Coyotes Take On Cap Space, Flyers Take On Gagner

			2015		2016
To Philadelphia	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
Sam Gagner	F	25	15	41	$3.2 mil
Conditional Draft Pick
Retained $500k of Grossmann's salary
--------------
To Arizona	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
Niklas Grossmann	D	30	5	14	$3 mil
Chris Pronger	D	40	0	0	$4.9 mil

The head-scratcher of all head-scratchers, I guess... but in a salary cap world, this deal starts to make sense, slowly.

The Arizona Coyotes are not doing themselves any favours, as a franchise, with a huge rebuild, while their team is fighting for the location lives in Glendale, AZ, but this is the story, as it is right now.  They are poised to be a salary cap floor team in 2015 and they have been trying desperately to find a good starting point, by tearing away some of the loose ends.

On the other hand, the Philadelphia Flyers are in salary cap hell.  They were one of the teams, which took on some ugly contracts and handed some out and with the salary cap ceiling not moving up as fast as some teams may have hoped for, they go into this off-season and into the 2016 regular season with hands tied behind their backs.

Forward Sam Gagner has had quite the last year or so, ousted from his initial home in Edmonton, dealt twice in the same day to accommodate team's wishes, ended up in the desert for the 2015 season, but had fallen out of favour quickly and has now been sent off to Philadelphia to play out the last year of his current 3-year deal.

To Gagner's credit, for us poolies anyways, he was able to play in 81 games for Arizona and he put up 41 points in the process, which was good for 122nd among all forwards, situated nicely in the middle of the pool worthy forwards, but that just wasn't enough for the Coyotes to wish him back for another year.

If there was ever a good place for Gagner to go, it would be to Philadelphia, home of the black sheep.

In return, the Coyotes did receive a roster player, one to help man the undermanned blueline, they currently have, veteran defenseman Niklas Grossmann.  Grossmann, a cagey defender of the stay-at-home variety, doesn't do a great deal on offense, except pick up the occasional point, but a guy, who could help Oliver Ekman-Larsson, by covering his back on those offensive rushes.

The Flyers do have a glutton of blueline talent and they still do, after trading Grossmann, thanks to drafting one of the top junior defensemen available in Ivan Provorov.

The real interesting part of the return for the Coyotes, one that has caused much debate, is the inclusion of Chris Pronger's contract, which is still active and still carries some weight, even though he is unofficially retired and working for the NHL at the executive level.

Since Pronger's deal was so long and a 35+ contract (a huge factor), buying him out was not going to be an option for the Flyers, as it would still count against the cap in full, thanks to the 35+ status and they were not going to work with that at all.  During the regular season, the Flyers would put him on the Long Term Injured Reserve, which gives them the cap relief they need, while he didn't play and Bob was your proverbial uncle.  The kicker, however, was that the 35+ contract still wreaked havoc on the Flyers, thanks to the off-season tagging math, for governing how much a team can spend and how much they can carry through the off-season.  In the Summer, there is no LTIR, so Pronger's numbers counted, thus limiting how much the Flyers could do, in terms of free agency, this year being a huge burden, since the cap ceiling didn't move much.

This was a deal sweetener for the Flyers, who kept a bit of Grossmann's cap hit to move this deal along, as the Coyotes are working towards being a cap floor team, even in the off-season.  Having Pronger's deal on the books, for now, gives them nearly $5 million in tagging value, which goes a long way with the amount of math that has to be done to remain compliant, once the new salary cap numbers are in place.

The Flyers, on the other hand, are now free and clear of that big lump of money and they can operate a little more freely now, so the Flyers can be the bullies of the free agent market again.

It's a huge deal and has it's merits and it's pitfalls to the CBA, but now that it has all been okayed by the league, it will be interesting to see what happens.

All I know for sure, Gagner in a Flyers uniform doesn't sound like a terrible thing.

Dubnyk Avoids the Free Market

The Minnesota Wild were in a bit of a panic, coming into this weekend, about not having their number one goalie, Devan Dubnyk, under contract before July 1st.  Dubnyk was headed towards unrestricted free agency, for the first time in his career, and he had career-year numbers, to help drive up his value.

Sure enough, the Wild and Dubnyk were able to get a deal done, signing a 6-year contract extension on Saturday afternoon, reportedly worth $26 million.  It's certainly not one of the higher paid deals in the NHL, but the term is exceptional, which means Dubnyk will be getting a paycheque for quite some time.

Before the 2015 season, Dubnyk had never ranked any higher than 27th amongst his fellow crease jockeys, but after a slow start, playing as the number two guy in Arizona to start the year and then getting dealt to Minnesota, he had a top notch year, finishing 7th among all goalies in scoring, thanks to 36 wins between the two sides.  Overall, his total points came in at 86, which was good enough for 9th overall in pool scoring.

