Thursday, June 27, 2013

Names to watch out for at the draft

Big draft on Sunday, here are some names of players who could be traded, based on all kinds of various reports. I've just kind of compiled it all in one sheet here:

Centres
1. Shawn Horcoff, 34
2. Rich Peverly, 30 (2 years @ $3.25)
3. Stephen Weiss, 30 (rights, UFA)
4.Valterri Fillpula, 29 (rights, UFA)
5. Drew Stafford, 27 (2 years @ $4 mil)
6. Paul Stastny, 27  (esp. watch out if Colorado drafts a C)
7. Dave Bolland, 27 ($3.4 mil, 1 year away from UFA)
8. Sam Gagner, 24 (RFA)
9. Tyler Seguin, 21
10. Sean Couturier, 20

Wingers
1. Dany Heatley, 32 ($7.5 mil, 1 year, can't be bought out due to LTIR status)
2. Mike Cammalleri, 31 (1 year left at $6 mil)
3. Ales Hemsky, 30
4. Tomas Vanek, 29 (1 year from free agency, $7.1 mil)
5. Tomas Fleischmann, 29 (2 years @ $4.5)
6. Scotty Upshall, 29
7. David Booth, 28 (2 years @$4.2)
8. Bobby Ryan, 26
9. David Perron, 25
10. Cal Clutterbuck, 25 (RFA)

Defence
1. Filip Kuba, 36 (1 year @4 mil)
2. Keith Ballard, 30 (2 years @ $4.2 mil)
3. Tom Gilbert, 30 (1 year, $4 mil)
4. Carlo Colaiacovo, 30 (1 year @ $2.5 mil)
5. Brayden Coburn, 28 (3 yrs left at $4.5 mil)
6. Dion Phaneuf, 28 ($6 mil. 1 year)
7. Alex Edler, 27 (6 years, $5 mil per season)
8. Kris Letang, 26 ($3.5 mil, 1 Year away from UFA)
9. Niklas Hjalmersson, 26 (1 year @ $3.5 mil, then UFA)
10. Michael Del Zotto, 23 (1 year @ $2.5 mil, then RFA)

Goalies
1. Tim Thomas, 39 (rights, UFA)
2. Evgeny Nabokov, 37 (rights, UFA)
3.Roberto Luongo, 34
4. Scott Clemenssen, 34
5. Mike Smith, 31 (rights, UFA)
6. Jonas Hiller, 31
7. Ryan Miller, 31 (1 year away from UFA)
8. Marc-Andre Fleury, 28
9. Jaroslav Halak, 28 (1 year @ $3.8)
10. Cory Schneider, 27

Watch out for Edmonton's pick (7th) and Carolina's (5th) to be in play as well. *Update - now read in a couple places that the Flyers (15th overall) could be in play.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Leafs situation heading into the Draft and Free Agency

The Leafs shored up their depth in goal today adding Jonathan Bernier. I like it, although there are still lots of question marks around our two goalies, both guys are young and show a lot of promise.

Here's how the rest of the team looks -

Centres
1. Mikhail Grabovski - $5.5 million *Buyout candidate
2. Nazem Kadri - RFA
3. Jay McClement - $1.5 million
4. Joe Colborne - RFA

We need to add another Centre into the mix for sure.

Wingers
1. Phil Kessel - $5.4 million
2. Joffrey Lupul - $5.25 million
3. James VanRiemsdyk - $4.25 million
4. -------------------
5. Nikolai Kulemin - $2.8 million
6. -------------------
7. -------------------
8. Colton Orr - $0.9 million

We could add 3-4 wingers. One or two the spots could go to a kid at camp, or re-sign Fraser McLaren, but we should see Nonis trade for/sign at least 1 or 2 (if not 3) new wingers.

*Jay McClement also plays all forward positions so Nonis could add another centre and move Jay over, so there's some flexibility there. Anyway you slice it we're looking at 4-5 forwards who need to come in.

Defence
1. Dion Phaneuf - $6.5 million
2. -----------------
3. Cody Franson - RFA
4. Jake Gardiner - $1.1 million
5. Carl Gunnarsson - RFA
6. John Michael Liles - $3.9 million *Buyout candidate
7. Mark Fraser - RFA
8. -----------------

We'll need a depth dman, could be O'Byrne re-signed but he'll have to come in cheap ($1.7 million last year). And we need a top 4 as well. If Liles is bought out, we'll need another depth guy, but these depth guys could come from within, where defence is a position of strength in the Leafs organization.

Goalies
1. James Reimer - $1.8 million
2. Jonathan Bernier - RFA

We have about $39 million and change committed to these players right now. I'm just going to throw some rough numbers out on our RFA's -

Kadri - $3.5 mil
Colborne - $1 mil
Franson - $4 mil
Gunner - $3 mil
Fraser - $1 mil
Bernier - $2 mil
........................
total = $13.5, let's call it $14 to be safe. We'll be at around $54 million, with roughly $8-9 million to spend on 6 players to fill out the roster. If Liles is bought out, we'll have $13-14 million to spend on 7 players.

