Silly season has started early for NHL GM’s.
Actually… it started a couple of weeks ago when Brock Nelson was signed for 6 years at $6 million a year. It was explained away as the Islanders overpaying a bit for a loyal soldier. OK… I can buy that.
Then… after a few reasonable signings came the news of Buffalo signing Jeff Skinner to a $72 million contract. 8 years, 9 million per. Again… the Sabres giving the extra year for a sniper and $9 million per year seemed… well… OK. I can buy that one too…
Reason seems to break out again as the Islanders sign Jordan Eberle for decent dollars and Washington gets Carl Hagelin signed for reasonable as well. OK… maybe the Nelson and Skinner signings were outliers.
Then… the Erik Karlsson deal. San Jose signs the superstar defenseman for 8 years for a total of $92 million dollars. I honestly do not have an issue with the $11.5 million per year, Karlsson’s offense is that good, but the term is insane for a player that has a disturbing injury pattern over the past three seasons to give him EIGHT years! A show of hands… does anyone see this 29 year old, injury prone defenseman make it to age 37 as an NHL player? I get it… the Sharks are all in… but… they are spending almost 50% of their salary cap on 4 (count ‘em, four) defensemen and they still have to sign Logan Coture, Joe Thornton, Gustav Nyquist and Timo Leier. I am just shaking my head at this one…
Then news breaks yesterday as the Philadelphia Flyers signed Kevin Hayes for seven years at $50 million dollars. $7 million a year for a 19 goal scorer? Mmmmmmmmkay. No wonder Winnipeg traded him, they couldn’t afford that kind of dough.
It makes me shudder to see where the dollars will end up for Matt Duchene.
Silly season is indeed upon us. We will be talking about this and pregaming the NHL Awards tonight on the season finale of SlapShot Radio. Please join Brent Peterson, Zack McCann and me at 6pm on 102.5 the Game.
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Random Notes
- More Staff Adds – The Preds announced three development coaches being added to the hockey ops staff yesterday. Former NHL’er Rob Scuderi was added as a Defense Development Coach, Dave Rook, who has been a goaltending consultant for the Preds for the past five years now goes full time as the Goaltending Development Coach.
- Welcome Home – The third add… original Predator Sebastien Bordeleau. The forward spent three seasons with the franchise and comes home to be the team’s Forward Development Coach. Bordeleau spent the last two seasons as a skills coach with Montreal. It is always nice to see members of the original team come back.
- Draft Hub – The Predators have opened up a Draft Hub on their website with some great information about the upcoming NHL Entry Draft.
- Trouba – The cap disaster that is the Winnipeg Jets took another victim as the Jets traded Jacob Trouba to the New York Rangers for Neal Pionk and the Rangers 2019 1st rounder.
- Active Philly – The Flyers have been very active in the trade market, picking up Hayes from Winnipeg and yesterday, acquiring Justin Braun from the Sharks for two picks… While they overpaid for Hayes, it’s hard to argue with the moves they are making so far.
- Cap – Teams are getting a nasty shock as the salary cap may not get to the $83 million level that has been discussed for the last few months. Rumors now have it at $82 million… could make silly season seem even sillier if it does indeed come up at $82 million.
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