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Offer sheets

Maple Leafs’ Off-Season On Hold Until Mitch Marner Decision

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With over $74MM tied up in 17 players heading into next season, none of whom are young star winger Mitch Marner, the Toronto Maple Leafs are in for a tough summer. It is clear that signing Marner is “priority one”, but what Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston points out is that in terms of not just importance, but also time. Speaking with Leafs GM Kyle Dubas, there was an understanding that Toronto cannot do much this off-season prior to signing Marner (or else moving him):

Without an answer on Mitch, we’re going to kind of be in a stalemate, right? It is a top priority because we’re not going to jump around and chew up our cap space that we may need for Mitch with fringe signings, either. It’s important. We’ve just got to get to work on it and get it done… It’s a tough process. It’s long, and just don’t expect anything to get done nice and smoothly. It’s always a battle.

Dubas has been adamant that the team will need to resolve the Marner situation by July 1st, one way or another, and for good reason. Following another early playoff exit, the team is hoping to improve this off-season and the free agent market, which opens on that date, will be one of their main opportunities. However, as Dubas notes, the team cannot make even fringe additions until Marner is signed and their salary cap status is clear. The team is expected to lose defenseman Jake Gardiner, but more affordable extensions with the likes of Ron Hainsey, Tyler Ennis, and Michael Hutchinson remain possible, yet harder to get done once those players hit the open market.

One other way to solve the cap crisis is via trade, but even that route is risky without clarity on Marner. While fans may prefer to see the likes of Nikita Zaitsev, Nazem Kadri, or Connor Brown dealt away, it is Marner’s RFA brethren Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson who will carry more value on the trade market. Just like their UFA counterparts in Toronto, Dubas and company cannot re-sign Kapanen and Johnsson – who are due substantial raises of their own – without first knowing the details on Marner. The team would also be taking a major risk by trading either one in hopes of creating the space needed for Marner, as failure to get the star forward signed regardless would leave them down two young scoring assets.

Johnston writes that offer sheets – often an over-hyped false reality anyway – are the least of the Leafs’ worries. Not only would the team have the right to match any offer made to Marner, but a deal large enough to lure him away from his hometown team would likely net Toronto four first-round picks. That price could be worth giving Marner up, if any team actually had the audacity to make such a move.

There seems to be mutual benefit between Marner and the Maple Leafs in getting a new deal done. However, only Toronto has a time crunch to manage, while Marner can hold out for his best possible deal, as he has every right to do. It seems like the Leafs won’t possibly be able to sign Marner without first moving out some salary, so if any move can occur before a Marner extension, expect it to be a cap dump by Dubas. Otherwise, prepare for a quiet couple of months in Toronto until this situation can be resolved.

Tampa Bay Not Concerned With Potential Offer Sheets

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Whenever the idea of an offer sheet is brought up, the two teams used most as potential targets are the Toronto Maple Leafs and Winnipeg Jets. That’s mostly because they have several pending restricted free agents and will be facing almost insurmountable cap issues this summer, making them seem more vulnerable. There’s another team in that same situation though and they have the added benefit of being the best team in the NHL. The Tampa Bay Lightning already have more than $73MM in cap hits committed to the 2019-20 season and still have to reach agreements with several RFAs.

The biggest name among those pending restricted free agents of course is Brayden Point, who has taken another incredible step forward this season and now ranks tenth in league scoring with 81 points. The 22-year old forward is already in contention for the Selke Trophy as one of the league’s best defensive players, and leads the entire NHL with 19 powerplay goals. His star is bright, and should be the target of offer sheets if they are truly coming this summer as some are starting to believe.

Lightning GM Julien BriseBois isn’t worried. In fact, when speaking with Craig Custance of The Athletic (subscription required) this week at the GM meetings, BriseBois explained his confidence that the team can get a deal done with Point and stated he thinks “it makes sense for both parties.” The Lightning of course have plenty to sell a player like Point on, and even more if they end up going all the way to the Stanley Cup this season.

Tampa Bay is 17 points ahead of the next best team in the NHL and will almost assuredly lock up the Presidents Trophy in the coming weeks. They have an incredible +87 goal differential on the season and have lost just 12 contests in regulation. Any team extending a big offer sheet is likely one in the midst of some sort of rebuild, meaning Point would be taking a considerable step backwards in terms of competitiveness. Add in that Florida already enjoys some of the best tax rates available, and the Lightning have a lot going for them.

