AROUND THE LEAGUE - 25-26

[Picker of Cherries]

MITCH MARNER SIGNS AN 8-YEAR DEAL WITH A $12M AAV IN VEGAS IN A SIGN-AND-TRADE WITH THE leaves

If Vegas are going to be over the camp, maybe JR & Co can try to pry W.Karlsson or Barbashev off them, preferably the latter (Barbi). Kinda like when JB landed the infamous Schmidty88 for cheap.

With Pietrangelo likely done, they are under the cap.

Are they a better team if you subtract Pietrangelo and add Marner? Hope not.

[rikster]

Taken from another hockey board;

According to an insider on HFOil, Bowman was 100% confident that Boeser was signing with the Oilers, and the Canucks completely blindsided them. They moved Arvidsson this morning for this, and now they’ve lost Perry, Brown, Arvidsson and Kane with no replacements.

Not sure if I buy this, how would Bowman know if Boeser was going to sign with them unless there was tampering...

And if there was tampering, payback is a b*tch...

Take care...

[UWSaint]

Taken from another hockey board;

According to an insider on HFOil, Bowman was 100% confident that Boeser was signing with the Oilers, and the Canucks completely blindsided them. They moved Arvidsson this morning for this, and now they’ve lost Perry, Brown, Arvidsson and Kane with no replacements.

Not sure if I buy this, how would Bowman know if Boeser was going to sign with them unless there was tampering...

And if there was tampering, payback is a b*tch...

Take care...

If this is true, the Boeser signing is a little sweeter.

[Picker of Cherries]

Hopefully total subterfuge orchestrated by management and Brock.

[Todd Bersnoozi]

With Pietrangelo likely done, they are under the cap.

Boo... somehow, I won't be surprised if Pietrangelo magically comes back in the playoffs.

[Meds]

Taken from another hockey board;

According to an insider on HFOil, Bowman was 100% confident that Boeser was signing with the Oilers, and the Canucks completely blindsided them. They moved Arvidsson this morning for this, and now they’ve lost Perry, Brown, Arvidsson and Kane with no replacements.

Not sure if I buy this, how would Bowman know if Boeser was going to sign with them unless there was tampering...

And if there was tampering, payback is a b*tch...

Take care...

If this is true, the Boeser signing is a little sweeter.

Maybe Brock and Evander are buddies?

[Chef Boi RD]

The Rangers moves recently have me confused. Are the rebuilding or not? Re-tool. What’s next? Lafrenierre out?

[UWSaint]

The Rangers moves recently have me confused. Are the rebuilding or not? Re-tool. What’s next? Lafrenierre out?

The Rangers are in no man's land, and they will stay there so long as Chris Drury is there. He needs the playoffs to keep the job -- so they add Miller and Gavrikov to try to stay in the mix -- its sort of like how things looked for Benning at times.

And so they've build the team they have. The division is weak, so the playoffs are going to be in reach, especially if Shesterkin delivers, Borgen develops, and Soucy returns to what he w for Vancouver in year 1.

But the bottom of that forward group is not good, and and so much of what is quality in the top half is on the wrong side of 30. While those are the players you'd move to rebuild, 3 are locked in with NMC. Even if they waive, the return will be significantly depressed if they create a market of 1 (like Miller and Kesler).

[UWSaint]

So as the dust settles on free agency, its time for some trade action.

Two teams are over the cap (without the expected LTIR): Dallas and Florida.

Rodriguez is the obvious move out of Florida. They just don't have that many players who they can move that make enough and lack trade protection. (and I think Lundell and Luostarinen are too valuable). Rodriguez has a reasonable cap hit, no trade protection, and is sort of a swiss army knife. There should be a large market for him -- not a desperate market, but quote a few teams willing to part with disposable assets. Developing teams could acquire for vereran-ness and an eye towards recovering the cost in a deadline deal; bubbly and competitive teams might be attracted by the ability to have a guy move up and down and around the lineup. Shouldn't be hard to move.

For Dallas, they are likely choosing between offloading the contract they surely don't want and adding a sweetner (Dumba), or looking to cure their cap problem by moving a quality player and getting good assets in return (Robertson). They had the option to buy out Dumba and solve their problem (and have $1.6 million hit next year), but they didn't. They didn't need to sign a guy like Faksa, but they did. (Still, a Faksa alternative was going to cost $800K....) And if they make a trade to take advantage of Robertson's value, they are getting worse on the ice and while they can get an NHL player in return with future assets, they are going to be conscious not only of cap space but the fact the Benn contract is a good bet to produce $2M in performance bonuses. If they were wary about dead cap with not buying out Dumba, I'm not sure why they'd want to walk into dead cap from performance bonuses.

On the other end of the spectrum, only the Ducks sit below the cap floor, and that's a complete mirage as Dostal and McTavish are unsigned RFAs. Still, they will have room after making those signings and they still (IMO) need to add to their D. Rasmus Andersson would be a good hockey fit, the Ducks have structural space to extend him (Trouba and Gudas will be gone after next year), and there are worse places to live and worse team situations to be in that one that's on the rise.

I expect a lot of teams may be active, but its a different summer market than years past as fewer teams are trying to fit it all in and more have cap space -- so that leaves greater flexibility for hockey trades rather than roster management trades. Should be a fun summer. Well, maybe August. Because front offices are probably in a greater rush to get to the cabin or the links than keep working the phones.....