PHR Mailbag: Goalies, Mock Draft, Flyers, Avalanche, Devils, Islanders, NHL-CHL Rule, Rentals

Topics in this edition of the PHR Mailbag include the goaltending market, questions about Colorado’s upcoming offseason, and much more.  If your question doesn’t appear here, check back in our previous two mailbag columns.

@3rdWorldGhost: Where do these goalies end up? – Markstrom, Saros, Gibson, Korpisalo, Nedeljkovic, Samsonov, Ullmark, and what other goalies do you see moving?

What UFAs end up in Chicago?
What’s your top 10 mock draft?
Do the Panthers blow it up if they win?

There’s a lot to dig into here so these will be pretty quick answers.  We now know that Jacob Markstrom will be with New Jersey and Alex Nedeljkovic is staying in Pittsburgh.  We also now know Joonas Korpisalo and Linus Ullmark have traded places. As for the other goalies, I’m leaning toward Juuse Saros staying in Nashville while John Gibson landing in Toronto is something I’ve had kicking around for a bit, assuming they’re not on his no-trade list and Anaheim holds back some salary.  My original landing spot for Ilya Samsonov went out the window with the goalie movement this week so let’s go with him landing in Chicago.  There are other goalies who will move, largely of the backup variety, headlined by Laurent Brossoit and Alex Stalock.  Guessing where they’ll land on that particular carousel is nothing short of a dart throw, however.

Looking back at my picks for our upcoming UFA rankings (which will require some adjustments for that goalie movement), I had them picked for Jake Guentzel, Alexander Wennberg, Daniel Sprong, and Matt Grzelcyk plus Samsonov now.  Note that we make picks independently of each other knowing that one signing often blocks others on that team so don’t interpret that as me picking all of them, they’re all individual one-off predictions.  (Keep this in mind when the full predictions come out in the coming days.)

Guentzel is the headliner while the others I picked as short-term bridge players to give their prospects some time to develop.  I don’t think they’ll land all of those players but if they got Guentzel plus a floor-raising veteran or two, that wouldn’t be a bad trip through free agency.  I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s some activity on the trade front as well where they take on a short-term contract as they’ve done lately.

As for a mock draft, here are my predictions as things currently stand:

1) SJ – F Macklin Celebrini
2) CHI – D Artyom Levshunov
3) ANA – D Anton Silayev
4) CBJ – F Ivan Demidov
5) MTL – F Cayden Lindstrom
6) UTA – D Zeev Buium
7) OTT – F Bennett Sennecke
8) SEA – D Sam Dickinson
9) CGY – D Carter Yakemchuk
10) NJ – F Tij Iginla

Meanwhile, we released our Round One Mock Draft earlier today so be sure to check that out if you haven’t already done so.

I don’t see a full-scale blow-up coming from Florida.  Obviously, they’re not going to be able to afford to keep all of their pending free agents so they will probably take a small step back from that.  But even if that happens, they should still be viewed as a contender.  If you have a shot at contending, you probably won’t be blowing things up.  Besides, they don’t have control of their next two first-round picks so if they were going to take a step back, they wouldn’t even be able to benefit from it in the form of adding high-end prospects.  It’s full steam ahead for them as a result.

Emoney123: How would you rate the Flyers’ rebuild? Besides the hype of Michkov, how soon might Gendron, Bonk, Barkey, Tuomaala, Rizzo, and McDonald play in the NHL? How would you rate the farm system overall? Thanks!

I think they’re off to a good start to their rebuild but there is still some work to be done.  If it’s a larger-scale teardown which I think is what they were aiming for at least, they don’t have enough pieces yet.  I’m answering out of order but I think this is a mid-pack system at the moment.  If you’re planning to exit a rebuild, you don’t want a mid-pack system to start from; obviously, you want to be at least somewhere in the top ten.

Of the players you listed, the only ones that might be close to seeing NHL action is Massimo Rizzo.  A good showing to start next season with Lehigh Valley would get him on the recall radar.  Samu Tuomaala could also get into that mix as well.  I’m not convinced Alexis Gendron will be an NHL regular; I need to see some sustained pro success to show that he’s not just a high-end junior scorer.  Denver Barkey has another year of major junior left and, like Gendron, will probably need time to adjust in the minors so he’s not on the short-term horizon either.

On the back end, I like Oliver Bonk as an all-around dependable piece.  He may not be flashy but he will be effective.  But he has another OHL year left and probably some time in the minors after that; many teams don’t bring blueliners straight to the NHL from junior.  As for Hunter McDonald, I feel like he’s more of an organizational filler prospect than someone they should be counting on for meaningful NHL contributions.  He can certainly change that assessment with a good showing for a couple of years in the minors but at a minimum, he’s probably not a short-term option.

