One of the best lines in NHL free agency: “How would you like to play on a line with Connor McDavid?” That’s an attention getter and Ken Holland may be using something like it on Brett Connolly today. If Edmonton signs Connolly, I suspect most fans will like the player but not the contract.
The Matt Cane prediction was $3.472 million times three for Connolly, the media rumor is $4 million times four. I said this could happen (here) and if it does, then I think it’s important to drill down on how much of the overpay is on management and how much is a tax on signing with the Oilers. It has to be one or the other, or both. I think it’ll be an interesting conversation should it come to pass.
THE ATHLETIC!
The Athletic Edmonton features a fabulous cluster of stories (some linked below, some on the site). Great perspective from a ridiculous group of writers and analysts. Proud to be part of the group, here’s an incredible Offer!
- New Lowetide: Taking stock of Oilers prospects ready to graduate with a clear shot at an NHL job in 2019-20
- New Jonathan Willis: Oilers keep two, cut five, and potentially add new targets as qualifying deadline passes
- New Lowetide: Oilers top 20 prospects summer 2019.
- New Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Raphael Lavoie’s QMJHL coach is confident the Oilers’ No. 38 pick will prove worth the wait
- New Jonathan Willis: Having added top KHL stopper Ilya Konovalov, how will the Oilers handle a crowded goalie pipeline?
- New Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Ken Holland doesn’t lose sight of the big picture in drafting defenceman Philip Broberg over a forward
- Lowetide: The heat is on Ken Holland’s Oilers for Day 2 of the NHL Draft.
- Lowetide: Oilers Draft Day 1: Getting it right at No. 8 overall and multiple trade winds for Ken Holland.
- Willis and Mirtle: Are the Oilers and Maple Leafs good trading partners?
- Lowetide: Are these Jesse Puljujarvi’s final days with the Edmonton Oilers?
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Analyzing the early Edmonton Oilers’ 2019-20 depth chart.
- Lowetide: The Oilers’ conundrum in taking Philip Broberg with the No. 8 overall pick
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Ranking the Oilers’ trade assets from the high-priced diamonds to those needing fresh starts
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Evaluating the pros and cons of potential Oilers buyout candidates
- Lowetide: Oilers GM Ken Holland is shopping for 20-goal scorers on a budget. What will he find?
NEW UFA’S
NHL teams walked a thousand men yesterday and some of them can play. I can’t get to every player worth discussing but here are a few who caught my eye.
LC Nick Cousins. He posted 1.27/60 5-on-5 scoring, played 30 percent of his time against elites and delivered 55 percent in possession. That’s good. While it’s true he played most often with Keller and Galchenyuk, Cousins was superior without at 5-on-5. He won’t cost a lost, and is 26.
R Ryan Hartman. He delivered 1.43/60 5-on-5 scoring, and in Nashville played 33 percent of his time against elites (48 percent in possession). I don’t know what the hell is going on with this player, but very recently he was good.
R Pontus Aberg. A 1.52/60 5-on-5 scorer for two teams, he played 29 percent of his time against elites and won 47.9 percent of the overall 5-on-5 possession. He had some chem here, people.
R Josh Archibald. He scored 1.30 5-on-5 per 60 while playing 49.6 against elites in 260 minutes against them. I don’t know him really but this is probably worth a contract because of shooting percentage (13.8).
LC Marko Dano. He’s 24 now and has only averaged 11 NHL goals per 82 games, but he has speed and skill. Long shot at this point.
R Sven Andrighetto. He scored 1.64/60 5-on-5 most often with Kerfoot and Jost. Oilers could buy out Sam Gagner, sign this fellow for $1 million and save a million. I like Gagner more, but there is an opportunity here.
L Dmitrij Jaskin. Big, strong and with great skill, I’ve been watching him for years and am still not sure what he does. Posted a 1.32/60 at 5-on-5 last season and might be the best pure talent on this list.
L Kerby Rychel. I’m not absolutely certain he is a player, but there is some evidence here. At 5-on-5 over his NHL career, Rychel has 14 points in 415 minutes. That’s 2.02/60.
CURRENT 50-MAN (43)
There is one slide (Olivier Rodrgiue) and it sure sounds like Edmonton is going to sign RHC Gaetan Haas. My article at The Athletic today identifies several Condors who are in very good position for roster spots this fall. That could change, but this depth chart is fluid. Edmonton has room for (my guess) five more names on the 50-man.
