Latest On Brayden Point’s Negotiations
Mitch Marner has been stealing all the headlines lately when it comes to restricted free agent contract negotiations, but there is another Atlantic Division forward that is still without a deal and perhaps even more important to his team’s hopes this season. Many people believed Brayden Point would be one of the first high-profile names to come off the board this summer given the record of the Tampa Bay Lightning in past negotiations. Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, Ryan McDonagh and many others have all signed long-term deals to stay in Tampa Bay, almost all at a perceived discount. Point however is still without a deal as training camp starts, and Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic tweets that it is “not remotely close.”
Point, 23, has developed from third-round pick into one of the most valuable players in the NHL and is coming off a 41-goal, 92-point season last year. The undersized center is also one of the best defensive forwards in the league, earning Selke Trophy votes in both his sophomore and junior seasons in the league. That resume led many to believe that he may actually be young forward who should “set the market,” though Marner has grabbed significantly more headlines thus far.
The Lightning have worked hard this summer to clear enough cap room to sign Point, trading away J.T. Miller and Ryan Callahan‘s contract while only adding bounce-back bargains like Kevin Shattenkirk and Patrick Maroon. The team has almost $8.5MM in cap space currently, but the real issues may come further down the line. With Andrei Vasilievskiy’s extension kicking in next season and all three of Anthony Cirelli, Mikhail Sergachev and Erik Cernak hitting RFA status the Lightning will be in a very tight cap situation once again.
Tampa Bay has done bridge deals before for their top talent, but it’s unclear what exactly Point is looking for. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet wrote earlier this week that he expected the team to go the three-year contract route, but if there is really as big of a gap as LeBrun suggests, it’s hard to bet on anything at this point.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
East Notes: Hall, Pominville, Point
While contract talks are ongoing with several prominent restricted free agents, it appears that talks will also soon be occurring with arguably the top pending unrestricted free agent forward. Devils GM Ray Shero told NHL.com’s Mike Morreale that he plans to sit down with winger Taylor Hall at some point during training camp to discuss a potential contract extension. While he’s coming off a season that saw him play just 33 games due to a knee injury, he’s only a year removed from winning the Hart Trophy. Between that and the fact that a new market record was recently set for a winger when Artemi Panarin signed for an AAV just over $11.64MM with the Rangers back in July. Hall could certainly find himself in that range if he was to make it to the open market next summer which would represent a significant jump on his current $6MM cap hit.
Elsewhere in the East:
- Veteran winger Jason Pominville won’t be surfacing at training camp with Montreal but the door hasn’t completely closed on a return to Buffalo. GM Jason Botterill told reporters, including Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News (Twitter link) that they continue to have discussions with the 36-year-old although he also indicated they don’t intend to bring anyone into camp on a tryout deal. Pominville has indicated that his preference is to play somewhere which wouldn’t require uprooting his family which is why Buffalo and Montreal have been mentioned as the likeliest spots for him to play. However, if the Sabres don’t have a spot for him, he’ll either have to reassess his options or potentially call it a career.
- Talks between the Lightning and RFA center Brayden Point to not appear to be progressing well. Joe Smith of The Athletic reports (Twitter link) that a deal between the two sides is still not close. Point is coming off of a career year that saw him pick up 92 points in 79 games. However, Tampa Bay has a well-defined salary structure with Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy (starting next year) at $9.5MM. That would seemingly represent the ceiling for his earning potential on his contract. While they don’t quite have that much cap space to work with, the Lightning could still conceivably approach the $8MM mark without having to do much in the way of cap-related roster changes.
Atlantic Notes: Point, Senators Prospects, Olofsson
With the Tampa Bay Lightning preparing for another run to challenge for a Stanley Cup, one of the team’s top players remains unsigned in Brayden Point, who continues to sit out with a number of top restricted free agent forwards, including Toronto’s Mitch Marner, Colorado’s Mikko Rantanen, Calgary’s Matthew Tkachuk, Winnipeg’s Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor. Several defensemen, including Boston’s Charlie McAvoy and Columbus’ Zach Werenski.
