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Dylan Larkin

Remaining Restricted Free Agents

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We’re getting closer to turning the calendar over to August, and there is still a lot of work to do for teams around the NHL. 10 arbitration cases remain unsettled, including for star players like William Karlsson and Mark Stone. Both will be extremely interesting to follow, as their respective teams have tough decisions on their hands.

For the Vegas Golden Knights, do you hand out a long-term expensive contract to a player that is still relatively unproven. Though Karlsson scored 43 goals this season he had just 18 career tallies beforehand, and finished this season with an impossible 23.4% shooting percentage. There is almost no chance that he can maintain that rate going forward, meaning his huge 2017-18 season may be a career-high. On the other side of that coin though is the increased opportunity he was given after switching teams, which could provide a realistic chance for him to be a 30-goal, 65-point player going forward. Signing him now would likely get you a bit of a discount on that type of scoring threat, though Vegas would assume almost all of the risk.

In Ottawa, there’s no clear direction on how the team will deal with Stone’s impending unrestricted free agency. Obviously one of the team’s most talented players, an arbitration award of one year would stop the Senators from negotiating with Stone’s camp until January on any potential extension and could make him a prime trade candidate. The 26-year old posted his fourth consecutive 20-goal season in 2017-18 despite playing in just 58 games. With all the turmoil in Ottawa it could be difficult to convince him to stick around long-term.

Beyond the arbitration cases though there is an incredible amount of talent left on the RFA board. Dylan Larkin, William Nylander, Sam Reinhart, Shea Theodore, Josh Morrissey and many others remain unsigned and could all be looking at expensive long-term deals with their respective clubs. These players are already excellent players in the NHL before they’ve even become eligible for arbitration and could really grind the offseason to a halt if they decide to hold out. There’s no indication that anyone is planning a long negotiation, but we’re now almost a month into the signing period without any deals.

Below is the full list of unsigned restricted free agents:

Ondrej Kase (ANA)
Nick Ritchie (ANA)
Marek Langhamer (ARZ)
Sam Reinhart (BUF)
Noah Hanifin (CGY)
Garnet Hathaway (CGY) – Scheduled for arbitration, July 30
Hunter Shinkaruk (CGY)
Patrik Nemeth (COL) – Scheduled for arbitration, August 4
Gemel Smith (DAL) – Scheduled for arbitration, August 1
Dylan Larkin (DET)
Matt Puempel (DET)
Darnell Nurse (EDM)
Michael McCarron (MTL)
Kerby Rychel (MTL)
Miikka Salomaki (NSH) – Scheduled for arbitration, August 2
Kevin Rooney (NJD)
Steven Santini (NJD)
Miles Wood (NJD)
Kevin Hayes (NYR) – Scheduled for arbitration, August 2
Ryan Spooner (NYR) – Scheduled for arbitration, August 4
Cody Ceci (OTT) – Scheduled for arbitration, August 1
Mark Stone (OTT) – Scheduled for arbitration, August 3
Robert Hagg (PHI)
Jordan Schmaltz (STL)
William Nylander (TOR)
William Karlsson (VGK) – Scheduled for arbitration, August 4
Shea Theodore (VGK)
Eric Comrie (WPG)
Nicolas Kerdiles (WPG)
J.C. Lipon (WPG)
Josh Morrissey (WPG)
Nic Petan (WPG)

Snapshots: Offer Sheets, Hall, O’Gara

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With a limited pool of quality unrestricted free agents this year and quite a few impressive names among restricted free agents available, one has to wonder whether this might be the year that a team makes an attempt to pry away one of them with an offer sheet.

Sure, no team has used an offer sheet since 2013 when the Calgary Flames attempted to sign center Ryan O’Reilly away from the Colorado Avalanche. It didn’t work and since then, there hasn’t been one. Yet with names like Noah Hanifin, Dylan Larkin and William Nylander still available, you would think a team might attempt to go the offer-sheet route.

