Frozen Days, He Thinks of You

Bag of Pucks:
For those so inclined, here’s an interesting article about conventional wisdom and why human beings are so inclined to lean on it. Hint, going with the herd provides comfort in a chaotic world.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/financial-life-focus/201102/conventional-wisdom-and-financial-success

“Get good players, keep good players.” “The team that gets the best player always wins the trade.”

These are examples of conventional wisdom tropes, and yes, there is some wisdom inherent in them, hence why they live on.

But are they ALWAYS accurate? Like almost all conventional wisdom, context is important. The world evolves and what was true 20 years ago isn’t always true now. Which brings us to the salary cap.

Getting the best players and keeping them was absolutely true when money was no object for some teams and team payrolls were never threatened by a cap ceiling. But that is no longer the case. If you spend all your cap on 4 amazing players with no money left for the rest, you’re that guy who spends his monthly grocery budget on 4 cuts of Kobe beef and 900 packs of Ramen noodles. Not exactly a recipe for nutritional success.

According to Capfriendly, in 2019/20, the Oilers spend $46.3M of the cap on their Fs with an astonishing $21M of that total spent on two players. 45%

By contrast, the New York Islanders spent 51.9M on their Fs with their two highest paid Fs pulling down 13M. That’s 25% for those playing along at home.

Which team is having a better time of it in the bubble?

It’s no longer enough just to chase and acquire talented players at any cost. It really doesn’t matter how good the player is if his contract is toxic, because the piper will have to be paid elsewhere on the roster in terms of opportunity cost and talent drain.

Now, none of this suggests that the Oilers can’t win with the McDavid and Draisaitl contracts. But we need to be realistic, these two superstars consume a massive % of available payroll (and deservedly so), so Holland can’t simply add one inflated contract after another to build out the roster. Simple tropes like keep good players (at any cost?) or don’t trade the best player in the deal (even if they have a lousy contract?) simply don’t hold up as bulletproof when additional context is applied.

Winning the Cup in a cap system is a process of cost effectively building depth through the roster, by accumulating value contracts (which can be gauged as production vs expenditure) and minimizing, if not eliminating outright, overpays and NMCs.

Historically, the amateur draft has always been the best source of value contracts, and this is still the case for teams fortunate enough to consistently acquire productive players on ELC deals. However, those teams smart enough to compile cap space are also demonstrating another viable option, trading for or FA signing proven productive players from cash strapped teams unable to maintain their embarrassment of riches. Unlike draft picks, these players can slot in immediately with far less risk of their busting or enduring a protracted development process which greatly reduces their ELC value. Of equal importance, they provide more immediate clarity for expected roster production for GMs seeking more predictable and expedient competitive windows. See JT Miller and Mark Stone as the current poster boys for this approach.

Get value contracts, keep value contracts. The team that gets the best value contracts win the trades. These should be the new mantras in a salary cap world. Simplistically evaluating a players production without the additional context of their cap and roster balance implications gets us nowhere.

Yesterday, it was suggested that the Oilers should build the unicorn with 3 outscoring lines based around RNH as the 3C. Great, that puts 27M of your current 2021/22 F cap of 43.3M on three Cs (a massive 62%). Ken Holland’s a smart guy, but asking him to staff 9 F positions with 16.3M (average cap hit of 1.8M) to achieve the unicorn would acquire a run of success at the draft board that is unprecedented in NHL history.

Holland’s way forward is clear. He has to properly identify and trade out the poor value contracts on his roster, and consistently acquire qualify contracts or prospects in return. And he needs players that will pop quickly because he really needs to show Connor and Leon this is moving in the right direction asap.

Examples? The Bruins can’t afford Acciari. The Panthers sign him for a cap hit of $1.66M and he pops 20 goals in 66 games. Excellent value for a player that was available to the entire league for the price of a reasonable contract. Robbie Fabbri. Again, always a good idea to get players that the top clubs can’t retain. For the price of a fringe W, the Red Wings got 14 goals for a cap hit of $900k.

But additions like this aren’t possible if you overpay players like Koskinen, Nurse, RNH, Kassian, Russell, etc. It has to be a twofold solution. Get value contracts. Get rid of overpays. That’s the only way forward for a team paying nearly half of it’s F payroll to 2 players.

The actually good, smart Eberle – Strome trade was totally wasted.

Bohologo:
I don’t know much about hockey, but I know a little about hockey in Moscow, having lived there for many years until recently.

Not unlike moving to Buenos Aires and immediately facing demands to declare your allegiance to one of the city’s half-dozen premier division fútbol clubs (River Plate [olé!], Boca Jrs [boo!], Vélez Sarsfield, Huracán, San Lorenzo de Almagro, Argentinos Juniors) which not only informs your social circle and commensurate loyalties going forward but also let’s face it is a tell for your social class leanings and political beliefs, when you get to Moscow you need to sort out which hockey club to cheer for, preferably before the first puck drops.

Your choices are CSKA, the Central Army Sports Club (ЦСКА Москва, Центральный Спортивный Клуб Армии), Spartak (ХК Спартак Москва), Dynamo (ХК Динамо Москва), and I guess if you want to live that way HC Vityaz (ХК Витязь) which is in a Moscow suburb pretty much as if Leduc had its own NHL franchise.

Now, CSKA are the Habs of the KHL: long and glorious history, retired sweaters from the likes of Fetisov, Tretiak, Makarov, and the legendary #17 Kharlamov.This club has foundations in the Soviet army, which saved the world in WW II.This is clearly the ideal choice of clubs to support if you like winning.

Spartak is named after Spartacus (very cool, no?), and has roots in the Soviet youth communist party apparatus but has long been tied to labour unions, so it’s the working class club if you are a woman/man of the people.A decent second choice.

Dynamo was founded by the father of the Soviet internal security apparatus Felix Dzerzhinsky, and although the name is a call-out to the industrial apparatus it was long tied to the Ministry of Interior with all that association conveys.Also a choice.

Suburban Poldolk’s Vityaz (Knights) club has a short and inglorious history marked by goonery and the tragic death of Alexei Cherepanov, so they are a hard team to cheer for.

I will assume you will all join me in cheering for Red Army for the reasons provided, but also because our man Anton Slepyshev is on the roster, and as LT notes, so is Dmitry Samorukov-but please don’t call him Sammy, his friends call him Dima.Also, Alberta boy Matt Robinson wears an A for the team, which is a considerable honour for a gringo playing in Russia.

In closing, please join me in singing the Russian answer to Take Me Out To The Ballgame, a much better ditty called Трус не игра́ет в хокке́й, Cowards Don’t Play Hockey:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEF3WcsOdZI

This post absolutely rules.