PHR Mailbag: Trophy Predictions, Kraken, UFAs, Kadri, Kings, Projections, Draft, Blue Jackets, Red Wings, Blues

Topics in this edition of the PHR Mailbag include early award predictions, an assessment of Nazem Kadri’s pending free agency, surplus depth for the Kings, and much more.  If your question doesn’t appear here, check back for it in last weekend’s mailbag.

NHATrang: How about some predictions for the major trophies: Hart, Norris, Vezina, Selke?

Hart Trophy – Auston Matthews (Toronto) – With there being several quality candidates, a strong finish could give someone the boost to get the award.  Right now, Matthews is having quite the strong finish to his season and has a good chance at hitting 60 goals.  That should make him the front-runner.

Norris Trophy – Roman Josi (Nashville) – There’s a very good case to make for Colorado’s Cale Makar but Josi has the better offensive numbers and whether we like it or not, that will stand out to some voters.  I think what also will help Josi is that the Predators weren’t expected to be a playoff threat while the Avs have been viewed as contenders all season.  Josi helping lead Nashville into the thick of the playoff race will carry some weight.

Vezina Trophy – Igor Shesterkin (NY Rangers) – He’s first in the NHL in save percentage (.935) and second in goals against average (2.10) and while he hasn’t had quite as high of a workload as some other starters, he has played enough that it won’t be held against him.  It’s his to lose down the stretch.

Selke Trophy – Patrice Bergeron (Boston) – He still is elite at faceoffs, his possession numbers are elite, he kills penalties, and still contributes at a top-line level.  He hasn’t won in four years but has been a finalist each time and there’s no reason to think he won’t be in the mix.  If some writers think this could be his final year as some have speculated, that could garner him a few first-place votes as well from those who may want to send him off on top.

Tim Wilson: Much has been made of the poor performance of Seattle’s goaltending tandem in their first season. I’m wondering how the Kraken’s team defensive stats such as shots allowed compare to Grubauer and Driedger’s 20/21 teams, Colorado and Florida.

Seattle is only allowing 29.1 shots per game this season, the fourth-fewest in the entire league and second-fewest in the Western Conference.  They’re trying to play a defensively responsible style knowing that they don’t have the firepower to win and have done a decent job at doing so.  For comparison, Colorado last year was tops in the league at just 25.4 while Florida was in the middle of the pack at 30.0.

A lot of their struggles simply stem from poor goaltending.  Philipp Grubauer is dead last among qualifying goaltenders at -29.9 goals saved above expected, per Moneypuck.  That’s just in 50 games too, or 0.6 extra per game on average than he should be allowing.  How many more wins would Seattle have if he was strictly middle of the pack hovering around the zero mark in that stat?  They wouldn’t be a playoff team but they wouldn’t be battling for the top draft lottery odds either.  Chris Driedger has done better at -1.1 goals saved above expected so he’s basically average on that front.

If you’re looking for some reason for optimism, Grubauer has been a good goalie for a while now and it’s not as if he somehow forgot how to play the position upon signing with Seattle.  I’m confident he’ll be a lot better next season.  Probably not enough to get them into the playoffs – they have a long way to go before that happens – but their goaltending shouldn’t be anywhere near this level in 2022-23.

Y2KAK: Early top FA predictions please!!!

This is a tough one to answer right now in that the season isn’t over yet so there’s still the potential for some fluctuation in players’ values.  Personally, I don’t dig in too much into the UFA group in terms of fits and potential contracts until we start working on our annual Top 50 UFA post which is still more than two months away.  But here’s a very quick overview of some of the bigger names.

Johnny Gaudreau – Re-signs in Calgary.  Matthew Tkachuk’s pending RFA contract will definitely make this a tough squeeze but there’s a way to make it work if they go with a lot of minimum-salary players to round out the roster.

Nazem Kadri – I’ll look at him in more detail shortly but I don’t see him staying with Colorado.