However, Craig Custance of The Athletic (subscription required) writes that won’t be happening this year, if again. The scribe informally polled nine general managers, who all collectively said there would be no offer sheets handed out this summer. One reason is that general managers see it as a way to drive up salaries, which they don’t want, and since almost all offer sheets are matched, then what would be the point? Custance adds that the compensation for offer sheets must be changed, so teams might be more willing to let a player go.

  • Chris Ryan of nj.com analyzes the success of Hart Trophy winners the following year they won, as he wonders how New Jersey Devils Taylor Hall will respond next season after winning the Hart Trophy with a 39-goal and 93-point season. While most of the previous winners (going all the way back to the 2006 season) saw a decline in their play the following year, most of them still put up solid numbers and still were in the voting for the Hart Trophy the following year, even if they didn’t win it. Edmonton’s Connor McDavid finished fifth in the voting the following year, while 2016 Hart Trophy winner Patrick Kane finished sixth the next season.
  • Fluto Shinzawa of The Athletic (subscription required) writes that former Boston Bruins defenseman Rob O’Gara, who was traded at the trade deadline to the New York Rangers as part of the Nick Holden trade felt the trade was bittersweet. The 25-year-old blueliner was still on his entry-level contract and had only played 11 NHL games before the trade, but the four-year Yale University product had already lost some faith in him. In a league where youth thrives, O’Gara had already run out of time as he failed to crack Boston’s rotation and was often passed over for promotion by younger defenseman. In New York, however, he got a legitimate chance to take on a more permanent role, as he played in 22 games, a role he hopes to hold onto this season.

Dylan Larkin, Detroit Red Wings Progressing Towards Contract

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The Detroit Red Wings already reached new contracts this summer with players like Anthony Mantha, Andreas Athanasiou and Tyler Bertuzzi, but have one key restricted free agent still remaining. That’s Dylan Larkin, who may be the most talented player on the Red Wings roster an a core piece of what the team wants to do going forward. Without arbitration rights there isn’t much of a rush to get a Larkin deal done, but Craig Custance of The Athletic reports that there is little doubt on the player’s side that something will get done in the next few weeks. Larkin told Custance that he doesn’t think negotiations will continue into September, though obviously nothing is guaranteed at this point.

Custance opines that the deal will be around five or six years, meaning Larkin would be giving up some of his scheduled unrestricted free agent seasons. Despite Larkin still only being 21 years old, he is on track to hit UFA status four years from now when he’s 25. Any years included in a deal past that would start to dramatically increase the contract’s cap hit, something the Red Wings have to be careful with at this point. The team has around $2.8MM in cap space remaining this summer, and though they can move Johan Franzen to long-term injured reserve to get a little more flexibility are likely going to have to trade another contract once Larkin’s deal comes through.

The speedy forward scored 63 points last season and could be demanding quite a substantial raise on his entry-level contract, meaning the Red Wings might need some short-term salary relief to fit everyone in. Next summer a huge amount of money comes off the books due to the expiring contracts of players like Gustav Nyqust, Niklas Kronwall and Jimmy Howard, but there will need to be players signed to replace them as well. Though Detroit had an incredible draft, adding a handful of blue chip prospects to a pool that had been extremely shallow the last few years, you can’t expect all of them to step in next season and make an impact.

A Larkin deal is unavoidable and important, but the Red Wings will have more work to do this summer even after he puts pen to paper. How long that contract extends into his free agent years will have a real impact on how GM Ken Holland and the rest of the Detroit front office navigate the rest of the offseason, and even the early part of the 2018-19 campaign.

East Notes: Larkin, Red Wings, Penguins

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The Red Wings are focusing on a long-term contract for restricted free agent forward Dylan Larkin, reports Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press.  She notes that Detroit’s preference is to sign him to a five-year deal but that they could have to go to six to get a deal done.  A five-year term would buy out the remainder of Larkin’s RFA-eligible years but only get rid of one UFA-eligible season which isn’t something teams often try to do.  On the other hand, doing that would be a way to get some longer-term stability while keeping the salary cap hit slightly lower which could be quite useful for a team that is once again pegged to be right up against the cap in 2018-19.

