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What goes around comes around Carolina pay back Kotkaniemi offer sheet


Habsfan89

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1 hour ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

Of course, just as the French-language announcement was a deliberate shot at the Habs. This is sheer pettiness by Carolina, let’s not kid ourselves.

Heck, their twitter account description is still in French. Ha.

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35 minutes ago, dlbalr said:

That's not necessarily tampering; all teams were permitted to speak to Kotkaniemi and his camp at the start of free agency.  As long as it was done after that time, it's perfectly legal.

 

But I suspect "we'll offer you one year at $6.1M to get your rights and then we'll extend you for "X" years at "$Y" could be seen as tampering-ish by the NHL, promising benefits beyond the terms of the offer sheet in order to get it signed all while the player is the property of another team ... it also would seem to be CBA circumvention ... but who's going to blow the whistle in any case ... 

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20 hours ago, alfredoh2009 said:

No, the real screw up was letting Danault walk before signing KK

But, didnt hear anyone complaining before the offer sheet happened, about getting KK signed? Did you?

 

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5 hours ago, GHT120 said:

But I suspect "we'll offer you one year at $6.1M to get your rights and then we'll extend you for "X" years at "$Y" could be seen as tampering-ish by the NHL, promising benefits beyond the terms of the offer sheet in order to get it signed all while the player is the property of another team ... it also would seem to be CBA circumvention ... but who's going to blow the whistle in any case ... 

 

It is and it isn't.  Carolina was well within their rights to speak to Kotkaniemi regarding varying lengths of contract.  Under the letter of the law, they technically can't formally agree - they're not supposed to even negotiate an extension until January - but that happens all the time.

 

There is a similar case to this but in the opposite direction.  Kevin Labanc's one-year, $1M contract in 2019 was ridiculously below-market but that's all they could afford.  He had a bad season and still got four years at $4.725M.  There's a very good chance those two contracts were basically agreed on at the same time (neither deal makes sense without the context of the other one) but they waited the full year to announce it to avoid any questions of wrongdoing.

 

4 hours ago, alfredoh2009 said:

I assumed the Habs and Kotkaniemi were letting the later tend to his father and that a contract with Montreal was a formality 

 

Considering pretty much all high draft picks see their second contracts drag out into September, this was more just standard procedure than the Habs doing him a favour.  Kotkaniemi's agent is the one that negotiates the contract and there'd be no reason why he couldn't have been handling talks a month ago if there was anything to discuss.  But everybody involved in the talks knows late summer is when these deals get done now.

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Decision time Saturday coming up. I've been back and forth on this many times and I really don't know the right answer of whether to match or let him walk. It is an extremely tough decision to make. 

 

Where I struggle with is whether he will ever be a true second line player? To this point he has not shown that he is capable. He is still young however. For some reason he gives me Sean Couturier vibes. I think they are somewhat similar players and both were brought in at a very young age. At the start of Couturier's career he did not put up many points and really not until his seventh season did he break out. Today he is a very good defensive player who puts up just under a point per game that any team would take. This is the player I would like Kotkaniemi to become. 

 

I think you only match if one of these two scenarios:

1 - You think he has the potential to be a good second line player. The team should be the best judge as they have all the info on him and have seen him develop. 

2 - You talk to Kotkaniemi and see what a long term contract would look like after this one year. If you have to go slightly higher then what Carolina is offering and its a reasonable cap hit then he's worth the risk. You'll get the sense of whether he will sign long term or if he'll expect the high 1 year qualifying number next year. 

 

My Prediction: The Habs let him walk and fill their needs with a trade.

 

My Want: Match and hope he becomes Couturier.

 

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9 minutes ago, Habsfan84 said:

Decision time Saturday coming up. I've been back and forth on this many times and I really don't know the right answer of whether to match or let him walk. It is an extremely tough decision to make. 

 

Where I struggle with is whether he will ever be a true second line player? To this point he has not shown that he is capable. He is still young however. For some reason he gives me Sean Couturier vibes. I think they are somewhat similar players and both were brought in at a very young age. At the start of Couturier's career he did not put up many points and really not until his seventh season did he break out. Today he is a very good defensive player who puts up just under a point per game that any team would take. This is the player I would like Kotkaniemi to become. 

 

I think you only match if one of these two scenarios:

1 - You think he has the potential to be a good second line player. The team should be the best judge as they have all the info on him and have seen him develop. 

2 - You talk to Kotkaniemi and see what a long term contract would look like after this one year. If you have to go slightly higher then what Carolina is offering and its a reasonable cap hit then he's worth the risk. You'll get the sense of whether he will sign long term or if he'll expect the high 1 year qualifying number next year. 

 

My Prediction: The Habs let him walk and fill their needs with a trade.

 

My Want: Match and hope he becomes Couturier.

 

I just think they have to match. He hasn't found his ceiling yet and he's still growing into his body. I want to see one more year of him. Asset management be damned. Unless they can trade a winger, a prospect, and picks for an elite centre, you gotta match.

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1 hour ago, Habsfan84 said:

...

2 - You talk to Kotkaniemi and see what a long term contract would look like after this one year. If you have to go slightly higher then what Carolina is offering and its a reasonable cap hit then he's worth the risk. You'll get the sense of whether he will sign long term or if he'll expect the high 1 year qualifying number next year ...