Filip Forsberg – Re-signs with Nashville.  There’s mutual interest in getting a deal done and while it’s going to contain elements the Predators don’t like (signing bonuses and trade protection), they won’t let that ultimately nix a new contract.

Penguins – Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang re-sign, Bryan Rust moves on.  Malkin winds up a little lower than his current AAV while Letang is a bit higher.  If they could find a way to move Jason Zucker without taking salary back, they might be able to take a late run at Rust as well.

Patrice Bergeron – Re-signs with Boston.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they go year-to-year from here on out, allowing for some creativity in terms of salary and performance bonus structure.

Claude Giroux – He’s not re-signing with Florida, that’s pretty much a given.  There seems to be a bit of smoke with his hometown Senators and that would make a lot of sense as that team needs an impact veteran to really round out their improving forward group.

John Klingberg – I wouldn’t be shocked if Dallas eventually worked out a deal with him but for now, I’ll say he moves on.  If Detroit is ready to flip the switch and go for it, I think they’ll be seriously in the mix at least.

Ville Husso – I pegged him to New Jersey in a hypothetical scenario in last weekend’s mailbag so I’ll stick with them.

M34: What are Kadri’s next contract terms and which team gives it to him?

Boy, did Kadri ever pick a good time for a career year.  He sits 13th in league scoring heading into today’s action and, perhaps more notably, sixth above centers.  What better way to argue that he’s capable of being a top pivot than by being among the top-scoring middlemen in the league.

That said, I don’t he’s going to be able to command the type of deal that a top-producing center typically would.  He’ll be 32 when next season starts so there will be concern about a drop-off occurring sooner than later.  His previous career high in points is 61 so it’s not as if there’s a track record of him scoring like this.  Plus, there’s his lengthy suspension history – six in total.  At this point, the suspensions are getting more severe each time to the point where his next one could be in the double-digits.  That will make some teams hesitant.

In spite of all that, he’s heading for a nice contract.  His maximum term, assuming it’s not Colorado that re-signs him, is seven years and while teams may not want to sign him for that long, that final year or two could be used to smooth out the AAV a little bit.  So I’ll say he gets the max-term with a seven-year deal with an AAV around $8MM.  I don’t think he’ll be worth that contract in the end but he plays a premium position which will help to mitigate some of the aforementioned concerns.

W H Twittle: What can the L.A. Kings be expected to do with their prospects who are mostly RDs or Cs? Cs can be moved to the wings if they can score. But moving defensemen to their wrong side is seldom a good move. Do they start looking to trade a few prospects this summer or before the draft for the players they feel will help them next year?

While it isn’t ideal to have defensemen on their wrong side, it’s quite common.  Most NHL teams have at least one blueliner on his off-side in each game.  It’s usually a lefty on the right but it’s not implausible that a righty can go on the left if need be.  I’m also not convinced it’s a logjam they need to deal with right now.  Jordan Spence could plausibly be back in the minors, leaving Drew Doughty, Matt Roy, and Sean Durzi as the three that break camp.  It’s not a situation that necessarily has to be dealt with in the near future.

As for their center situation, I agree that some can move to the wing but that is a short-term solution.  Potential impact centers are always in high demand but the Kings could run the risk of devaluing them if they stay on the wing for too long.  If they’re shifting towards win-now mode, yes, moving some of that surplus could make sense.  The question is who to move.  They probably don’t want to move Alex Turcotte while Gabriel Vilardi and Lias Andersson have seen their value dip; Rasmus Kupari has had a nice year in a depth role but his value isn’t sky-high.  If they think Turcotte still could be a top center a few years from now, that could make Quinton Byfield the one to watch for if they want to move a promising youngster for a shorter-term difference-maker.