Elsewhere out East:

  • Still with Detroit, they are looking at adding someone from outside the franchise to their front office, notes Gregg Krupa of The Detroit News. The Red Wings have lost several executives in recent years, including Steve Yzerman, Jim Nill, plus scouts Mark Leach and David Kolb which has left them lacking in certain areas.  With former players Jiri Fischer, Dan Cleary, Shawn Horcoff, and Tyler Wright now in key positions, it wouldn’t be surprising to see them try to add someone with some experience.
  • While the Penguins have added another center to the fold with the signing of Derek Grant earlier today, GM Jim Rutherford told Josh Yohe of The Athletic (Twitter link) that the move isn’t a precursor to a trade. Instead, it gives them more flexibility.  It had been suggested last weekend that Pittsburgh could look at trying Derick Brassard on the wing and move him up in the lineup.  With Grant giving them an extra center in the fold, that looks like more of a realistic possibility now.

The Case For A Tristan Jarry Offer Sheet

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The art of the offer sheet is all but dead in the NHL. As The Athletic’s Craig Custance writes, there have only been eight offer sheets in the salary cap era, all but one have been matched, and none have been signed since 2013. It remains a shadowy threat for every GM looking to lock up his young restricted free agents, but at this point is more myth than reality. Custance even conducted a poll of nine GM’s that implied a feeling across the league that no offer sheets are coming this off-season. Even with attractive targets like the cap-strapped Detroit Red Wings’ Dylan Larkin, the Calgary Flames’ newly-acquired Noah Hanifin, and a key piece of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ young core, William Nylander, none of the GM’s could see a realistic spot where making an offer would be worth the effort as the team would always be able to match.

What about thinking outside the box and not looking at the top targets but at the team most unlikely to match? The Pittsburgh Penguins are not getting any sympathy from teams around the league. Winners of two of the last three Stanley Cups, a playoff team every year since 2007, and home to the best player in the league, the Penguins have had a great run and it’s unlikely to end any time soon. While many teams fear the backlash associated with poaching young players through offer sheets, Pittsburgh is perhaps the only team in the league that could come under attack and no one else would mind. The Penguins have also put themselves in a position that makes them easy prey. CapFriendly currently estimates that the team has just $745K in cap space heading into next season. Even if Jimmy Hayes fails to break camp or Zach Aston-Reese is sent down – the only foreseeable options, the Pens are still left with no more than $1.5MM in space and will need room to maneuver during the season.

Pittsburgh has just one restricted free agent left to re-sign: 23-year-old goaltender Tristan Jarry. Jarry has not been considered an offer sheet threat for a couple of reasons. The first is simply that he has yet to prove that he is a true NHL-caliber goalie. Jarry was a star at the junior level with the WHL’s Edmonton Oil Kings and was drafted in the second round by the Penguins in 2013. His first two pro seasons were spent entirely in the AHL, expect for one spot start in Pittsburgh, and he made the transition look easy, posting strong numbers through 78 combined games. Last season was a deviation from that smooth upward trajectory. The departure of Marc-Andre Fleury left Jarry as the primary backup to starter Matt Murray and the NHL level proved to be a little more difficult. Jarry had an up-and-down season with streaks of both good and bad play. He also struggled when he was returned to the AHL in favor of Casey DeSmith or briefly Antti Niemi. However, at the end of the season Jarry’s line of a .908 save percentage, 2.77 goals against average, and .609 quality start percentage in 26 NHL appearance was more than respectable for his first year in the bigs. Has he proven without a doubt that he can be an NHL regular or reliable backup? No, but the potential is there.

