohlund had yet to play a game in the NHL.
  • Mike Halford of Pro Hockey Talk at NBC Sports writes that now that the Avalanche have re-signed Mikhail Grigorenko, their attention is squarely on the status of defenseman Tyson Barrie. Barrie, who has an arbitration hearing nine days from now, has been subject to trade rumors all summer, and while Avalanche GM Joe Sakic says he isn’t trading him, the negotiations have been drawn out, and speculation has persisted. Barrie will turn 25 on Tuesday, and is coming off a season in which he scored 13 goals, and 49 points, following up on his 2015 year that saw him score 12 goals, 52 points, both very impressive for a defenseman.
  • Larry Brooks at the New York Post reports on the difficulties in the Chris Kreider arbitration case. Kreider, 25, is eligible for unrestricted free agency in the summer of 2018, meaning that a two year arbitration decision takes him to the open market, and a one year deal leaves the Rangers exposed to the possibility of a breakout year, and deciding whether to commit a lot of money and term, or letting him go to arbitration again, and then hitting the market.
  • Mark Divver of the Providence Journal tweets that Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman was in Foxboro, Massachusetts last night, watching unsigned Sabres prospect Jimmy Vesey. Vesey, who played at Harvard last year, and whose rights were traded to the Sabres by Nashville for a third round pick in June’s entry draft, can become an unrestricted free agent on August 15th, and says he plans to.

Brad Richards Retires

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According the NHLPA website, veteran pivot Brad Richards has retired from the NHL following a distinguished 15-year career.

Richards, who spent the 2015-16 season with the Detroit Red Wings, ends his career with 932 points in 1,126 regular season games. He’s also been part of two Stanley Cup championship squads, winning a Conn Smythe award as playoff MVP in 2003-04 while a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Drafted originally in the third-round (64th overall) of the 1998 entry draft (the same draft that saw Vincent Lecavalier go #1 overall to Tampa), Richards formed a deadly tandem down the middle with Lecavalier, and helped to elevate the team into the upper echelon of the Eastern Conference. He would spend the first six-plus campaigns of his career with the Lightning before being shipped to Dallas at the 2008 trade deadline. With Lecavalier in the midst of an 11-year, $85MM deal and Richards under contract at $7.8MM annually, the Lightning decided they could no longer afford both centers and executed the trade with Dallas.

Richards spent parts of four seasons with Dallas, averaging better than a point-per-game and helping the Stars to a berth in the 2007-08 Western Conference Finals, where the club lost to eventual Stanley Cup champion Detroit in six games. Unfortunately that would be the highlight for Richards during his tenure with the team as the Stars failed to again make the postseason.

Richards would leave the Lone Star State following the 2010-11 season and as one of the marquee free agents that summer, would go on to sign a lucrative, nine-year contract worth $60MM with the New York Rangers. As was typical with big money free agent contracts of the day, Richards’ deal was heavily back-loaded in an effort to drive down the AAV and subsequently the salary cap hit. Richards was to collect $57MM of the money in the first six seasons, with each of the final three years coming with salaries of just $1M each.

While perhaps not quite living up to that price tag with the Rangers, Richards did help the club make it to the Eastern Conference Finals his first year with the team. He was also part of the squad that lost to the Los Angeles Kings in the 2013-14 Stanley Cup Finals.

After three years with the club and in desperate need of cap space as they continued their pursuit of a championship, the Rangers exercised a compliance buyout on Richards following the 2014-15 season. Under terms of the new CBA, the Blueshirts would have faced stiff cap recapture penalties had they not gone that route and Richards retired prior to the end of his contract.

Richards would move on as a free agent, signing with Chicago and winning another Stanley Cup with the Blackhawks. But the writing may have already been on the wall as Richards tallied just 37 points that season, the lowest full-season total of his career to that point.

Following his one year in Chicago, Richards signed with Detroit where his offensive production continued to wane. In 68 contests with the Red Wings, Richards scored just 10 goals and 28 points.

The announcement comes just weeks after former Lightning teammate Vincent Lecavalier also stepped away from the game.  It’s also quite possible Dan Boyle joins in to make it a trio of former Lightning players walking away from the NHL this summer. One year ago, Martin St. Louis, who played with Richards, Boyle and Lecavalier in Tampa and again with Richards and Boyle as members of the Rangers, announced his retirement.

Richards was a free agent, profiled recently on Pro Hockey Rumors here, but after apparently not finding the right fit, has elected to hang up his skates and move on to the next phase of his life. Those of us here at Pro Hockey Rumors would like to congratulate Richards on his wonderful career and wish him the best in his future.

Viktor Tikhonov Headed To KHL

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The return trip to the NHL was not a long one for Viktor Tikhonov. The 2008 first round pick of the Coyotes had come back from a four year hiatus in the KHL to sign a one-year deal with the Chicago Blackhawks to play alongside fellow countryman and new addition Artemi Panerin, but was put on waivers after just 11 games in a Blackhawks jersey, and ended up back with the team that drafted him in Arizona. An NHL market did not develop for the 28-year-old who had only six points in 50 games split between two teams, and so he is headed back to Russia. Tikhonov will re-join SKA St. Petersburg, where he played from 2011-2015, the team announced.

While Tikhonov, the grandson of the legendary Russian player and coach of the same name, was born in the USSR, he was raised in the United States. His father, Vasily, was also a coach and the family spent time in California and Kentucky during Tikhonov’s childhood. His American upbringing has not translated to any dedication to playing in North America however. Tikhonov returned to Russia to play hockey at the age of 17, and played for three years before being drafted by the Coyotes in 2008. He made his NHL debut the next season, but failed to meet expectations, scoring only 16 points in 61 games. After starting the 2009 season with the Coyote’s AHL affiliate at the time, the San Antonio Rampage, Tikhonov was loaned to Severstal Cherepovets of the KHL, a team he had previously played for. Tikhonov spent the remainder of the season with Cherepovets, but returned stateside to fight for an NHL spot in 2010. Instead, he spent the entire 2010-11 season with the Rampage and left North America permanently, signing with SKA. Many were surprised by his return to the NHL last year, and his performance showed that this surprise was warranted, as Tikhonov again failed to make a difference at the NHL level. He’ll now return to the KHL, where he has 130 points in 207 games, as compared to just 22 points in 111 career NHL games.

Tikhonov is the 20th player to have left the NHL for the KHL this off-season. SKA St. Petersburg in particular has loaded up, bringing back Tikhonov to go along with the additions of the great Pavel Datsyuk, Bruins prospect Alexander Khokhlachev, and failed NHL experiment Sergei Plotnikov to a roster that already included the likes of Ilya Kovalchuk and Russian stars Vadim Shipachyov and Nikita Gusev. However, even if Tikhonov thrives on a loaded SKA team, it seems unlikely that he’ll try his hand at coming back overseas after his one-year deal expires. His NHL playing days appear to be over.

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