Ken Holland has signed Joakim Nygard and Logan Day, plus re-signed Gambardella, Malone, Patrick Russell, Shane Starrett. We knew he was beyond careful (he made one trade all summer 2018) and the new general manager may just sign some free agents. If the club gets Connolly and a legit goalie, I think we’ll see a buyout.
A LITTLE MORE ON PHILIP BROBERG
HockeyProspect.com: He’s been playing in a somewhat sheltered role for AIK in the HockeyAllsvenskan, where he had 2 goals, and 7 assists in 41 games. Broberg has got good size and excellent skating abilities, with a smooth, strong stride he likes to use to his advantage. He advances the puck up ice creating distance between him and his opponents, often going wide and around defenders. It’s really his north-south skating that stands out as he often takes the shortest route towards his destination.
Red Line Report: Huge, smooth skating defenceman has a terrific combination of great size and obvious skills. Lugs the puck up ice on dangerous rushes frequently, and generates lots of offence from the back end. Fires laser wristers on the PP, walking the line laterally to open up lanes.
Corey Pronman: In Broberg, the Oilers get an immensely talented defenseman and a unique player in terms of how elite his skating is for 6-foot-3. He’s not a high-end puck skills or passer, but he gets a bad rap in that area. He has skill, he makes plays, he can operate on a power play. His game is projected to be a top-pair guy who can drive play.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
At 10 this morning, we hit the ground running with great guests and 50,000 watts of talk and droll on TSN1260. Bruce McCurdy from the Cult of Hockey will stop by to talk prospects camp, the draft and free agency to come. We’ll also be joined by Kris Abbott from OddsShark to talk NBA and NHL offseason. Cam Lewis from Blue Jays Nation will also pop by and we’ll chat about losing teams and what they can get out of losing seasons. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter. See you on the radio!
Disagree with this. He’s a low event, average speed, positive-possession player who one day completely lost his ability to catch or throw a pass.
I would sit him for any of those players. I know the numbers don’t support it, but I think Lucic is the worst player on the team. The lack of offense is obvious. But he is also terrible at defensive zone coverage. And slow. He also doesn’t play hard.
I would give his minutes to Daniel Carr or Brandon Pirri and be happy.
What Armchair said. There’s an argument that Lucic isn’t actually below replacement level, or at least not by much.
Also, exploring largely lateral trades (Lucic for Eriksson for instance) has the potential to shift that money to a clearly above replacement level player.
And most importantly, the potential of compliance buyouts offers the possibility to completely remove the last 2 years of Lucic’s deal from the ledger. A buyout now will cost the Oilers:
21-22 $4.125M
22-23 $5.625M
23-24 $625k
24-25 $625k
25-26 $625k
26-27 $625k
IF there are compliance buyouts are part of the CBA negotiation, those numbers go to zero. That’s a huge deal, and for me outweighs the marginal benefit of having Lucic off the roster for now.
As am I. But we have nothing else to go on at this point as far as I know.
Edit to add: the Connolly number seems accurate based on his agent’s verbal.
1) There’s virtually no savings to get a replacement player, and 2) there’s no guarantee the replacement would be as good, let alone better. Look at the 2018-19 roster, Lucic wasn’t even close to the worst player. Would you sit him to play Rattie? Currie? Rieder? Malone? P. Russell?
It’ll be much the same this year – the bottom-6 UFA might in fact be worse than Lucic at the hockey.
Alright, not a mistake. How Panik commands $4.8M X 4 I have no idea though. I remain highly skeptical.
What your numbers don’t show is the cost of the replacement player in the buyout years. League minimum salary is $700 this year and will rise in subsequent years, if we figure on replacing Lucic with a $1M player the numbers look like this:
4.625 (6) [6] (6)
6.625 (6.5) [6] (6)
5.125 (5) [5.08] (6)
6.625 (6.5) [6.58] (6)
.625 (.5) [.58]
.625 (.5) [.58]
.625 (.5)
.625
And there’s no guarantee the replacement is going to perform any better. Lucic actually did fairly well at suppressing offense last year.
The analogy doesn’t work because you aren’t counting for the opportunity cost for having Lucic on your roster. In your stock analogy this means that it is possible for a stock to have negative value.
The calculation is simple. If Lucic is an above replacement player then he should not be bought out.