Still, a long-term extension for Point might be difficult to fit in without at least moving someone out. The Lightning have three veteran defensemen coming off the books in Anton Stralman, Dan Girardi and Braydon Coburn, and could potentially get out from under Ryan Callahan’s last season by finding the right trade partner. Still, the team must consider the fact that Andrei Vasilevskiy is approaching his own payday after his current deal expires in the summer of 2020, while the rest of the core is under contract long after that.

Again, there is little reason to believe the Lightning are in trouble and BriseBois certainly doesn’t think an offer sheet will be coming for Point. As New Jersey Devils GM Ray Shero points out to Custance in the same piece, the player actually needs to be interested in signing the sheet too—it can’t be arbitrarily used as a predatory tactic.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

“Chances Are High” Montreal Canadiens Will Stand Pat At Deadline

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It’s been a surprisingly successful season for the Montreal Canadiens to this point, but don’t expect that to translate to an active trade deadline. Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin has said all along that his team would not be interested in acquiring rentals this season and now another voice has echoed that sentiment. TVA’s Renaud Lavoie, one of the top Montreal insiders, states that he has heard the “chances are high that nothing much will happen” when it comes to the Habs in this week leading up to the trade deadline.

The Canadiens have had a great 2018-19 season and have outperformed most expectations. However, their own success has to be considered relative to the success of teams around them. In the uber-competitive Atlantic Division, Montreal is in fourth place, six points behind the Toronto Maple Leafs, and is unlikely to challenge for a divisional spot. The Eastern Conference wild card race has picked up as well and the Habs will have to outlast the Columbus Blue Jackets, Pittsburgh Penguins, and red-hot Carolina Hurricanes just to make the postseason. Dom Luszczyszyn’s model for The Athletic currently projects the Canadiens to finish with a very respectable 96 points for the year. However, that gives them an eighth-place finish and a date with the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round. In fact, their 96-point pace only provides a 67% chance of making the playoffs according to the model, with Carolina projected for 95 points and 64% postseason odds. The Hurricanes have the longest active playoff drought in the NHL and are desperate to simply make the playoffs. Can the Canadiens say the same?

Odds are Lavoie’s report of little to no trade action expected in Montreal stems from the team’s own contentedness with how the season has gone. The Canadiens were not expected to make this kind of jump and Bergevin and company can rest easy with their success this year without giving up futures at the deadline. The Habs are not a lock for the playoffs and, if they do make it, would be a round one underdog in almost any scenario. If the team can continue to defy expectations, then that is great for them, but no one can blame management for not wanting to buy in completely on a run this year. The Canadiens have massive amounts of salary cap space heading into the off-season and are expected to be active players on the free agent and trade markets then and have even been mentioned as an offer sheet threat. There’s no need to rush a re-tooling that is already ahead of schedule. Aside from a minor tweak or even a small sale, expect the deadline to come and go in Montreal this season without much to talk about.

 

Atlantic Notes: Point, Andersen, McAvoy, Helm

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With more and more rumors surfacing that many teams may consider handing out offer sheets this summer when a number of intriguing game-changing restricted free agents will be out there, one team that might have to worry more than anyone will be the salary-strapped Tampa Bay Lightning. The team will have quite a few cap issues this offseason, including a number of unrestricted defensive free agents in Anton Stralman, Braydon Coburn and Dan Girardi as well as multiple restricted free agents, including star center Brayden Point.

The fear is that a team might take advantage of Tampa Bay’s situation and make Point an offer that the Lightning would have trouble matching as they will be forced to make significant adjustments for the next several years with all the big-name players they have. However, The Athletic’s Joe Smith (subscription required) interviewed general manager Julien BriseBois about many topics, but the GM believes that offer sheets aren’t being utilized amongst NHL teams for a reason.

“I’m really not concerned at all about offer sheets,” BriseBois said. “I don’t see it happening. The way it’s set up, there’s no point in making an offer sheet unless you think you’re going to get the player. And teams match. You’re not going to let go of the good young players that are going to be good for your team for many years to come. So I don’t see it.”

BriseBois also pointed out that negotiations with Point will not begin until after the season and even if a team was able to get Point to sign an offer sheet, he believes that the team would have the time needed to move around pieces to retain Point.