However, there has been no end in sight for any of these players and there remains no timeline as all of these players are waiting for the first one to sign and set the market, according to Tampa Bay Times’ Diana Nearhos. Most expect that the first domino to fall will be Marner with everyone signing contracts just underneath him. However, that could change if one of the others opts to sign first. Point’s deal will be an interesting one on a team that already has quite a few top-paid players, but Point, who tallied 41 goals and 92 points.
“It’s a unique marketplace,” said agent Gerry Johannson, who counts Point among his clients. “Everyone is waiting for some clarity.”
So far only two key restricted free agents have signed, both in peculiar circumstances. Jacob Trouba forced a trade to the New York Rangers before finally signing, while Carolina matched Montreal’s offer sheet to Sebastian Aho in early July. In the meantime, the wait continues.
- With the signing of Colin White, the Ottawa Senators have 10 guaranteed spots on their forward line, according to Ken Warren of the Ottawa Sun. That will leave quite a training camp battle for three spots (assuming Ottawa keeps 13 forwards) between some of the team’s top prospects, including Max Veronneau, Rudolfs Balcers, Drake Batherson, Logan Brown, Alex Formenton, Jonathan Davidsson and Nick Paul. On defense, the team has five players already set, leaving two (or three) spots on their defense for prospects, which will include Christian Wolanin, Maxime Lajoie, Erik Brannstrom and Christian Jaros.
- One major question in Buffalo will be what role will forward prospect Victor Olofsson play next season. The 24-year-old prospect had dominant season in his first year in North America last season, tallying 30 goals and 63 points in 66 games with the Rochester Americans of the AHL and scored two goals and four points in six games for the Sabres last season. The Buffalo News’ Lance Lysowski reports that Oloffsson is likely to start the season with the Sabres and despite the logjam at left wing, he is likely to force either Conor Sheary or Marcus Johansson to the right-wing position as both have some experience playing there. However, Olofsson will likely have to beat out both Tage Thompson and C.J. Smith to earn a spot.
Poll: Who Will Be The First Top RFA To Sign?
It’s the question on everyone’s mind. When will these restricted free agents sign? The workday on the second last Friday of August has almost come to an end and there is still a huge list of unsigned stars with no real progress being made. Whether they are all waiting on Mitch Marner or Brayden Point to set the market or not, we’re starting to get closer and closer to the start of training camp and real contract holdouts beginning. We’ve already heard one player has contacted a European squad to give them a place to train, and there will undoubtedly be more.
So who breaks the dam? When Colin White signed earlier this week there was hope that things were finally progressing, but instead there has been deafening silence around the league. Even with small tidbits of information coming out from situations surrounding Zach Werenski and Brock Boeser, there still doesn’t seem to be any movement. Boston Bruins GM Don Sweeney explained today that things with Brandon Carlo and Charlie McAvoy are going “not as fast as everybody would like” but that he’s confident they will be with the organization for a long time.
It’s not even just the top players that are still out there without a contract. Names like Kevin Fiala, Brendan Perlini and Adrian Kempe are still without deals for one reason or another and may still be waiting on the high-profile players to be finished first. That’s a tough place for any young player to be in, especially when you’re not quite as established as someone like Point or Marner. Missing training camp would be a huge detriment to their careers, meaning they’re likely watching the news wire just as closely.
When will things change? Who will finally decide that the waiting game is taking too long? Cast your vote below and make sure to explain why in the comments. We’ve included the top names, but feel free to explain why another player may be the one to kick things off.