However, if Lucic is a below replacement player then he should be bought out.
You aren’t wrong. If Lucic was a UFA what kind of contract would he get?
There isn’t a chance in hell he would get 3M x 4 years.
He would be getting 1, maybe 2 years for less than 2 M.
Impossible to trade Lucic with his contract. Even with 50% retained it would cost multiple picks including at least one first round pick to trade him.
Buying him out doesn’t really save money. But it saves a roster spot, which has value, and it means someone else will be on the ice, which has value.
Buying him out is the way to go.
Ryan,
More to your stock analogy, a Lucic buyout isn’t like a $10 stock dropping to $5. It’s like a $10 stock dropping to $1. And a buyout one year down the line is like that $1 stock dropping further to $0.60. With the added advantage that you know the stock with be exactly $0.60 next year (if one were to pursue a buyout then). The loss on your $1 stock is not going to be large.
The trade options could improve your stock to $1.50 or $2. Maybe even $2.50 if someone thinks your stock can rebound. And if compliance buyouts materialize then you can get a full $5 back in two years. At a time when your team might actually be competitive.
I’ll be extremely disappointed in Holland if he goes the buyout route with Lucic. It would clear $2M for this season, but lock the team into a very ugly scenario for multiple years after. It would be very short sighted IMO. Waiting it out (if there’s no reasonable trade options) for a compliance buyout, even if there’s only a 5% or 10% chance they happen, is still preferable to a buyout to me.
If you know better than Evolving Hockey, why don’t you publish your own predictions?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15E1qqh3OfHvvhbv_pICfKT7VR1jJEVhWQOyKviWLN54/edit#gid=707766415
Is paying that same guys $4.75M for 4 years, then 625k for 4 more to NOT play for you any better though? Any chance at all of a compliance buyout is better than either option IMO (plus it leaves open the possibly of a trade scenarios that help the Oilers ease the pain).
Those numbers for Panik and Brassard can’t be correct. I don’t know where to find the salary predictions, but Panik must be $4.8M over 2 years. And Brassard will be 32, coming off a 23 point season. $4M per? Must be over 2 yrs as well, no? Those guys will very clearly come in cheaper than Connolly.
Well, but paying a guy $6m cap hit who produced under one point per hour at evens (below replacement level 4rth liner) for four more years is also egregious.
To worry about Connolly playing “too high in the lineup” when our best RW’s are currently Kassian and Gagner is ludicrous, nothing you say will convince me otherwise.
I don’t know what you’re talking about when you say “there is no assurance his production boosts as predicted.” What predictions are these? I didn’t see anyone forecasting major boost in production at all. The only thing I wrote was that if he played the same number of minutes as Chiasson he’d likely pot 23 goals at 5v5, as compared to the 21 he did score last season. This isn’t the same thing as forecasting a McDavid Bump, for instance.
I don’t think there’s a lot of risk there. We went over the numbers the other day and he’s been putting up consistent numbers for 3 years now. And the contract expectation isn’t unreasonable at all vis-a-vis his peer UFA forwards, in fact it’s easily the lowest.
Brett Connolly**217**45**0.21****3**$3,472,185
Micheal Ferland**224**37**0.17****4**$4,106,404
Richard Panik**229**37**0.16****4**$4,795,203
Derick Brassard**223**32**0.14****3**$3,955,005
Jaxon,
That’s where our opinions differ.
I don’t think you can trade four years of an already 31-year-old player, who scored six goals last year, for $3m cap without significant add.
I could be wrong.
Retaining 50% is a way better option than buying him out and I don’t think he’d require much or any sweetener at $3M. Even though his production has dried up he still is a leader in hits and has quite good possession numbers. He’s also still feared throughout the league even if he doesn’t make many examples of that anymore. I think somebody would definitely be interested at $3M.
Trade cap cost with 50% retained:
$3M
$3M
$3M
$3M
————–
$12M
Save $3M in cap hit reach year and if the books after 4.
Cap cost of Buyout today:
$3,625,000
$5,625,000
$4,125,000
$5,625,000
$625,000
$625,000
$625,000
$625,000
—————————
$21,500,000
The most you save on that one year is $2.375M with practically 0 savings in two years, and he’s on the books for 8 years.
Buyout makes no sense as he’s still a useful possession bottom 6 player and enforcer.
Also Vancouver doesn’t really need to dump salary, they have lots of room. They may be interested in moving Ericsson, but they don’t HAVE to.