The Duke: All-knowing and -seeing MB Crystal Ball, please weigh in on the following queries: 1. How do the SJS and Preds’ goaltending shake out next season and the next few years? 2. Career trajectories for Mssrs Zadina & Sandin (are either on new teams soon)? 3. And finally, what team does John Gibson suit up for next season? As always, much thanks.

1) Let’s look at San Jose first.  Obviously, they need to move a goalie this summer.  My guess is that it’s James Reimer as whoever is GM at that time will likely want to give the two younger goals (Adin Hill and Kaapo Kahkonen) a longer look.  They’re both 25 at the moment and in a perfect world, that’s their tandem for the foreseeable future.  They don’t have a top goalie prospect in their system and as they have several high-priced contracts for a while, they need to go with cheaper options.  A platoon costing somewhere between $6MM to $7MM combined would help so I expect those two will be given a chance to be longer-term options.

As for Nashville, theirs is a little easier to predict.  I don’t see anyone supplanting Juuse Saros as the starter as long as Saros is under contract which is through the 2024-25 season.  By then, Yaroslav Askarov should be NHL-ready.  They’ll need a bridge backup for a couple of years – someone like Reimer would make a lot of sense, to be honest – but there will be several of those available in free agency each year so they could just look to go year-to-year with low-cost options.

2) Filip Zadina – I have my doubts that he’ll be able to live up to his draft billing and become the top-line winger many felt he had the potential to be.  That said, he certainly has some offensive talent which will keep him in the league for a while.  I could see him being a player who hovers around 40-50 points most years (slightly higher at times) and bounces between the second and third lines.  That’s a pretty good career trajectory overall even if it’s a bit underwhelming relative to where he was picked.  As for being on a new team in the somewhat near future, I think there’s a good chance that happens.

Rasmus Sandin – I’ve talked about him in the past and I don’t see him being a high-end point-getter in the NHL.  To me, he projects as a secondary offensive threat, someone that will have a floor of 25 points every year and could creep up over 40 in a good year.  I also see no reason why Toronto would want to move him anytime soon, they need cost-controllable blueliners and he’ll be that for a little while yet, even through his first (and possibly second) trip through restricted free agency.

3) Unless Gibson wants out and makes it known, I have no reason to think it won’t be Anaheim.  If you go back and look at the trade market for good goalies, the word underwhelming comes to mind.  When was the last time an above average goalie that was signed for several more seasons was moved for a return that made you think ‘wow, that’s a really good trade’?  Certainly not lately.  If the options are either take an underwhelming return or hold onto Gibson, the latter path is the right way to go for them.

trak2k: Is it better to draft for need or draft the best available player? Depending of course on draft position and/or what a team needs.

I’ve always believed that BPA is the way to go.  This isn’t like the NFL where drafted players play the next season as only a handful make the jump right away.  By the time the player is ready to play, the team needs at that point may very well be different than they were when he was drafted.

That said, if you have a group of players with similar scouting scores, then sure, picking the one that fits a perceived organizational need makes sense.  But at the same time, if a team is in that situation, I’d be more inclined to pick the one that plays a more premium position (center or right defense) as they’re always in high demand.

By drafting the best player available, a team sets itself up for the best options.  The player can be afforded extra development time if he plays a position they’re well set in and I’m a proponent of a slower development curve in most cases.  If there are too many players at one spot, then good trade opportunities arise.  And, of course, there’s a better chance of a BPA pick making it over a reach selection to pick for need.  BPA all the way.

@PhilPageau12: Any news on when the tickets will be on sale for the NHL Draft ‘22 in MTL? Thx!

I reached out to the team last weekend and was told that there is no date in place yet for when tickets will be released to the public.  The league runs the event and – this is my own speculation here – the fact that it wasn’t that long ago that they were unsure if the event would be held in Montreal due to restrictions might be part of the delay.  Why go through the process of getting everything planned out when they were considering the possibility of having to move it elsewhere?