[Mobile users click here to vote]
Lightning Notes: Point, Domingue, Vasilevskiy
While the top of the RFA market is basically at a crawl right now, Lightning GM Julien BriseBois told NHL.com’s Corey Long that he’s optimistic that he’ll be able to get center Brayden Point signed by training camp. Today’s trade of Ryan Callahan to Ottawa certainly gives them some extra flexibility to work with if they decide to try to work out a long-term deal. However, recent history has suggested that Tampa Bay may be inclined to pursue a bridge contract; BriseBois was quick to point out that anyone that did so received a long-term deal afterwards. Knowing that they’ll be adding Andrei Vasilevskiy’s long-term extension to the books in 2020-21, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Lightning push for a bridge pact with Point to allow them to try to keep as much of the core together as possible over the next couple of seasons.
More from Tampa Bay:
- The addition of Mike Condon puts Louis Domingue’s future with the team even more in question. With Curtis McElhinney coming in as the new backup, Domingue was already on the outside looking in and Condon’s presence further cements that. BriseBois indicated to Joe Smith of The Athletic (subscription required) that he has spoken with a few teams about finding a new home for the 27-year-old and that he’s confident a trade will be worked out by training camp. Domingue, who had a 2.88 GAA with a .908 SV% in 26 games last season, carries a $1.15MM cap hit and will be an unrestricted free agent next summer.
- While Vasilevskiy certainly could have just gone the arbitration route next summer to get to the open market as soon as possible, his agent Dan Milstein told John Romano of the Tampa Bay Times that going that route was never considered as he wanted to get a long-term deal done as soon as possible and that he was willing to give a bit of a hometown discount to get it done. The 25-year-old signed an eight-year, $76MM deal on Monday, giving him the third-highest AAV among netminders in the league when the contract kicks in next July.
Mitch Marner Deal Holding Up Other Restricted Free Agents
If the Toronto Maple Leafs’ negotiations with Mitch Marner last as long as they did with William Nylander last season, many other NHL teams are going to be in trouble. According to The Athletic’s Joe Smith, many other agents are waiting to see how Marner’s deal shakes out before finalizing terms for their own top restricted free agent forwards. A surprising number of prominent RFA forwards remain unsigned and could stay that way until the Marner deal sets the market.
Writing specifically about the Tampa Bay Lightning, a team facing their own RFA conundrum with breakout center Brayden Point, Smith states that the team expects Point to be ready for camp in September, but agent Gerry Johansson is content with the “slow process”. The agents for Mikko Rantanen, Matthew Tkachuk, Kyle Connor, Brock Boeser, Patrik Laine, and Travis Konecny likely feel the same way and are apparently waiting to see where Marner, the best of the group, ends up before moving forward. In fact, Sportsnet’s Rick Dhaliwal also added today that things are very quiet around Boeser’s camp and he acknowledges that the process has been slow for most big-name RFA’s.
So what will be the first domino to fall? Will Marner really sign first and set the stage for everyone else? Or will another unsigned star finally budge and give the market a much-needed comparable? While Marner, who recorded 94 points in 82 games last year, is the most established player and considered the top RFA who would be the ceiling for the market, he was actually quite comparable to Rantanen and Point last season. However, the rest of the group could benefit from any of the group signing a contract to use as a point of comparison. At this point in the summer, the odds are high that at least one of these negotiations will last into the regular season. But if the reports are true that the market waits on Marner, those teams with top unsigned RFA forwards better hope that Toronto and their star winger are closer than it seems.
Atlantic Notes: Panthers, Schmaltz, Point
The Florida Panthers are making a big push to become a winning team now and hope that after the acquisition of goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky as well as Brett Connolly and Noel Acciari will be enough to get there. One reason the team wants to win now is that the Panthers have only reached the playoffs five times in their 25 year history and its time for that to change.
However, The Athletic’s George Richards (subscription required) writes that another reason that the team has pushed up its intensity towards fielding the best team possible is that it still has many core players who are under reasonable contracts, but that could change in the next three years. Aleksander Barkov has just three years remaining at a team-friendly $5.9MM and then will likely see his salary skyrocket. Vincent Trocheck also has three years remaining at a reasonable $4.75MM and Jonathan Huberdeau is currently the longest tenured forward at four years at $5.9MM. Already next season, the franchise will have to make some costly decisions on Mike Hoffman, who has one year remaining at $5.19MM, and Evgenii Dadonov makes $4MM for one more year. Both are expected to score big raises, especially if they can keep their offense going this season.