All that said, I think they might leave him on the roster until the summer of 2021. Then he can be traced to one of his team’s or bought out to avoid having to protect him in expansion. Also, a lockout and new CBA could be triggered as soon as September 1st of this year. With that there may be an outside chance at a compliance Buyout. So I say keep him if needed.
If the only way out of the deal was a normal buyout then yes, by all means do it now. I’m not expecting a career resurrection here.
I just can’t believe that’s the best option remaining at this point. The buyout only saves $2.5M of the $24M remaining on the contract. As you’re aware the savings is effectively $2M, $500k, $2M, $500k. You literally can’t replace Lucic with the savings in 2 of the next 4 years, then you tack on 4 more years where he costs you ~$600k.
Even a small chance of a compliance buyout is worth more than the certainty the buyout gives, IMO. At what point are those two outcomes even value? In a vacuum I’d say something like a 10% chance of getting out from the deal clean might be worth the 90% likelihood nothing changes (ie – you don’t free up $2.5M). Maybe it’s even at 5:95?
Things aren’t playing out in a vacuum or course, but I do still think the other options are likely enough to present themselves that a buyout doesn’t make sense at this point. Lucic straight up (or close) for Eriksson is my preference among the probably reasonable trade options. There’s also retained salary trades. IMO we need to give Holland a little time to see if he can find a fit to deal with the situation before we accept a buyout as the only option.
And even if a buyout were the only option I might still stand pat. Lucic has continued to get into the lineup with the last 2 coaches, Tippett might not be any different. If he’s a spare forward that’s fine too. And if he’s unhappy enough about it that he’s a distraction to the team then maybe you pay him to sit at home for a while.
There’s no easy solution here. Hopefully Holland can find the guys around the league who do still value Lucic somewhat. His possession numbers were decent, he’s still young enough to rebound theoretically (maybe he actually can if he gets his mojo back), he’s a feared enforcer. He has some value to somebody, it’s just way way shy of $6M.
His job is to bring in talent but to do so while managing the present and future cap – he may become “our best RW” but that doesn’t make him an actual top 6 RW and there is no assurance his production boosts as predicted. The contract seems high given risk that the numbers and math don’t lead to the reasoned success on the ice which is often the case.
Difference in Risk of a short term and low hit contract vs a 4 X 4 is pretty easy to see.
I still don’t imagine Lucic saying no to waive for expansion.
I call it egregious because it is egregious.
For two years 6 of the 8 years it adds cap.
Four dead cap years and two years where replacing Lucic with even a league minimum player costs more in aggregate than having Lucic. M
That to save $2.5M and less than $2M (minus at least $675K for league min replacement player).
Plus the fact that cap savings goes away in between those two years making it tough to use.
Egregious.
No, you send him to Callahan’s doctor. Then trade the insured contract to OTT for a 3rd.
I’d rather wait until their another compliance-type buyout available (there’s a good chance this happens), but I certainly wouldn’t be shocked if Lucic gets bought out this week.
I think it’s 34 actually, but point taken. That goalless streak came immediately on the heels of a heater: he scored 8 goals in 7 games between December 29 and January 10.
Edit: 34 regular season game goalless drought + 5 playoff games, so you could call it 39 I suppose.
I don’t think Burakovsky will require much in the way of assets unless Washington retains. It’ll be a cap dump situation – maybe a 4th?
And the contract would be $3.25M x 1, QO’s are never multi-year deals. If he wants more term, the AAV will go down.
What, you mean I can’t have BOTH?
🙁
Nicely done! LT has been preaching Panik for some time now… ok, that doesn’t read like I intended.
Anyhow, if we look at their estimated next contract, we’ll see just who is the best value here:
Brett Connolly**217**45**0.21****3**$3,472,185
Micheal Ferland**224**37**0.17****4**$4,106,404
Richard Panik**229**37**0.16****4**$4,795,203
Derick Brassard**223**32**0.14****3**$3,955,005
Hmmm… tough decision.
Not.
Why are you afraid of this? You realize that our current #1 RW is Zack Kassian, right? My idea was for Connolly to play with Nuge, but in any case Connolly, if signed, would immediately become our best RW – and it’s not particularly close. And the GM’s job is to bring in skill, I’d leave it to the coaches to figure out the best deployment. I would have no issue if Tippett decided the best deployment was Connolly on McDavid’s RW.
