Topics in this edition of the PHR Mailbag include a discussion about a Cam Fowler trade scenario, plenty of goalie talk, and much more. If your question doesn’t appear here, check back in last weekend’s mailbag.
wreckage: Do you expect Michkov or Bedard to be more impactful going forward? Bedard may have more skill, slightly. Michkov likely has a deeper team behind him at the moment. For the next three years… who has more impact in the NHL?
I’ll go with Connor Bedard for this one. Yes, Chicago has a weaker team on paper right now but Philadelphia is still rebuilding as well, despite them nearly making the playoffs last season. Both teams are probably on the outside looking in for at least the first two of those three years. The good news is that Matvei Michkov should get a lot of runway to play big minutes quickly like Bedard did last season but there’s only so much impact he can have on a non-playoff team.
Generally speaking, I’m going to lean toward a high-end center having more of an impact than a high-end winger on a year-to-year basis. Bedard will be a year further ahead in his development, entering what should be a very pricey second contract at a time when Chicago should be starting to take some steps forward in the Central. He’s going to be a big part of that. Not to say Michkov shouldn’t be an impactful piece by any stretch but I expect most players won’t be quite as impactful as Bedard should be in a few years.
riverrat55: Who is the 1st player with the upcoming increase in the Salary Cap to ask for $20MM?
Before tackling this, we need to figure out our target cap percentage that will cost $20MM. Teams, players and agents use this percentage as a direct comparable in negotiations. (For anyone wondering, 20% is the maximum, a rate we haven’t seen reached in quite some time. I remember some when the first cap came out but that’s about it.) Auston Matthews’ contract is 15.06% of the cap while Leon Draisaitl’s recent one checks in at 15.91%. Connor McDavid’s current one is 15.72% and I could see it eclipsing the 16% mark (which, on a $92MM-plus cap, puts the AAV in the $15MM range). For the sake of this hypothetical, let’s put a target cap percentage at 16.5%.
Let’s do some quick math here. $20MM divided by 16.5% = $121.212MM. Why does this matter? We need to project when the Upper Limit of the salary cap might get to this amount to see who will need a contract at this time.
This year, the cap is $88MM with a 5% capped increase next season and the year after that. That would make the ceiling $92.4MM in 2025-26 and $97.02MM in 2026-27 before the CBA expires. (The league did make this year’s cap a bit higher than the 5% increase so this isn’t a perfect scenario but close.) It wouldn’t shock me to see a bit more of a jump after that, assuming revenues stay on their current trajectory. Let’s say it’s a 10% boost post-CBA. That makes the cap $106.72MM in 2027-28. Let’s forecast 7% increases on average after that. In 2028-29, it would be $114.19MM and in 2029-30, it’d be $122.19MM. So, the 2029-30 season is the earliest we could see that price point.
Assuming that most core players will continue to sign max-term deals, that probably takes McDavid off the table. Cale Makar is up in 2027 so he’s off the table. Matthews’ deal expires in 2028 so he’s not going to get there either. The rest of the established elite will either be signed through that time or on the backswing of their careers in 2030.
With that in mind, my guess would be Bedard if I’m picking a current player. He’d have a shot at that in 2034 if he signs a max-term contract coming off his entry-level deal. If he goes shorter-term, he could get there sooner. We’re going to see a bigger jump in the cap coming sooner than later but even with that, it’s probably going to take a while to see someone reach $20MM unless there’s a material jump in the Upper Limit in the new CBA or some sort of other drastic change.
jminn: The Ducks want to trade Fowler. Kings could have a need, even though Cam is a lefty. Is there any chance Fowler moves up the freeway?
I’m going to be a little picky on the phrasing as it’s not necessarily that they’re looking to trade Fowler but rather that they’re willing to work with him on finding a new home. If he winds up staying there for most or all of the season, I think that’s an outcome they’re okay with.
But semantics aside, I don’t think this is a good fit for Los Angeles and not because of the handedness. Drew Doughty is expected to be back this season so while the Kings have around $10MM in cap room right now per PuckPedia, that money isn’t really spendable as they’ll need to get back to compliance before they can activate him. That’s easy to do with a replacement from the minors but Fowler has a $6.5MM cap hit. That means that barring further long-term injuries, the Kings would need to clear around $6.5MM off the books when the time comes to activate Doughty. That’s going to be extremely difficult to do midseason.
Would Fowler help the Kings? He certainly would. But this isn’t the right move for them to make at this time. Los Angeles needs to exhaust their internal options and see if Brandt Clarke and Jordan Spence can take on bigger workloads. Then, if that doesn’t go well, they can re-assess but even then, it’d have to be for a much cheaper option than Fowler.
Frozenaquatic: There’s an interesting conversation happening right now about goalie salaries. Obviously, the argument for lower salaries is that aside from Hellebuyck, even top goalies play about 60 – 65 games (even though starting pitchers command high salaries despite only playing 30 out of 162 games). And how much does a goalie matter for a championship (or was Darcy Kuemper the Trent Dilfer of the NHL–just an anomaly in a rare system that usually favors Tom Bradys/Vasilevskys)?
Another argument is that they are only as good as the system–how much will Ullmark regress behind a much worse Sens system and would Swayman regress that same amount? They’re also mercurial–Shesterkin could sign an eight-year, $104MM contract and begin an eight-year slump.