I think we should buy out Liles, not because he's bad but because he's making too much and he hasn't been as impact-full since his concussion. Then if we could replace our two vacancies for depth D from within or with cheap UFA's in the million $ range, and two of our spots up front the same way, we could be looking to land:

1 impact defenceman
1 impact forward
1 quality role playing forward

With about $9-10 million of cap space. Seems pretty do-able. We're in an interesting spot.
*Also wanted to mention that I think Liles could have some trade value, if we could move him for a cheap depth dman, then we could save one of our compliance buyouts. The first buyout will obviously be used on Komisarek, this is just for the record, not even worth discussing.



Friday, June 7, 2013

Amnesty Buyouts

There's a lot of speculation that could be made on lots of team's but I'm going to focus on a few teams who are in real cap trouble. Easier to speculate on the potential buyouts of the teams who will be more desperate to get under the cap -

The Flyers -
Philly's got 14 forwards, 8 d-men and 2 goalies under contract for 24 players, and they're over the cap by about $2.5 million (give or take). They'll definitely be using a buyout, and probably both of their amnesty buyouts this summer. Here are some candidates:

Danny Briere, 36 RW/C - $6.5 million, 2 years remaining
Scott Hartnell, 31 LW - $4.75 million, 6 years remaining
Ilya Bryzgalov, 32 G - $5.66 million, 7 years remaining

The Canucks - 
Vancouver has 17 players under contract for next year. Needing to sign 4 forwards and a couple of defencemen, as well as a goalie to trade/buyout. They're a little over the cap as of right now. Candidates:

David Booth, 28 LW - $4.25 million, 2 years remaining
Keith Ballard, 30 D - $4.2 million, 2 years remaining
Roberto Luongo, 34 G - $5.33 million, 9 years remaining

Blackhawks -
Just like after they won the Cup in 2010, the Hawks could be poised to have to make some tough cuts after a deep playoff run. They've got 13 forwards, 7 D, and 1 goalie (Crawford) signed through next year. And they're right at the cap. They could use some space to potentially re-sign Bickell and Stalberg, but may have to let them walk. Either way, they'll need a 2nd goalie. Candidates:

Michael Frolik, 25, RW - $2.33 million, 1 year remaining (probably has trade value)
Johnny Oduya, 31, D - $3.9 million, 2 years remaining

Tough call with Chicago. I guess they could buy out Oduya or trade both the aforementioned players. Other than that, all the players making any kind of significant money are the core guys - Toews, Kane, Sharp, Hossa, Bolland, Keith, Seabrook, and then to a lesser extent Hjalmersson and Crawford who both have reasonable salaries. I think the Hawks will be more likely to go the trade route to dump a few worth depth players and add some cheap players on entry level deals, like they did in 2010.

The Lightning -
Tampa Bay only has about a million $ of cap space, and will need to sign 3-4 forwards and 1-2 dmen. They will be needing to shed some legitimate salary. Safe bet that two of these three candidates will become UFA's after a buyout:

Vincent Lecavalier, 33 C - $7.72 million, 7 years remaining
Ryan Malone, 33 RW - $4.5 million, 2 years remaining
Mattias Ohlund, 36 D - $3.6 million, 3 years remaining

Les habitants - 
Montreal has 10 forwards, 8 D, and 2 goalies under contract. So they'll need to fill in a few spots up front, and have about $2 million to do so.

Brian Gionta, 34 RW - $5 million, 1 year remaining
Tomas Kaberle, 35 D - $4.25 million, 1 year remaining
Andrei Markov, 34 D - $5.75 million, 1 year remaining

Markov is coming off a big year, but he finished the year off healthy, and with his injury history he has to be considered a candidate. They can buy him out since he's no longer on IR, and although he played well this past year, they might want to save on the cap space. More likely that the former two players on the list are bought out, or possibly just Kaberle, depending on what kind of offseason plans they habs have in store.

The Wild -
Minnesota has 12 forwards, 5 D, and 1 Goalie signed, and are about a million under the cap. They'll need some space to sign a forward, 2 or 3 dmen, and a goalie, as well as re-signing RFA Cal Clutterbuck. Here are some buyout candidates:

Dany Heatley, 32 RW - $7.5 million, 1 year remaining
Tom Gilbert, 30 D - $4 million, 1 year

Not much else in Minny, in the way of high priced players. Except for the core guys (Koivu, Parise, Pominville, and Suter. Even Setogucchi is reasonably priced.) Good chance they move Heatley, and probably have to let Cullen and Bouchard walk.

Of course any of these teams could get creative with trades and try to find other teams to take on some salaries. Still these players are some guys to keep an eye on if any of these team's backs are against the cap-wall.