The other reason that Jarry would seem to be a strange offer sheet target is that he is waiver-exempt. Jarry is too young and inexperienced to have lost his waiver protection. This means that a team could hypothetically offer far above market value and multiple years and the Penguins could simply match it and stash Jarry in the minors without a second thought. The only problem is that Pittsburgh especially could not leave Jarry in the AHL for a whole season, nevertheless multiple. Since Murray became a fixture in net for the Penguins in 2015-16, he has made 111 appearances in three seasons with no more than 49 games in any year. In that same time, the Penguins have used six other goaltenders. Excluding Fleury, who was the starter in Murray’s first season and split time with him the following year, Jarry, DeSmith, Niemi, Mike Condon and Jeff Zatkoff have had to make 59 appearances over the past three years – more than half of Murray’s games played. Pittsburgh’s injury-prone starter clearly needs multiple quality options behind him until he can prove himself over a full season. DeSmith, who admittedly outplayed fellow rookie Jarry last season but in 12 fewer starts, may struggle to even backup Murray this season, nevertheless replace him for short stretches with untested minor league journeyman John Muse – the only other Penguins goalie – as the backup. The Penguins need a third-string goalie who costs as close the minimum against the cap as possible. If Jarry was to sign an offer sheet for even $1.5MM AAV, Pittsburgh would struggle to move that contract back and forth or keep him on the roster all year long. A team with ample cap space and a well-off ownership group could easily improve on that offer as well. Only moving out salary or injured reserve space would conceivably allow the Penguins to keep Jarry at that price or more.

At the end of the day, an offer with just the right amount of salary and term would be hard for the Penguins to match in their current state. Sure, they could simply sign a proven veteran free agent to a minimum deal and move on, but losing a promising young netminder would be a blow. On the other side of the table, it would only cost a team at most a third-round pick – the compensation for any deal with an AAV under $2.03MM – to land a young, high-ceiling goalie who is still waiver-exempt. If Jarry excels at the NHL level, they made a great deal; if he struggles, he can be sent to the AHL risk-free for further development and may still turn out be a great deal. The rest of the league would hardly mind seeing Pittsburgh and wheeler-dealer GM Jim Rutherford baffled by an offer sheet as well. It seems to be a win-win. Will it happen?

Atlantic Notes: Larkin, Lightning, Moore

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The Detroit Red Wings have two options in regards to signing restricted free agent Dylan Larkin this summer. The team could go short-term or long-term. With a solid, but hardly spectacular season, the Red Wings might want to wait and see how the 21-year-old develops over the next year or two and hand out short contracts to see if he’s worth the money. That makes sense considering the team is capped out with so many long-term deals having been handed out to veterans over the past few years.

However, NBC Sports’ James O’Brien writes that the team needs to look at the long-term option instead and lock up Larkin as quick as possible as he compares Larkin’s situation to that of Leon Draisaitl of the Edmonton Oilers, who signed an eight-year, $68MM deal a year ago, which is starting to look like a bargain after the many signings since then.

Larkin, who has shown that he’s one of the few answers in Detroit still hasn’t broken out with the Red Wings. While his rookie campaign showed plenty of promise with 23 goals, he’s failed to duplicate that number since. However, while he did just tally 16 goals a season ago, his 47 assists was a career-high along with his 63 points, suggesting he might be due for a breakout season. Signing Larkin to a long-term deal now while his value isn’t through the roof might be better than waiting another two years when they will be forced to shell out top dollar in the future with the cap constantly increasing.

  • While it’s already been reported that the eight-year, $76MM extension that Nikita Kucherov signed will not take the Tampa Bay Lightning out of a potential Erik Karlsson trade, the team will have to make some moves if it does pull the trigger on a trade as the team has less than $3MM in cap space for this coming year. Brandon Schlager of the Sporting News writes that the most obvious candidates that would have to be moved would be forwards Ryan Callahan ($5.8MM AAV for two more years), Tyler Johnson ($5MM for six more years), Alex Killorn ($4.45MM for five more years) and defenseman Braydon Coburn ($3.7MM for one year).
  • Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe attempts to break down what the Boston Bruins defense will look like next season as well as what the team should expect out of their top free agent target, John Moore. The scribe writes that general manager Don Sweeney hasn’t struck gold yet with his long-term free agent deals, pointing to the contracts handed out to Matt Beleskey and David Backes. Beleskey was an outright failure, while Backes has been average, at best. Moore is just 27 years old and will be playing already for his fifth team, which isn’t a good sign. What the team’s plans are for his usage is also unknown as if the team intends to put him on the team’s second-line defensive pairings, then the team would force either Torey Krug or Brandon Carlo to the third-line pairing, which doesn’t make sense either unless the team intends to move Krug. However, there is still no proof that Moore is good enough to be a top-four player.