The argument for higher salaries is that they may affect those games more than the other players. Great goalies sometimes open a championship window. They can represent a winning culture that other players want to play for.
Where do you fall on the goalie salary spectrum?
Second question is: Do you know if players take playing with goalies into consideration when they sign UFA contracts with new teams?
Third question: if you were in a legacy fantasy league, would you take Askarov, Cossa, or Wallstedt?
1) In general, I’d say goalies have felt the squeeze in recent years. With a lot of teams shifting closer to a platoon, there has certainly been a concerted effort to try to spend less at that position. It also should be noted that the number of true higher-end starters has gone down which is part of the reason teams are looking for goalies to be closer to splitting the duties.
What has been interesting to me lately is that teams with a legitimate number one have largely managed to get that player locked up on what looks like a team-friendly agreement. Part of me wonders if the fact a lot of teams are looking to cut costs between the pipes actually has deflated the marketability for some of those players. While supply is low, it’s getting offset by perceived lower demand.
That’s what made the Jeremy Swayman saga particularly interesting as here’s a player trying to reach that upper tier (some would say he’s there already while others might want to see him play more first) that seemingly held out for top dollar. It seems like Igor Shesterkin is hoping to do the same as well although, again, if he got to the open market, how many teams would realistically go after him? How many would have the cap space and of those, how many would pay up that much for a goalie? I’m intrigued to see how that one’s going to play out.
2) I can’t say this for certain either way but it would surprise me if more than a handful of skaters would put too much weight on who the goalie is when signing in free agency. I’d say that’s too position-specific. Free agents probably assess rosters on a more macro level – does the player want to go to a contender? Does he want to go to a team that is thinner at a specific position in the hopes of securing a bigger role (and ideally a bigger contract)? A UFA goalie would pay attention to who the incumbent player is for obvious reasons but I doubt a lot of skaters put a high emphasis on who the goalies are specifically when they’re pondering teams.
3) Long-term, it’s hard to pick against Yaroslav Askarov. There’s a reason why he was considered by some as the best goalie outside North America a couple of years ago. He’s now on a team that could be positioning itself to contend in a few years. If it’s a long-term play you’d be going for, he’s it. If you need someone who might get you more points in the short term, it’s Jesper Wallstedt. Like Askarov, he’ll see some NHL action this season but he’s on a team that I expect will be more competitive. Next season, he should be a full-timer on a team that has some cap space to make some noise next summer.
Nha Trang: What’s the team touted to be a top contender for the Cup that blows up completely this year? I don’t mean a 55+ win team that bombs out of the first round, but one *expected* to be one that blows up in the regular season and just barely makes the playoffs at all, if that much.
It depends on the interpretation of top contender. If we’re only talking about the obvious handful, I’m not sure I see any of them struggling to that extent. (Technically, there was only one 55-win team last year.) So, I’m going to expand the pool a bit and bring in the other 50-win teams from last season.
My pick of who is a presumed playoff contender that could wind up struggling a lot this year is Vancouver. An awful lot went right last year. They got several career seasons from their top players while leading the league in shooting percentage. I think they’re bound for a bit of regression on that front. Thatcher Demko seemingly not being 100% isn’t going to help either; if he has to manage the pain playing through his knee trouble, he probably can’t be counted on to play as much as he normally does. There’s some give-back there as well.
Then there’s the division. Vegas should bounce back after a down year by their standards and Los Angeles has what they think will be a goalie upgrade. I know they’re without Doughty for a while but it wouldn’t shock me if they finished ahead of Vancouver. Edmonton (who I imagine is a popular answer to this question for anyone pondering it themselves) should be ahead as well. With that in mind, I have Vancouver as a Wild Card team at best, battling with Central teams to sneak in. That would be a pretty big drop-off that I’m not sure a lot of people are necessarily predicting at this point.
If you want someone considered as more of a contender, it would be Colorado. They’re dealing with a lot of injuries up front that might put them behind the proverbial eight-ball to start the year. And if Alexandar Georgiev’s struggles between the pipes carry over (it has in his first two starts), they could be vulnerable.
Gmm8811: Any chance of seeing a deep dive article in the future on AHL and ECHL contracts? Do those leagues have 2-way contracts like the NHL? Do the minor leaguers have to pass through waivers like the big clubs? Is there a good site that deals with this kind of information? ECHL future expansion rumors?
Unfortunately, details on AHL and ECHL contracts are not publicly disclosed so there isn’t much we can cover or refer you to there. There are two-way AHL-ECHL deals that pay different rates at each level similar to NHL-AHL agreements. It feels like there has been an increase in those in recent years as teams use those for some of their recallable depth players to get around the strict ECHL weekly cap rules. The weekly salary cap in that league this season is $15,130 per week for the first 30 days of the season and $14,600 per week after that with the weekly salary floor being $11,100.
As for waivers, that’s not a thing in the AHL like it is in the NHL but there is in the ECHL. Players released by an ECHL team go on waivers and become eligible to be claimed. Meanwhile, in the AHL, released players immediately become free agents. If you’re on an AHL contract, you’re staying with that organization unless you’re traded, loaned, or released. As for ECHL expansion, there isn’t a site that I’m aware of that tracks rumors about that. That said, with 30 teams in that league, it stands to reason that they could try to get that to 32 in the near future and try to have an NHL and AHL affiliate for each one.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.