Philadelphia needs more high-end prospects and frankly, more depth before emerging from this rebuild.  They’re off to a good start but that’s all it is, a start.

@iwtfwc: How do things play out for the @Avalanche this offseason?

– Landeskog? (I’m not confident)
– Nichushkin? (Seems they’re stuck unless he fails Stage 3)
– Drouin contact?
– Mittelstadt contract?
– Roster fill out?
– Chances of adding Nedeljkovic?

I’m not overly confident either that Gabriel Landeskog will be able to have any sort of successful extended comeback.  However, I do think he’s going to give it an honest try and will start the season with the Avs.  That will limit them this summer but if he shuts it down midseason, they’ll have plenty of in-year flexibility.  I agree on Valeri Nichushkin, their hands are tied right now.  He needs to get through the third stage of the program and then they can assess things from there.  But they basically have to reserve space to activate him when he’s cleared.

If Jonathan Drouin comes back, it might be after free agency starts.  I don’t think the Avalanche are willing to get to his number at this point, barring a cap-clearing move needing to be made first.  If they were ready and able to make a deal, it’d be done already.  But if Drouin’s market isn’t the strongest (and with how things went in Montreal, it might not be as robust as his camp hopes), I could see them circling back.  I had him at three years at $4.375MM per season in our free agent predictions and they might be able to afford that.

I talked a lot about Casey Mittelstadt in Colorado’s offseason checklist the other day so I won’t get into that in much detail again here.  I can’t see them affording a long-term deal so something in the four-to-six-year range around $5.5MM or so is where I see that falling.  In terms of filling out their roster, that was also a topic in their checklist.  It’s going to be a bunch of minimum-salary signings or close to it.  Your guess is as good as mine as to which players will accept it a few hours into free agency.

I don’t see Colorado adding another goalie for the big club this summer (obviously not Nedeljkovic now).  Justus Annunen did quite well in limited duty last year and has earned a longer look behind Alexandar Georgiev.  Perhaps more importantly, he’s slotted in at less than $840K for the next two years so it’s his spot to lose.  I do expect a signing for the Eagles, however.

RipperMagoo: Are the Devils better or worse after?

Sign Anthony Stolarz: three years, $8.25MM @ AAV $2.75MMl
Sign Nikita Zadorov: five years, $30MM @ AAV $6MM
Sign Dakota Joshua: three years, $9MM @ AAV $3MM
Trade Holtz and Bahl to SEA for Adam Larsson
Draft Cole Eiserman @ 10th

Before even looking at the options, the answer is yes.  Are the Devils better…yes.  If they did nothing, they’d be better than they were in 2023-24 as long as they don’t get slammed by injuries again.  We know they’ve addressed the goalie situation so let’s skip that one but here are some thoughts on the others.

Zadorov: I don’t agree with him being a $6MM player but it feels like someone’s going to give it to him.  Here’s the thing, how much do they want to spend on the back end?  They’re at nearly $20MM now which is fine but Simon Nemec and Luke Hughes are a year away from getting a lot more expensive.  If they get big second contracts and you add Zadorov, now we’re talking $30MM-plus and not by a little bit.  That might be too much spending on the blueline.  If they go for a defenseman this summer, I think it’ll be someone on a short-term contract and it might be by trade over free agency.

Larsson: I’m going out of order here but the two are related.  At least this is a short-term contract which better fits their salary structure but giving up Alexander Holtz and let’s say another young roster player (since Kevin Bahl is gone now) for a one-year rental to fill a fourth defenseman role seems steep.  And if you’re acquiring him with the idea of extending him, now you have three right-shot blueliners making at least $4.4MM for 2025-26 with Nemec still to sign.  Again, this feels like too much money on the back end.

Joshua: I think they’d happily take him at that price tag but I have a hunch he’s getting a bit more than that and possibly another year.  Think four years, $14MM in total.

Eiserman: With how his stock has slipped, I’m not sure he’d be their choice at 10 but it wouldn’t be a bad one.  Especially if Holtz isn’t in the long-term plans, another scoring winger isn’t a bad thing to have.

New Jersey has enough money to try to take a big swing this summer.  I think they’ll try to land a big fish up front and then add a veteran blueliner or two on short-term deals, giving them some shorter-term stability while leaving spots and salary slots for Nemec and Hughes to take on bigger roles a year later.

DevilShark: Which team that made the playoffs this year is in for the biggest hurt over the next 10 years when you look at a combo of current roster, prospect pool, and draft pick stock?

I’ll pick the Islanders here.  In an effort to hang around the playoff picture every year, they haven’t made many moves to add to their pick and prospect cupboards and unfortunately for them, they haven’t had much to show for it aside from their run in 2021.

