PHR Mailbag: Lehner, Red Wings, Hall, Rangers, Rulebook, Contract Terminations

Topics in this edition of the PHR Mailbag include Robin Lehner’s contract situation, Detroit’s struggles, Taylor Hall’s dwindling time in New Jersey, restricted free agents for the Rangers, the offside rule, and potential contract terminations.  If your question doesn’t appear here, watch for it in next weekend’s edition.

@K9GY: Why aren’t the Hawks getting Lehner a multi-year contract now? Crawford’s gone ….and so will Lehner if they don’t get er done! Then they’ll be searching for a #1 goalie….not the best position to be in!

The short answer as to why Chicago hasn’t got a new deal done for Lehner is simply because they’re not allowed to.  As Lehner is on a one-year contract, the Blackhawks can’t sign him to an extension until the calendar flips to 2020.

Even with that though, I’m not sure one will quickly be coming down the pipeline.  It’s not that they’re not happy with him but I’m not convinced that Corey Crawford’s time in the organization is going to be coming to an end.  Heading into play today, they’ve split the games 50-50 so far at 16 starts apiece.  (I know Lehner was out to start the year but still, it has been pretty close to a timeshare situation.)

I know sentimentality doesn’t always get received well but I truly believe they’d like to keep Crawford in the fold, albeit at a considerably lower price tag than his current $6MM.  In a perfect world, they probably wouldn’t mind keeping both, especially with Collin Delia struggling at AHL Rockford.  Is that type of situation something that Lehner is comfortable committing to on a longer-term basis?  I’m not saying that will make or break talks but Crawford’s situation is probably going to play a role at some point.  Having said all that, I think Lehner will eventually sign.

JDGoat: How is Detroit so bad this year, even with some pretty good building blocks on the team?

Let’s start with the goaltending.  The tandem of Jimmy Howard and Jonathan Bernier wasn’t the strongest last season and they have both been considerably worse this year.  When both of your goaltenders have save percentages that are below the league average for backup goalies, you’re in trouble.

To be fair to those two, their defense can best be described as patchwork.  Filip Hronek is a quality long-term piece but it does downhill from there.  Danny DeKeyser and Trevor Daley have missed more than half the season due to injuries while Mike Green and Patrik Nemeth have also missed time.  The younger blueliners that have been given a longer look as a result haven’t really panned out and to be fair, the veterans haven’t been great either.

Up front, they have some good pieces headlined by Anthony Mantha and Dylan Larkin but those aren’t top players on a contender.  The supporting cast hasn’t been great either.  Andreas Athanasiou has just five goals and is back in trade speculation as a result.  Frans Nielsen, who makes less than only Larkin among forwards, has just one assist in 29 games.  Their next highest paid forward in Justin Abdelkader hasn’t scored either.  There are a lot of underperforming veterans all around and that has hurt them drastically.

The good news is that there is help coming.  Filip Zadina looks better now than he did a year ago.  Joe Veleno has NHL upside.  So does Moritz Seider.  These are all first-round picks that are relatively close to making an impact and will almost certainly improve upon the performance of the veterans they’ll replace.  There are some building blocks in place but until they’re all NHL ready, Detroit is going to continue to struggle.

M34: Your best guess for Hall’s landing spot?

How about a potential sleeper suitor that could emerge?

DVail1979: As a Devils fan … should I be hoping our team can re-sign Hall or should I hope he ends up with someone like Colorado, Edmonton, (again), or Arizona? What kind of package should I expect back?

As things stand, it’s likely a first-round pick, a high-end prospect, another prospect, and a young NHL roster player that would need to be part of the package to land Hall.  If there’s retention or matching money involved, add another piece or two to the equation.

Before looking into possible landing spots, let’s discuss the potential of him staying in New Jersey which seems to be very minuscule at this point.  An in-season extension appears to be off the table and if Hall makes it to the open market, there will almost assuredly be other opportunities where he could step in and have a better shot at winning than he would with New Jersey.  I really liked what the Devils did this summer but nothing has worked and they look like they could be heading towards extending their rebuilding phase.  A top flight free agent probably won’t want to stick around for that.

Early speculation has Colorado as the favorites to land him and that makes a lot of sense.  They have the cap space to do a deal now without needing any contracts going the other way or salary retention.  They also have a strong stable of young players and quality prospects to deal from.  Tyson Jost feels like a good candidate for a change of scenery in a deal like this and someone like Conor Timmins could be in play as well.  If Hall was to agree to an extension (doubtful given the future cap crunch a couple of years from now and his agent’s history of pushing players to the market), I wouldn’t rule out Bowen Byram.  Not many teams have the assets to part with someone like that but they do.

I don’t see the Oilers being a good fit.  They could certainly use him but they’d need the Devils to retain and take some money back.  Their prospect pool isn’t the deepest to deal from either and someone like Jesse Puljujarvi would be viewed as a secondary (or tertiary) piece, not the key to a trade.  Arizona didn’t get the scoring boost they were seeking with the addition of Phil Kessel and adding someone like Hall would make an already good team that much better.  They also have a strong prospect pool that they could potentially deal from.  They’d need to offset some money to fit him in under the cap though and they are already using LTIR.