This is another myth promulgated on this blog. Donskoi’s next contract, according to the only realiable estimates we have available, we be around $600k less than Connolly’s.
You are worried about Connolly playing too high in the order, yet you’re proposing we play RYAN HARTMAN on the first line? I agree he’d be a great pickup at $900k or less, but it never once crossed my mind to lure him here using McDavid as bait.
Pescador:
It is human action laws of physics:
Shot density – SH% is a mean established by open HD shots penetration / targeting of forward.
Shot volume – is shpg dependent shot or pass sentric player rate dictated by pocession and shift count efficiency.
***You expect career avg of these 2 variables to be different for each player.
Hence no move to one common SH%
Goal mass = goal count.
Shot density x shot volume = goal mass
With career shot density & vol often constant
A single year dramatic change in Volume is not a constant.
It could be a scientific outlier.
Outliers to career trends scare the crap out of me.
Ben eager and other fwds with elite density.
Taught me the constant of volume.
Compliments of Nat stat trick
since the bible has disappeared for Calgary,s benefit now replaced by stat trick.
Looked at buyouts options 2 days ago.
Came to same conclusion a Lucic buyout is minimal difference. From year 3 & yr 4
Between this year and next year cause of the gryba buyout .300M coming off.
Need to see if he returns to shot density form with us running a more 3-2-1 sentries def quick pass transition game. I would expect to see a move back to superior open sh density.
Hoping for return to 20g season.
If not you buy him out then.
Best buyout options are
(cap space gain from previous season in brackets.)
Sekera 2.5 (+3M), 2.5M (0M), 1.5M (+1M) 1.5M (0M) 3M over first 2 yr; 4M over last 2 yr
Gagner 1.017 (+2.133M), 1.067 (-.05M)
Manning .917 (1.333M), .667 (+.25M) +1.583 in yr
Pomminville 12.67evg and Fillpulla 10.5evg are 35+ contracts that EW cap projection sight has
in the 1@ 1.375 to 1.5M range.
Brouwer 8.67evg is hinted at 1@ .875M
All 3 (32 evg) could be 1 @ 3.625 to 3.875
Gagner & Manning buyouts cover 3.466M
Sekera buyout gets us shots @ 2/3yr projected ufa contracts
Donskoi 81gm 12.5 evg 3 @ 2.8, last 43gm is a legitimate concern
Hartman 81gm 10.5 evg 2@ 2.5M
Archibald 68gm 9.33 evg 3 @ 1.9M
Granlund 66gm 9 evg 2@ 2.5M
Pirri 57gm 9 evg 1@ 1.154, prefer 2 yr.
All this veteran evg depth is a real stop of free path for Young fwd prospects.
Who are not likely to generate these even goal numbers.
Would love to see Klefbom moved for Kapanen.
The guy has never proven he can play strong open HD def.
The years he had reasonable plus minus was that he played with 2 former NJD top 5 open HD SH dmen that could easily def handle 1 st comp Fayne & Larsson.
When you have an elite PP QB coming up ( Bouchard)
you pay the one Dman for PP production and play him the most PP minutes per 60 (4.00/60) you can.
I don’t buy out Lucic. I make it clear I could retain salary and take back a bad contract, but I don’t buy him out.
Great trade for Carolina. Wow.
Why are shots more important than goals & points?
Oh & of course I would be remiss if I didn’t ask
Who/what is data your source?
Shots per game – shpg
Sorry.
You need to differentiate by shot volume seasons.
Multiple variables instead of binary.
Do not give a darn by quality of prose.
Give us the real data story.
Last few years pre 18/18
69gm 14 evg 1.17shpg 18.85% shot density
18/19
81gm 21evg 1.72 shpg 15.83% shot density
Your going to risk 3-4 years @ 4+M
That he will continue to play 81 games at 1.72 shpg
Or
expect that he is the 69gm 1.17 shpg player.
Risk mgmt?
SayItAin’tSo, Gretz, SayItAin’tSo!,
Stones Throw is one of my favourite labels, so I find it equally ironic and satisfying that I’ve been sleeping on Anderson .Paak for ten years! Going to look into his albums now that I’ve watched and enjoyed his NPR Music Tiny Desk concert on youtube. Thanks for the recommendation 🙂
See my other post.
Buying him out now arguably beats waiting two more years.