Don't believe they can have that conversation until after the offer sheet is matched

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3 hours ago, BCHabnut said:

I just think they have to match. He hasn't found his ceiling yet and he's still growing into his body. I want to see one more year of him. Asset management be damned. Unless they can trade a winger, a prospect, and picks for an elite centre, you gotta match.

I think they have to match. The fxcked up asset management when they brought him up to soon. I don’t have much confidence in them drafting someone better with a pick in the 20’s. Have they drafted an impact player that late since the maxpac pick?

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42 minutes ago, hab29RETIRED said:

I think they have to match. The fxcked up asset management when they brought him up to soon. I don’t have much confidence in them drafting someone better with a pick in the 20’s. Have they drafted an impact player that late since the maxpac pick?

The choice is really matching -- or using the picks to trade for a 2C. I think it's highly unlikely that Bergevin would decline to match and then keep the picks.

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1 hour ago, tomh009 said:

The choice is really matching -- or using the picks to trade for a 2C. I think it's highly unlikely that Bergevin would decline to match and then keep the picks.

 

I agree it's highly unlikely MB would decline to match and keep the picks although I would rather them keep the picks if they don't match. There will be pressure to find another centre and they aren't easy to find unless of course you are willing to overpay

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1 hour ago, tomh009 said:

The choice is really matching -- or using the picks to trade for a 2C. I think it's highly unlikely that Bergevin would decline to match and then keep the picks.

Question then is, do you get a better player than KK will be over the next 5 years with those picks?? I doubt it. 
 

if we package are own number one, we risk it being a lottery puck - we were a Bubble team as it is. I don’t like spending  money on older players like Hoffman and Savard, at the expense of losing younger olayers, when those two players are really not going to make a big enough improvement to be a serious playoff team. 
 

we risk going down the same path as the Oilers snd Sens did after going to the finals, by adding supplementally pieces, when we really needed to add more core players. 
 

We may have gone to the finals, but I think we miss the playoffs the next two years. This is not the time to be giving up picks, or letting a 21 year old centre go fir late round picks.

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One more day to go and find out what the next chapter in this saga has in reserve for us

 

... my precious ... Gollum, Gollum... isn’t KK my precious :money: :money: :money: :money: :money: :money: 
$6M Baby

:money: :money: :money: :money: :money: :money: 

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1 hour ago, BCHabnut said:

My money is on matching. Carolina will probably finish in the top 3rd of the league. I wouldn't trade kk for a 22nd overall. Match it and sign him long term b4 end of season

 

That's where I am leaning right now.  I just don't see MB in a position to make a good trade. The other GM's can smell desperation and will bend him over.  If he doesn't match then keep the picks and we take a step back this year and go into the 22 draft  with a bunch of picks, one of which is likely a high first rounder.  It's supposed to be a deep draft. 

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On 9/2/2021 at 1:57 PM, alfredoh2009 said:

I assumed the Habs and Kotkaniemi were letting the later tend to his father and that a contract with Montreal was a formality 

 

If it was a formality it should have been done already. Unless KK was asking for an unreasonable raise, I see no use in haggling over half a million on the cap for our #3 overall prospect.

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23 minutes ago, Neech said:

If it was a formality it should have been done already. Unless KK was asking for an unreasonable raise, I see no use in haggling over half a million on the cap for our #3 overall prospect.

OR ... KK and his agent knew if the 'Canes had not pulled off their Plan A to improve their forward complement by late August they would be submitting an offer sheet ... so KK et al could afford to be patient.

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41 minutes ago, GHT120 said:

OR ... KK and his agent knew if the 'Canes had not pulled off their Plan A to improve their forward complement by late August they would be submitting an offer sheet ... so KK et al could afford to be patient.

For younger players, the agent often has very strong influence in guiding their decisions. In this case it's Markus Lehto (MVP) who represents more than 20 Finnish players, including Lindell, Teravainen and Kapanen (and previously Rask). I expect he knows enough to have set the negotiating strategy.

 

(Aho, Armia and Lehkonen are represented by the other major Finnish agent, Mika Rautakallio -- son of former WHA and NHL player Pekka.)

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29 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

My gut feeling is that MB is going to match.

If so, this is what he needs to say ...

Quote

This was an easy decision. Jesperi is one of the best players in the league and a centrepiece of what we’re building here. We’ve spoken to him throughout this process and he’s made it clear that he wants to be in Montreal and be a part of this organization.

 

It’s our job to manage our cap space as our players develop and hit free agency. There was no concern at any point that we would not be able to match this contract. Once again, the Montreal Canadiens should not be underestimated. We have a plan and all the resources to win a Stanley Cup.

 

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3 minutes ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

I think the part about "one of the best players in the league" is going just a little overboard. The rest is fine. 

Yeah, I know ... but it's pretty much verbatim from Waddell's press release two years ago.

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11 hours ago, Peter Puck said:

Wait, I thought the Habs were not permitted to talk to KK until they matched.  But that quote from 2 years ago from Waddell indicates the Canes were talking with Aho before matching.

 

Kotkaniemi has remained on Montreal's reserve list throughout this process which means he's still property of the Canadiens.  They're allowed to talk to their own player even with the offer sheet.  If we're being technical, it's actually Carolina that can't talk to him at this point as he's now a contracted player and no longer a free agent.

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