As for darkhorses, Boston would likely want to be involved but their cap situation would make it difficult.  Pittsburgh GM Jim Rutherford is going to want to make a splash and if Alex Galchenyuk is involved, that puts the salary matching close enough that it wouldn’t be an issue.  I could see the Islanders making a run as long as the in division/rival premium isn’t too high.  They took some big swings on the free agent market last season and the money is still there while their prospect depth is deep enough to move one or two pieces from.  Florida was really active over the summer and I could see GM Dale Tallon trying to make one more splash.  Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reported earlier today (Twitter link) that they are among the teams that have inquired.

pitmanrich: Presuming Kreider is already gone can the Rangers re-sign all their RFA’s? Lemieux, Strome and DeAngelo have all done well under David Quinn’s system; do they take less to stay or has their play priced themselves out of New York?

Considering the Rangers basically forced Brendan Lemieux and Anthony DeAngelo to take one-year deals for this season by virtue of their cap situation and them not having arbitration rights, neither of them are going to be taking a hometown discount next summer.  As someone that is basically a bottom-six winger, I don’t think Lemieux will be looking at a big raise from his current $925K even with arbitration rights so they should be able to afford to keep him around.

DeAngelo is a much different situation though.  Assuming he keeps up his current pace, he could be looking at a 40-point season on the heels of a 30-point campaign.  Those numbers will look great to an arbitrator.  He’s also at $925K now but that could easily triple for next year if this keeps up.

Ryan Strome is going to be a very interesting case.  There’s no denying how well he has performed this season but is this a sign of things to come or an outlier?  His numbers in Edmonton weren’t great which is something management will undoubtedly bring up in contract talks.  He came into the season as a potential non-tender candidate with a $3.2MM qualifying offer on the horizon and while he’s probably done enough already to earn one, I don’t think he’s necessarily looking at a huge raise either.  A short-term deal similar to what they gave Ryan Spooner and Vladislav Namestnikov in recent years (two years, $4MM AAV) that provides a bit of a raise but doesn’t necessarily cripple them long-term either if Strome struggles is something they may be shooting for.

New York’s cap situation next summer is better than it has been the last couple of years so they should be able to afford these raises, especially if Chris Kreider is indeed moved over the next couple of months.

Cooperdooper7: Bruins lost another game recently on the RIDICULOUS offside review after a goal they scored… that’s now four games this year they have lost by losing a pivotal goal (or two), by a goal reviewed and changed that they score 30 seconds or more after the ticky-tack offside occurred. If the supposed offside does not occur directly in the result of the goal… why is it reviewable. This rule has got to be changed.

I suspect you’re far from the only one that’s frustrated with the fact that an offside that could have occurred 30 seconds (or more) before a goal was scored can still cause it to be taken off the board.  However, it’s tough to change the wording of the rule to limit the amount of time where the offside can directly affect the goal without making it less black and white than it is.

In theory, you could re-word it to say when the defending team gets possession, the ability to challenge for offside goes away.  But what constitutes possession?  A puck touch or does the defending team have to have someone with clear control on the stick?  And for how long?

You could try to re-word it to say that the ability to challenge is nullified after a certain amount of seconds elapse.  But then you run the risk of punishing teams that are shorthanded; it’s a lot easier to try to get the puck out at full strength than if you’re down a skater or two.  You also couldn’t limit the ability to challenge to the ensuing shot on goal as what if the rebound leads to the goal?  It’s not the initial shot but it’s related to that.

That’s why the rule is what it is.  Offside can be challenged until the puck clears the zone at which time it resets.  It’s not open to interpretation and there is no gray area.  It may not be the best system but it’s the fairest to enforce.

riverrat64: Where do you see players such as Bobby Ryan, Ilya Kovalchuk who are not playing for some time for team or personal reasons, released, signing elsewhere for less money, buyouts, trade, etc?

I don’t see Ryan going anywhere for the duration of his contract.  He has little incentive to accept a mutual contract termination as he stands no chance of recouping the $15MM in salary he’s owed in the two years after 2019-20.  He’s also currently in the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program so even if he wanted to go the termination route, he couldn’t.  He’ll be staying in Ottawa for a while yet.

Kovalchuk is a different case.  Once the rest of his signing bonus is paid out this weekend, he’ll only be foregoing the pro-rated league minimum salary for the rest of this season (plus $4.25MM in 2020-21).  He’ll have big offers to go back home that would basically cover what he’d be giving up so unlike Ryan, there isn’t much financial risk.

I think there would be some NHL interest though to the point where he’d get more than the minimum from his eventual new team.  Things haven’t worked out with the Kings but in the right environment where he’s in the right role as more of a supporting player, he could still help a team.  Boston had interest before and they still need scoring depth so they’d be a contender for his services.  I’d throw Dallas into the mix as long as they’re willing to go into using LTIR to do so as they also need a jump offensively.  Given Lou Lamoriello’s history with Kovalchuk, it’s hard to imagine the Islanders wouldn’t kick the tires here either.

Worth noting, even if (or more likely, when) the Kings terminate Kovalchuk’s deal, they still will be on the hook for the entire $6.25MM AAV for this season and next since they gave him a multi-year contract past the age of 35; those deals stay on the books no matter what.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.