You can’t really buyout the last year of his contract because the hit is 5.333 m.
We don’t know if there will be a compliance buyout. The tea leaves are saying ‘no.’
Think of it like ripping off a band-aid.
Malcom Gladwell’s greatest contribution is the concept of “loss aversion” and how it impedes decision making.
We’ve all been there. You buy a stock at $10 per share… it drops to $5… there’s no hope of it rebounding, but you can’t cut your losses because it’s too painful to lose half your money on the play… you hold the stock and it drops to 88c. Now you’re kicked in the … so you sell and walk away.
Better to sell at 5 bucks than 88 cents.
But it’s just so, so bad.
You’re right that if they’re going to do it, this year is better than next. But it’s still such an ugly option it’s difficult to imagine happening.
My hopes are that 1) Lucic can be traded for something slightly more useful (Eriksson, Sutter, Ryan?), and 2) there are compliance buyouts on the horizon to make Lucic (or his return) go away.
If the trades and/or compliance buyouts don’t materialize then you (likely) need to do a normal buyout prior to expansion. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that.
Hip hop is the only truly new musical art form of the last 40 years. It has changed the world and pop culture at large more than any other art form since forever.
Further to my point, I’m not sure why you wouldn’t buyout Lucic now despite OP calling it egregious.
3 columns
1- buyout now
2-buyout with 3 years left
3-buyout 2 years left
First, you have to factor in the 6m cap hit if you carry him on the roster. That’s $5m above a replacement level 4rth liner.
3.625 [6]. [6]
5.625 (5.5). [6]
4.125 (4). (4.08)
5,625 (5,5). (5,58)
.625. (.5) (.58)
.625. (.5). (.58)
.625. (.5)
.625
Dellow’s probably right. Buying him out now is the correct answer.
This is stupid. I like all music. Some more than others but there is no genre I don’t like. The only genre I really don’t listen to is that modern pop County or whatever it’s called.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.
Lucic saves them 2.375 next season…
After that, Gagner and Manning come off the books the following season… maybe the cap goes up.
Maybe they do buyout Lucic.
Here’s the rub. If you’re going to buyout Lucic with 3 years left on his contract, you might as well do it now.
3 year buyout cap hit:
5.5
4
5.5
.5
.5
.5
4 year buyout cap hit
3.625
5.625 (5.5)
4.125 (4)
5,625 (5,5)
.625
.625
.625
.625
It’s very similar except if you do the buyout now, you save cap this season.
Id rather pay him $4.75 over three years than $4 over four. Term is crucial for me.
I’m not on board with Donskoi at all. I just don’t think you can ignore the fact he hasn’t scored in his last 43 games. This is a massive red flag. If you get him on a Reider show-me deal that’s fine. But even two years is a risk.
If you can get the Caps to retain on Burakosky and you can get him at a cap hit of $2M, I think you have to do that… don’t you?
Burakovsky either produces and earns his QO of $3.2M or he doesn’t and you cut him loose.
I just don’t see what the Oilers can offer the Caps that makes them want to retain $1.25M on Burakovsky? And no, I would not trade them Pulujarvi for Burakovsky.
Let’s give Jesse his long needed year of development outside of the NHL and reassess in the offseason.
I didn’t hear any of it actually.
It’s a bit of a stretch but Sekera hasn’t given them much return in 2 years. Maybe they don’t think he can rebound? Also, Lucic does save them $2.375M this year. Yikes.
Armchair and Woodguy have already eloquently illustrated Connolly’s remarkable production in yesterday’s thread.
That is how you take advantage of a team with major cap issues.
Too bad we have cap issues.
I would like Burakovsky at $2M – issue is, even if WSH retains and we get the player at that hit, the next QO will still be $3.2M.
OP, I agree with you that some team that believes in math or steals Armchair’s notes might value Connolly at $4M x 4. I just don’t think that given the Oilers current cap restraints and the number of players they need to fill out the roster, that we can afford to spend $4M on one player.
Given our cap restraints and with the understanding that UFA Connolly only cost money, while acquiring RFA Burakovsky will require moving out some assets – would you rather have Connolly at $4M x 4 or Burakovsky at $3.2 x 2?
Jesse Granger@JesseGranger_
Breaking news: The Golden Knights have traded Erik Haula to the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for prospect Nicolas Roy, multiple sources confirm with The Athletic.