Lack of Kaapo Kakko offer sheet not all good news for Rangers
5 min readThe very good information is that the Rangers, and with seemingly quite very good purpose, are unconcerned about the prospect of an offer you sheet being offered to Kaapo Kakko as negotiations on a bridge extension with the limited cost-free agent commence at a to some degree mystifyingly sluggish pace.
Ah, but here’s the rub.
Is it really fantastic information that no group in the league believes it is really worth somewhere around $4 million a 12 months to poach the 21-calendar year-old Finn from a cap-constrained Blueshirts group that would have fundamentally no way to match these types of an give sheet?
Absolutely the payment of a next-round draft decide going the other way on an offer you sheet with an once-a-year regular benefit of up to $4,201,488 would not look a deterrent in trade for the participant just three many years taken off from being chosen second all round in the draft.
Or does the absence of an supply sheet — or even the risk of a person at this place — reflect Kakko’s singular desire to continue to be in New York and make it in New York? There is zero sign that the proper wing or his agent, Mike Liut, has solicited curiosity from any other team.
And/or most likely this is simply just NHL common professionals conducting enterprise as regular, eschewing the offer sheet as a software to get players. There is the rare exception, but GMs usually come to feel supply sheets will be matched and their personal workforce then will become susceptible to retaliation.
Again, however, in this scenario, Rangers typical supervisor Chris Drury would be all but helpless to match a $4 million (for each) bid on Kakko. As well as, the cap restraints that loom more than the franchise would avert the Rangers from a retaliatory strike for at minimum yet another a few decades.
Kakko is out there, but he is not.
That is good information for the Rangers.
Isn’t it?
The Panthers show up to have grow to be a vacation spot workforce, eventually using gain of their place in a no-tax state in this uneven tricky-cap landscape that the NHL and NHLPA have failed to address — and certainly have promulgated — in a series of collective bargaining agreements.
Perhaps, with Matthew Tkachuk’s acquisition, the followers in Florida will finally recognize, the Puddy Tats position 24th in equally NHL attendance (14,811) and per cent of capacity (76.9) final calendar year though profitable the Presidents’ Trophy.
Is it too shortly to pencil in Jonathan Huberdeau and Pierre-Luc Dubois on the Canadiens’ initial line in 2024-25?
Calgary GM Brad Treliving was nimble in doing the job his way out of the corner in which he was put by Tkachuk, the acquisitions of Huberdeau (30-85-115) and best-4 defenseman MacKenzie Weegar probable enabling the Flames to continue to be an upper echelon team even accounting for Johnny Gaudreau’s defection.
But if the Flames can not sign Huberdeau and/or Weegar, just about every of whom is a pending unrestricted free agent, the franchise will be obligated to transfer both or the two as blue-chip rentals at the deadline and not repeat the 2022 Gaudreau “Eleventh Hour” mistake.
Certainly, for positive, the Panthers become a additional difficult crew to participate in against by swapping Huberdeau for Tkachuk and grow to be a additional singular menace to the Lightning in their alligator alley confrontation.
By the way, we seem to be to have skipped more than just how cutthroat Tampa Bay GM Julien BriseBois (and by extension, Jeff Vinik’s possession) was in forcing Ryan McDonagh to waive his full no-trade clause for a workforce of his alternative less than risk of currently being put on waivers and currently being claimed by a ne’er-do-properly.
There is no will need to get rid of tears for No. 27, who chose to go to a Nashville club that is bulking up, but the condition is agent of why no-transfer clauses are so precious.
But when the Oren Koules-Len Barrie ownership pulled the exact same maneuver in 2008 to good friend of the column Dan Boyle, the execs had been trashed.
(By me, even!)
If Lou Lamoriello’s insistence on trying to keep Semyon Varlamov as a $5 million backup to Ilya Sorokin is proof that the Islanders GM thinks his team is likely to have to enjoy a period of 3-2 games, very well, I’m instead skeptical that represents the route to good results.
I surprise. Is it a cap-house problem, contract check with, or evaluation of talent and roster necessities (or a blend of all of the over) that is halting the Rangers from re-upping Tyler Motte at the price of preserving Dryden Hunt ($762,500) on the squad?
Once more, while, if it’s a further $500,000, that amounts to a big difference of $2.325 million of room at the deadline that Drury should do every little thing in his ability to protect.
If Tkachuk could shift seamlessly to correct wing previous season immediately after 5 a long time in the NHL participating in on his normal left, why does it appear like the Rangers have an existential crisis with all their purely natural-born lefties?
David Quinn is one particular of the most compassionate, caring persons I have satisfied in my lifetime in this sector, and am delighted he has obtained a next probability in San Jose from a short while ago employed GM Mike Grier, with whom he shares a BU bloodline.
There is every cause to believe that that Quinn, who was not served at all his closing time in New York by a administration that refused to handle the 2020 bubble debacle, has identified that his up-shut-and-particular type does not necessarily translate across the board in the NHL and that he ought to enable his vets much more breathing space … on the ice, on the bench, in the space.
1 matter for sure, nevertheless. The young’uns on this Sharks group that is in a comparable reset predicament as had been the Rangers when Quinn was employed — speak about form-casting — will acquire an education and learning and basis in participating in 200-foot hockey.