  • Mark Zwolinski of The Star writes that Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock said that there is no rush when it comes to getting back goaltender Frederik Andersen, who is out with a groin injury. Andersen, who has played more minutes than any goaltender in the league so far in the past two years, is expected to work out with goaltending coach Steve Briere on Tuesday and could be cleared for practice on Wednesday, but whether he plays on Thursday afternoon or Saturday isn’t important to the coach. “Let’s make it clear, there’s no plan,” Babcock said.
  • Joe Haggerty of NBC Sports writes that Boston Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy seems unlikely to play in Tuesday’s Winter Classic after not practicing Monday. If McAvoy misses Tuesday’s game, that will be the 23rd game that he has missed this season, which is starting to look like a pattern as he also missed 19 games in his rookie campaign last season. Haggerty suggests that if he continues to show an inability to stay on the ice, that could affect the big contract that many people expect McAvoy will get this offseason when he hits restricted free agency. He’s been compared to Drew Doughty, but Doughty has never missed more than six games in a season and has played a full 82-game schedule five times in his career.
  • MLive’s Ansar Khan writes that the Detroit Red Wings are close to getting back veteran Darren Helm and he could be back as early as Wednesday. The forward has been out since Nov. 17 with a shoulder injury. The 31-year-old has just one goal this season in 20 games after a 13-goal season a year ago.

Fourteen Restricted Free Agents Remain Unsigned

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We’re now just a few weeks away from the start of training camp, and there are still 14 restricted free agents without contracts. Many of those who remain unsigned are key players for their teams, and starting training camp without them isn’t a desired situation for either side. That means early September should be filled with new contracts, including several that should be quite substantial.

The full list of unsigned RFAs, thanks to CapFriendly:

Nick Ritchie (ANA)
Marek Langhamer (ARZ)
Sam Reinhart (BUF)
Noah Hanifin (CGY)
Matt Puempel (DET)
Darnell Nurse (EDM)
Michael McCarron (MTL)
Miles Wood (NJD)
Jordan Schmaltz (STL)
William Nylander (TOR)
Shea Theodore (VGK)
Eric Comrie (WPG)
J.C. Lipon (WPG)
Josh Morrissey (WPG)

As CapFriendly points out, there is still technically a possibility of an offer sheet for these players given their status as restricted free agents but it seems extremely unlikely at this point. Offer sheets are so rarely used in today’s NHL and would require a team to have ample cap space this late in the summer. Remember too that an offer sheet is not something a team can do without the player’s consent, and none of these situations seem contentious currently.

Instead, these contracts are taking a long time because they have real impact on their team’s cap situations going forward. William Nylander wants a long-term deal from the Toronto Maple Leafs, but with Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, Jake Gardiner and others needing new contracts within the next year there are plenty of reasons to think a bridge deal could be more beneficial. Nylander’s cap hit is extremely important for the Maple Leafs going forward, and given that it will likely fall somewhere around Dylan Larkin’s $6.1MM and David Pastrnak’s $6.67MM it takes time to work out.

For a team like Edmonton, locking up Darnell Nurse provides perhaps even more challenges. The team needs Nurse desperately this season given their already ailing blue line, but also has to worry about how they’ll add to the team down the line if they buy out any of his free agent years. That would send his cap hit skyrocketing, and the team has just $3.9MM left for this season and more than $62MM already committed for 2019-20. A bridge deal in Edmonton might be the only possible contract, but it might not be what Nurse is looking for.

The same could be said in Calgary, where the Flames can’t be exactly sure what they have in Noah Hanifin. While he has a high draft pedigree and has been a fine player in Carolina through the early part of his career, there’s no indication yet that he can be a franchise defenseman capable of leading their blue line down the road. With many of their other defensemen closing in on unrestricted free agency and the back half of their careers, the Flames have to be careful where they commit the most dollars.

Overall, this is a very talented group that is still unsigned as we inch closer to September and should make for some fireworks just before camp. In the worst case scenario some of them will miss camp and perhaps even hold out into the season, at which point we’ll be looking at a December 1st deadline instead of mid-September. That’s when every RFA needs a contract by or else they forfeit the entire 2018-19 season.

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.

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?

Snapshots: Offer Sheets, Wideman, Bergevin

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The NHL has restricted free agency for a reason, but instead of it being a way for talent-deprived teams to sign away top young players, offers sheets are ignored and never used. The last offer sheet signed was five years ago when Ryan O’Reilly signed an offer sheet with the Calgary Flames in 2013 and there have only been eight offer sheets signed in the salary cap era.

After all, with a weak unrestricted free agent class this season, teams would benefit if they had an equally good chance at competing for restricted free agents. This year’s restricted free agent class is quite impressive. Led by Vegas’ William Karlsson, Ottawa’s Mark Stone, Winnipeg’s Jacob Trouba and Toronto’s William Nylander, teams should be making a move on some of these players.

Sportsnet’s Sean McIndoe writes the main reason for the lack of offer sheets comes down to the compensation that is returned if a team allows a team to leave. The scribe writes that the compensation is not good enough and forces teams to sign their restricted free agents regardless of their cap situation. He points out that the compensation looks impressive when dealing with a player that makes more that $10.15MM per year. A team that signs a restricted free agent in that bracket would receive four first-round picks. Unfortunately, few players are in that salary bracket unless your name is Connor McDavid. If he was a restricted free agent, any team would give up four first-rounders for McDavid.