Now that it’s confirmed to be in Montreal in July, I anticipate there will be some clarity on that front over the next couple of weeks.

baji kimran: As a Columbus fan, I’ve watched other teams lay siege to our goalies all season long because of poor defensive play. Is the Jackets’ best bet to take their time and solve this through the draft and player development or might there be reasonable solutions available through trade or free agency? The Jackets have clearly overachieved this year, but they are a long way from where they want to be with the current roster. I fear regression next season if their blueline issues are not resolved.

The Blue Jackets have tried the patchwork approach to keep the core together but that time has come and gone.  This certainly feels like the early stages of a longer-term rebuild so yes, I’d say their best bet is to be patient and build through the draft with a heavy emphasis on player development.  There are already some encouraging pieces in the system and with what should be two lottery picks in July (unless Chicago’s pick falls in the top two selections), they can add two more.

It’s quite possible that there is some regression next season in terms of their point total as I agree that they’ve overachieved.  But if their drop-off next season comes with young players playing key roles and going through the trials and tribulations that youngsters often go through, that’s okay.  If Adam Boqvist and Jake Bean are playing bigger roles and showing signs of improvement, it’ll be worth the short-term pain for the long-term gain for Columbus.  They’re on the right track but they’re a few years away from getting back into legitimate playoff contention.

Johnny Z: Assuming Blashill is replaced this offseason, who are the top candidates besides Lane Lambert?

I’ll start my answer with another question – what type of coach should Detroit be seeking?  If they’re looking to emerge from their rebuild and push for a playoff spot next season, a proven bench boss may be the way to go.  If they’re not quite ready to do that yet, then it’s either a transitional coach (which could be Jeff Blashill for another year) or a younger coach that they think is their long-term solution behind the bench.

Among the veterans, the usual names come to mind – Claude Julien, John Tortorella, maybe Rick Tocchet.  If Vancouver goes in a different direction with Bruce Boudreau, he’d be in that mix as well.  Those are all familiar names so there’s no need to go into much detail there.  If it’s a transitional coach, Ben Simon, the head coach at AHL Grand Rapids, would have to be considered the favorite.  I wonder if Jim Montgomery will get a look this summer and he fits in a shorter-term tryout type of role that a transitional coach would be in.

But if you’re mentioning Lambert, you’re looking for younger coaches that are under the radar so I’ll toss out a few of those.  Spencer Carbery is in his first year as an NHL assistant with Toronto but was widely regarded with AHL Hershey in his three years with them.  I could see him garnering some interest.  Seth Appert had a long run in college before a stint with the US National Team Development Program and is now in his second season with AHL Rochester.  It may be a little early for him but I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets an interview this offseason.  At the college level, Nate Leaman has done quite well in his 11 seasons in Providence and the time may be right to make the jump to the pros.

Gmm8881: I would love to see the Blues re-sign both Ville Husso and Charlie Lindgren. Move Binnington to Toronto for two or three prospects from their reserve list. Makes room for the Blues’ upcoming kids from being blocked. MUCH needed cap space would be realized.

You mention how St. Louis would save cap space with a move of Jordan Binnington for prospects but how do the Maple Leafs afford that deal?  If they’re trading for a goalie, Petr Mrazek and the two years left on his deal are almost certainly going to be in the trade which wipes out more than half of the cap savings.  And considering Mrazek cleared waivers last month and has been hurt since then, it’s not a situation where you could simply say Toronto could move Mrazek elsewhere.

I also don’t think it’s wise to go with a Husso-Lindgren tandem next season.  They don’t have a full NHL season of games under their belt combined let alone individually.  Husso is probably a strong-side platoon goalie next year so whoever gets the pending UFA needs a proven backup to partner with him.  Lindgren looked good in limited action this season but there’s a reason he has been viewed as a third-stringer for several years now.  They’d save money in your scenario but that would certainly be a risky tandem and I’m not sure the risk is worth the reward.  If Binnington isn’t back and Husso is, they need a more proven backup.

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