With the potential of eventually losing a number of their top forwards, the Panthers are making it clear that they want to win with this group now rather than hope their young prospects can quickly replace those that will eventually leave.
- After acquiring defenseman Jordan Schmaltz Thursday from the St. Louis Blues, it looks like the Toronto Maple Leafs’ main reasoning might have been to get a solid replacement for recently traded Calle Rosen. The Maple Leafs had high hopes for Rosen, but because he was left-handed, there was concern how he might fit into the lineup. The Toronto Sun’s Steve Simmons writes that the team liked Schmaltz because he was right-handed and was an impressive skater, something that Andreas Borgman isn’t. While he doesn’t necessarily have Rosen’s upside, Schmaltz at least should be able to provide better depth for the team on that side.
- Diana Nearhos of the Tampa Bay Times writes that Tampa Bay Lightning fans that are constantly worried about the fact that restricted free agent Brayden Point hasn’t signed a contract yet, need to stop worrying. The scribe writes that there is plenty of cap space, up to $11.4MM, once they place Ryan Callahan on LTIR and the fact that Montreal showed interest in having Point sign an offer sheet even before they signed Sebastian Aho to one and he refused is a sign that he has every intention of staying in Tampa Bay.
Snapshots: Point, Bobrovsky, McDavid
The top end of the RFA market is really making an impact this offseason as it appears most of the players are waiting to see what others get. But eventually, someone will have to be the next to sign. ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski cites one GM who believes that Tampa Bay center Brayden Point will be the next one to put pen to paper on a new deal. It was reported earlier this summer that Montreal had approached him about an offer sheet but they were quickly rebuffed so the threat of him considering an offer sheet elsewhere may not be so high. However, the cap situation for the Lightning still isn’t the greatest, even following the trade of J.T. Miller to Vancouver and the fact that Ryan Callahan will be on LTIR next season. Tampa Bay has forced some young players to go the bridge route in the past and it’s something they may have to do here but if so, this is something that could wind up dragging out for a while yet.
Elsewhere around the league:
- New Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky opened up to Sport 24’s Daria Tubolseva regarding his departure from Columbus. He mentioned that he informed management following their postseason exit in 2018 that he had no intentions of staying with the Blue Jackets but management decided to try to re-sign him anyway at various points throughout the season. Bobrovsky called Florida his top option when he was assessing teams to sign with and he wasted little time joining them, inking a seven-year, $70MM contract shortly after the signing period opened up on July 1st.
- Oilers GM Ken Holland indicated in an appearance on Sportsnet 590 (audio link) that everything he’s hearing regarding Connor McDavid’s recovery is positive but stopped short of guaranteeing that the center will be ready for training camp. McDavid suffered a knee injury in the final game of the regular season and while surgery wasn’t required, a lengthy rehab period was expected.
Tampa Bay, Dallas Among Teams Facing Contract Limit Crunch
The Tampa Bay Lightning are not only up against the NHL’s $81.5MM salary cap upper limit, but also the league’s 50-contract limit. They’re not alone either; in addition to the Bolts, the Dallas Stars, Los Angeles Kings, Ottawa Senators, and Anaheim Ducks each have 48 players already signed to contracts next season as well. Six other teams have 46 or 47 players signed. The closer a club gets to 50, the less roster flexibility they have during the season. When it comes to making trades, claiming players on waivers, or signing college or junior free agents, teams without room can be hamstrung and forced to either pass up on possibilities or make desperation moves to free up roster space. It’s not an ideal situation and could force more than a few teams to make a move or two as the summer wears on.