If the NHL wants to improve on restricted free agency, then they must double the compensation so teams really need to think about whether they would rather have that player or let him go and take the compensation package. Unfortunately right now, no team wants the compensation package.

  • Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun writes that unrestricted free agent Chris Wideman said that he wants to return to the Ottawa Senators next season, but isn’t sure he’s in the team’s plans for next season. The 28-year-old defenseman said he talked to general manager Pierre Dorion recently and was told that the organization had other matters to attend to before addressing whether they plan to bring him back. Wideman missed most of the season last year after having surgery in December to repair a torn hamstring after Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin fell on him on Nov. 16. Used as a depth defenseman for his three years in Ottawa, he averaged a career-low 11:33 of ATOI in 16 NHL contests, despite putting up eight points in that time period.
  • Stu Cowan of The Montreal Gazette writes that general manager Marc Bergevin said today that the team is willing to trade the No. 3 pick in the NHL Entry Draft. “I’ll listen, I’m open,” Bergevin said. “I’ve told teams if they want to make me an offer, I’ll look at it. But again, sometimes teams don’t want to move up. As much as a team wants to move back or move up, if there’s no takers or buyers then you just sit where you’re at.”

2018 Offer Sheet Compensation

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Though it is almost never used in today’s NHL, the idea of an offer sheet still intrigues fans and media alike. Signing a restricted free agent out from under the nose of a rival, taking a superstar away in his prime. We’ve seen examples of offer sheets in the past, with Shea Weber signing a 14-year contract with Philadelphia in 2012, only to have it matched by Nashville. The Predators would have received four first-round picks had they let the then-26-year old Norris runner-up walk away.

Offer sheet compensation is based on the average salary of the league, and CapFriendly has released the final numbers for this summer. Below is the full breakdown, with the contract’s average annual value placing it in one of seven tiers:

$1,339,575 or less No compensation
$1,339,576 to $2,029,659 Third-round pick
$2,029,660 to $4,059,322 Second-round pick
$4,059,323 to $6,088,980 First and third-round picks
$6,088,981 to $8,118,641 First, second and third-round picks
$8,118,642 to $10,148,302 Two firsts, a second and third-round picks
Over $10,148,302 Four first-round picks

It is important to note that any team trying to sign a player to an applicable offer sheet must use their own draft picks for compensation, not ones that have been acquired. That rules several teams out already from signing high profile RFAs, unless they were to work to reacquire their picks before submitting the contract.

Several players, including William Karlsson and Mark Stone are scheduled to become restricted free agents this summer and have generated offer sheet speculation. Though they don’t happen regularly, some people around the NHL believe that the day is coming when teams use the option more often. We’ll have to wait to find out if that begins this summer. For more information about the details of offer sheets, check out CapFriendly’s FAQ.

Early Notes: Offer Sheets, Kane, Yakupov

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After another two teams were eliminated from playoff contention yesterday, more and more focus is shifting to the offseason and how free agency will shake out. As always, there will be speculation about the potential of an offer sheet being signed with one of the many high profile restricted free agents, and Rory Boylen of Sportsnet is here to break down how it all works.

Boylen also lists several players that could be signed to a sheet, including Mark Stone, Jacob Trouba, Mathew Dumba, William Nylander and others. One of the most interesting names listed, and one to keep an eye on all summer is William Karlsson of the Vegas Golden Knights. After a 43-goal breakout season, there is no one who can definitively say what he’s worth or what he’ll be asking for in negotiations this summer.

  • Evander Kane was playing with a separated shoulder during the playoffs, according to Kevin Kurz of The Athletic, which could at least partially explain why he struggled in the San Jose Sharks’ final series against the Vegas Golden Knights. The Sharks have a decision to make now on Kane, who is set to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1st. Should they sign him to a contract extension, they’ll be forced to upgrade the second-round pick sent to Buffalo at the trade deadline to a first rounder.
  • Just like last summer, the idea that Nail Yakupov could return to Russia and the KHL is already starting to percolate. After another disappointing season that saw the 2012 first-overall pick register just 16 points in 58 games for the Colorado Avalanche, he’s scheduled to become a restricted free agent once again. Adrian Dater of BSN Denver asked Yakupov’s agent directly about a potential return to Russia, who answered simply “he’s a grown man, and he will decide what’s best for him.” Last spring we examined the opportunity that the KHL could offer, before he eventually decided to give the NHL another shot.

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