Free Agent Focus: Detroit Red Wings

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Free agency is now a little more than a month away from opening up and there are quite a few prominent players set to hit the open market while many teams have key restricted free agents to re-sign.  Here is a breakdown of Detroit’s free agent situation.

Key Restricted Free Agent: F Dylan Larkin — After a great start in his rookie year, there were a lot of questions after he struggled in his sophomore campaign when he put up just 32 points. However, the 21-year-old center brushed away any doubts this year, putting up 16 goals and a team-leading 63 points. With a team full of veterans, the Red Wings must begin to depend more and more on Larkin, who is developing into the franchise player they need to center one of their top lines. Add in a recent appearance at the IIHF World Championships where he helped Team USA win a bronze medal and he’s the key to Detroit’s rebuild.

Now coming off his entry-level deal, Larkin is in line for a significant raise from the $1.43MM deal he’s been on for the past three years. Not arbitration eligible, however, the negotiations might get ugly like the one that Andreas Athanasiou dealt with last year, especially with multiple quality players who will be restricted free agents this summer.

Other RFA’s: F Athanasiou, F Tyler Bertuzzi, F Martin Frk, F Matej Machovsky, F Anthony Mantha, F Zach Nastasiuk, F Matt Puempel, D Daniel Renouf.

Key Unrestricted Free Agent: D Mike Green — On a positive note, the team doesn’t have any pressing unrestricted free agents. While Green is quite an offensive defenseman, he’s also 32 years old and not necessarily in the team’s long-term plans. The team’s original plan was to trade the veteran blueliner to a playoff contender at the trade deadline and had hoped that he would provide the team with a big haul of picks and/or prospects. Instead, Green got hurt and missed the two weeks prior to the trade deadline and weren’t able to move Green.

While there has been some talk of bringing him back on a short-term deal, he might be able to get a bigger deal elsewhere, but considering defense is one of the team’s biggest weaknesses and not a lot of defensive prospects there to take his place, a reunion is certainly possible.

Other UFA’s: F David Booth, G Jared Coreau, F Turner Elson, F Matt Lorito, G Tom McCollum, F Ben Street, F Eric Tangradi.

Projected Cap Space: With all the bloated veteran contracts the Red Wings have on the books, cap space is something the team has had little of over the past few years. The team did get the contracts of Green, Tomas Tatar, and Petr Mrazek off the books to free up a little room, but they will likely need all of that to re-sign Larkin, Athanasiou, Mantha and Bertuzzi. While general manager Ken Holland says he doesn’t intend to sign any major free agents to long-term deals this summer, he did say he would look at players with shorter term deals, but in the end, the team hopes to bring in some of their youth to fill in the gaps this year.

Red Wings Notes: Larkin, Athanasiou, Fulcher

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Drafting Dylan Larkin was the equivalent of hitting the NHL talent jackpot writes the Detroit Free Press’ Helene St. James. Calling him the foundation of Detroit’s rebuilding process, Larkin fell to Detroit in the 2014 NHL Draft. St. James assesses that the 21-year-old center is captain material and that the Red Wings have a chance to build around a player that could lead them back to their familiar days of contention. Of course, the Red Wings have been reluctant to actually rebuild and instead, opt to sign free agents in the hopes of making the playoffs, which blocks the progress of younger players. Larkin was the exception, as his performance was too strong to ignore right out of his first training camp in 2015, and he’s been a mainstay on the roster since.