Tampa Bay is in the worst position of all, as not only do they have just two contract slots available, but they also have two NHL regulars who remain unsigned restricted free agents in need of contracts – Brayden Point and Adam Erne. It’s hard to imagine that the Lightning, who also need to open up considerable cap space, don’t move out a player or two to help clear things up in both regards. One other possible saving grace could be sending 2019 first-round pick Nolan Foote or fellow prospect forward Gabriel Fortier back to their respective junior teams. Even if under contract, 18- and 19-year-old junior players who are still slide-eligible do not count against the 50-contract limit once returned to the junior level. If Foote and/or Fortier don’t crack the Tampa lineup, they would additionally clear up some room. A surefire contender, who also could use some affordable support where they can get it, the Bolts will definitely be a player on the trade and waiver markets this upcoming season, assuming they have the means to do so.
Dallas is in a similarly difficult situation. With just two contract slots available, the Stars need to re-sign (or do something with) defenseman Julius Honka. If the team signs Honka or trades him for another signed player or prospect, they are down to just one open space. Fortunately, unsigned RFA Niklas Hansson is expected to spend the season in Sweden and will not need a contract to become Dallas’ 50th man. Junior forwards Ty Dellandrea and Riley Damiani would also no longer count against the contract limit if sent back to their respective teams, although many in Dallas would like to see Dellandrea push for a spot on the roster.
L.A. has just one unsigned RFA remaining, promising forward Adrian Kempe, so they aren’t in danger to hit 50 at this time. The Kings also have a number of young players under contract who will battle for roster spots, which could force Akil Thomas back to juniors for one more year, removing his contract from the mix. L.A. has been a highly active team on the college free agent market of late and will want some contract room later in the season for potential additions.
Similarly, Ottawa has just Colin White left to sign, so barring further additions are not at risk of hitting 50 contracts. However, the Senators are just narrowly over the league’s salary cap floor, which could prompt them to add another contract so that they don’t have to risk falling below the floor during the year due to a trade. Right now, only Jonathan Gruden is a candidate to go back to junior and remove his contract from limit calculations, so if Ottawa does make another addition, they’ll likely look to make a subtraction or two as well to remain flexible in-season.
The final team at 48 contracts is the Ducks. Fortunately for them, Anaheim has no one left to sign and by all accounts are not looking to make any other moves this off-season. They should be safe, but may look to move a contract just in case the opportunities present themselves to add on during the season.
One team who isn’t at all worried about the contract limit: the New Jersey Devils. New Jersey currently has just 39 players under contract, third least behind Carolina and Winnipeg, but also have just two unsigned RFA’s in need of contracts while the Hurricanes and Jets each have a handful. The Devils project to enter the season with the fewest players under contract, as well the smallest payroll other than Ottawa. That could change though, as the team continues to be included in rumors pertaining to many of the top unsigned UFA’s and top trade targets this summer.
Lightning Re-Sign Dominik Masin
Another day, another restricted free agent back under contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning. After inking Ben Thomas to an extension yesterday, the team has announced that fellow RFA defenseman Dominik Masin has also re-signed. It is a one-year, two-way contract for Masin. No financial terms were disclosed, but CapFriendly anticipates a minimum $700K NHL salary.
Masin, 23, has been a long-term project for the Bolts whose potential is still unclear. A 2014 second-round pick out of the Czech Republic, Masin played two productive years in the OHL before turning pro in 2016. He immediately jumped into a starting role with the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch, but struggled to put up points in his first season. That changed in 2017-18, when Masin finished second among Crunch defenders with 24 points in 72 games. Yet, he regressed offensively this season, dropping to 12 points in 69 games. On the other hand, his defense improved and his +36 rating led the team and was among the best in the league. Masin has yet to make an NHL appearance, but this season may finally offer him a chance to debut and for Tampa to get a better idea of what they have in the prospect.
With Masin locked up, the Lightning are down to just two RFA’s left to sign: Adam Erne and Brayden Point. Point has been and will continue to be Tampa Bay’s biggest priority this summer. The team has a projected $5.58MM in cap space, but will need much more than that to get Point re-signed, not to mention Erne.