If you look at their current roster, they’re a mid-pack team at best on paper.  They don’t have enough cap space to go after an impact player or two that could give them the boost they need.  As it is, they might have to buy someone out or pay an asset to get out of an undesirable contract for the second year in a row.  That’s not good.

Prospect-wise, they have one of the weakest systems in the NHL.  That’s a by-product of moving first-round picks (their last one was back in 2019, used on Simon Holmstrom) and some of their better prospects for win-now options.  Granted, moving some of those pieces helped them land Bo Horvat on a contract GM Lou Lamoriello wasn’t a fan of which isn’t nothing but sacrificing the future for the present will eventually catch up with teams.  Meanwhile, they don’t have their own first three picks in the upcoming draft (although they do have some selections from other teams at least).

I don’t see a path for them to drastically improve, nor do I see one that sees them bottom out.  The floor of their team is good but the ceiling isn’t much better.  At some point, they’re going to have to take some steps back to move more steps forward but I don’t see Lamoriello pivoting to that approach anytime soon.

Unclemike1526: So let’s assume all goes as expected and the Hawks draft Levshunov and let him go back to school. The Hawks promoted Kevin Korchinski and he was overmatched that first year. But Korchinski wasn’t going to school so they had no choice because of that stupid rule about junior players not being promoted to the AHL because they’re too young. Any rule that keeps someone from playing up to their potential seems stupid to me. I get why the junior teams want the rule, I don’t get why the NHL agreed to it. Do you ever see them changing that rule? It seems kind of dumb to send guys back to play against lower talent, how does that help the players? I think that rule needs changing. Thoughts?

The NHL has transfer agreements in place with most federations so they need to get one done with their top supplier of players.  Agreeing to the age cap has been required each time and it’s something the CHL will continue to push for each time.  They won’t need to for a while, however, as the current deal is in place through the 2028-29 season.

I get both sides of the debate.  There is a concern about putting some teenage players in the minors where things can be a bit more rough and tumble at times.  From a safety perspective, that’s something to consider.  Having said that, international and NCAA players don’t have that age restriction although few that age go to the AHL right away.  But there are some NHL teams with that concern on top of CHL organizations.

Meanwhile, if the CHL lost many of its top players, the quality of the league drops off, thereby weakening the prospects coming through that league moving forward.  Quite a few franchises are on tenuous footing; take away their best players and you’re probably looking at some contraction as well.  So it’s clear why the CHL will continue to push for that.  It’s also worth noting that a lot of CHL teams do a multi-year rebuild to take one big shot at a title.  Losing a centerpiece of that rebuild won’t sit well with those franchises or their fans.

Now, there are some NHL teams that would like to see some sort of exception put into place and perhaps one day that will be a compromise.  Some players are pro-ready sooner but not NHL-ready so you run the risk of stagnating their development by sending them back to junior.  But we’re talking a handful of prospects league-wide.

Could an exception be put in that an NHL team once every four or five years (I can’t see the CHL agreeing to more frequently than that) can take a CHL prospect and turn him pro at 19, provided they pay a steep fee to the team losing the player?  That would take some top talent out of the league but if it’s only ten or so players in a year, that shouldn’t have too many significantly drastic effects.  One day, I could see that happening but not anytime soon.

DevilShark: Thinking of Parise, Suter, Panarin, Tkachuk, Tavares, Pietrangelo, Bobrovsky, Pavelski, etc… big names that walked for nothing in return for their teams… in general, how critical has this been to the demise of former teams – I.e. how critical is it that GMs don’t get themselves in this situation?

I’d dispute some of the names on that list but that’s here nor there when it comes to the question itself.  You’re absolutely correct that it has been detrimental to some of those franchises and has contributed to some of their struggles.  Teams that misidentified themselves as prospective contenders that turned out to bow out quickly or miss the playoffs altogether likely regret not moving those players after the fact.

However, it’s not as cut and dry as it might seem.  If the team legitimately is a contender, there’s a completely justifiable case to hold onto those players.  Yes, you want to think long-term but if you’re trying to win the Stanley Cup, you’re not selling a key piece to ensure you don’t lose the player for nothing.  Meanwhile, some players and managers prefer not to talk in-season but if both sides have indicated a mutual interest in a new agreement, then it makes sense to hold them as well.

Generally speaking, I think some teams hold onto their players a little too long, hoping to sneak into a playoff spot while running the risk of losing the player for nothing in free agency.  I think some of those general managers could benefit from being longer-term thinking.  But there are definitely times where running that risk makes the most sense so it’s not a one-size-fits-all philosophy either.  Instead, evaluation of those decisions should be done on more of a case-by-case basis.

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