  • St. James also answers questions about Andreas Athanasiou, the polarizing forward who dazzles with his speed and scoring prowess but perplexes with his inability to find regular ice time due to what appears to be conflicts with management. After holding out to start the 2017-18 season, Athanasiou did not live up to the billing Detroit was hoping for–but many in Hockeytown would argue he was never given the chance. She quotes head coach Jeff Blashill as saying… “that consistency level and work ethic and compete is going to be critical for AA.” It sounds like a tug of war between a player and management making some wonder if Athanasiou will find himself shipped out of town. St. James writes that with his numbers dropping, the return wouldn’t be what Detroit would want.
  • Red Wings prospect Kaden Fulcher is featured in a London Free Press article, extolling the performance of the youngster who has been strong between the pipes for the Hamilton Bulldogs en route to a Memorial Cup appearance. Fulcher signed a three-year entry level contract with the Red Wings and MLive’s Ansar Khan explains that Fulcher’s improvement is a reflection of his work ethic. The Red Wings expect him to compete for a job in Grand Rapids and should that not pan out, he would go to either the Toledo Walleye of the ECHL or back to Hamilton for his overage junior year.

U.S. Announces 2018 Men’s National Roster

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USA Hockey announced their initial 2018 national roster for the upcoming 2018 IIHF Men’s World Championships on May 4-20 in Copenhagen and Herning, Denmark, headlined by Chicago Blackhawks star Patrick Kane.

Kane, who announced he’d play this summer after his Blackhawks season ended with no trip to the playoffs, represented the U.S. twice in both the 2010 and 2014 Olympic Games, leading the U.S. to a silver medal in 2010, was named the captain of this team back on April 9. He will be joined by four others with World Championship experience, including Detroit Red Wings forward Dylan Larkin, New York Islanders forward Anders Lee, Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Connor Murphy and the Calgary Flames forward Johnny Gaudreau.

The one interesting roster note is the addition of 18-year-old Quinn Hughes, who is considered to be a likely top-10 pick in the upcoming NHL draft. The full roster can be found below:

G Scott Darling
G Keith Kincaid
G Charlie Lindgren

D Will Butcher
D Quinn Hughes
D Nick Jensen
D Alec Martinez
D Connor Murphy
D Jordan Oesterle
D Neal Pionk

F Cam Atkinson
F Blake Coleman
F Alex DeBrincat
F Johnny Gaudreau
F Brian Gibbons
F Patrick Kane
F Chris Kreider
F Dylan Larkin
F Anders Lee
F Sonny Milano
F Derek Ryan
F Tage Thompson
F Colin White

 

Red Wings Notes: Green, Goaltending, Larkin, Nielsen

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Red Wings defenseman Mike Green’s surgery to repair his cervical spine was a successful one, GM Ken Holland told reporters, including Gregg Krupa of the Detroit News (Twitter link).  Holland also noted that Green should be fully recovered for the start of training camp.  The rearguard was shut down late in March and wasn’t healthy heading into the trade deadline which played a role in him not being traded.

The question now becomes whether or not Detroit shows interest in re-signing the pending unrestricted free agent.  While Green’s offensive prowess isn’t what it once was, he still put up 33 points (8-25-33) in 66 games and their back end doesn’t have a lot of threats from the point.  However, considering that he’s 32 years old and the fact that the Wings are in the midst of a rebuild, it may not make a lot of sense to bring him back unless he’s amenable to a short-term contract.  Holland stated that a decision on whether or not to pursue a new deal with him may not be made until after the draft in June.  Green made $6MM in each of the last three years and it’s likely that his next deal will carry a pay cut.

More from Detroit:

  • Blues goaltender Carter Hutton is on Detroit’s radar for the offseason, reports MLive’s Ansar Khan. The 32-year-old is coming off a career year in which he led the league in goals-against average (2.09) and save percentage (.931).  The Red Wings are in need of another goalie with the trade of Petr Mrazek prior to the trade deadline to play alongside Jimmy Howard, who has one more year on his deal with a cap hit of just under $5.3MM.  Hutton’s salary was an even $1MM this season and he will undoubtedly command a significantly bigger deal on the open market this summer.
  • Centers Dylan Larkin Frans Nielsen has committed to play at the upcoming World Championships, Khan notes (Twitter links). It will be Larkin’s fourth appearance in the tournament while Nielsen will be suiting up for the first time since 2012 (and eighth time overall).  The tournament is set to be held in Nielsen’s native Denmark which likely plays a role in his decision to play this time around.

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