In last season's hockey pool, Dubnyk wasn't taken during the initial draft in September, nor did anyone try to make up for a mistake of another goalie at the preseason Waiver Draft.  No, he had to hold out until the first full Waiver Draft in Week Nine, where afterwards, the team that picked him up, was able to collect 74 of his 86 points, thanks to having picked him up, while he was still in Arizona.

It remains to be seen, how much of an impact he has left on the hockey pool, as there may be some questions about how he'll play in his second act, as the new superstar goaltender in the league.

Now that the Wild have their man, what happens to the rest of the crew?  It does sound like Darcy Kuemper is going to be the guy that is behind Dubnyk next season, but an elbow injury isn't going to allow the Wild to buyout Niklas Backstrom before the end of the window, so take that for what is worth.  Dubnyk ate a lot of minutes in that stretch with the Wild, so as a hockey poolie, does it even matter who plays back-up?

Edmonton Lands Talbot

			2015		2016
To Edmonton	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
Cam Talbot	G	28	21	52	$1.4 mil
2015 7th Round Draft Pick
--------------
To New York	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
2015 2nd Round Draft Pick
2015 3rd Round Draft Pick
2015 7th Round Draft Pick

The goalie market remained quite interesting later on into the day on Saturday, as the Edmonton Oilers claim, what could be the big prize of the day, in goalie Cam Talbot, who had a pretty darn good year, filling in for Henrik Lundqvist, during his vascular injury, and putting up some good numbers for the Rangers.

In return, the Oilers sent over some more picks to their fold, the 2nd rounder was flipped to the Capitals later, but they still managed to make a few more picks.

Talbot was thought to be the best goaltending prospect among those available on the market, most of which were traded, by the time this deal was done, but the Edmonton Oilers didn't really do much to shore up their defense for the coming year and still remains a huge question mark, just ahead of the free agent frenzy.

Sure, the Oilers got the best player in the entry draft, the (arguably) best goalie in the trade market, but I don't think it's enough today.  There will be points for us hockey poolies, but that may not appease the Edmonton fans next season.

Rangers Ship Out Hagelin, Gain Etem

			2015		2016
To Anaheim	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
Carl Hagelin	F	26	17	35	RFA
2015 2nd Round Draft Pick
2015 6th Round Draft Pick
--------------
To New York	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
Emerson Etem	F	23	5	10	RFA
2015 2nd Round Draft Pick

The New York Rangers swung a pretty decent sized trade, just to move up a few spots in the draft, as they managed to snag a young, up-and-coming forward in Emerson Etem, heading to a cheap restricted free agency and the pick, while sending speedy (and unsigned) Carl Hagelin to the Ducks with the lower pick in the 2nd round and a 6th round pick for their troubles.

Hagelin was certainly going to be a handful in free agent talks and with the Rangers' budget tightening up some, lots of roster spots available, but only so much money to go around, so an option was provided, which apparently looked good to the Rangers, while adding more speed to an Anaheim, which isn't too slow to begin with.

The Swede is the only established pool player of the two, but with some added ice-time for Etem, he could potentially start being a low-end hockey pool drafted player.  His 10 points last season were not spectacular, nor was his scoring rate of 0.22 points per game, but his minutes were limited, so he success goes with the amount of ice-time he gets.

Stars Want First Crack at Niemi

			2015		2016
To Dallas	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
Antti Niemi	G	31	31	75	UFA
--------------
To San Jose	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
2015 7th Round Draft Pick

Some team thought it was worth a late round pick to have first crack at the best unrestricted free agent to hit the market in a few days.

The Dallas Stars are potentially putting together an all-Finnish crease, as they will enter into some hard & fast negotiations with Antti Niemi, hoping to pair him up with Kari Lehtonen in the 2016 season, which could potentially give the Stars a strong 1-2 punch in net, but in turn, dwindle these two goalies in their hockey pool points, as they will both be craving minutes and it will be hard for any coach to pick one over the other for long stretches.

This deal has some potential in the win column for the team, but can the Stars give the kind of assurances that Niemi wants in a new deal?  That really becomes the big question.  I would be very hesitant to rate any Stars goalie very high in the coming weeks, if the deal gets done.

The Wiz Blows into Carolina

			2015		2016
To Carolina	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
James Wisniewski	D	31	8	34	$5.5 mil
--------------
To Anaheim	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
Anton Khudobin	G	29	9	20	$2.25 mil

Lots of moving parts in this deal... okay, well, two moving parts, but plenty of reasons for the moves.

Shortly after the Hurricanes acquired Eddie Lack from the Canucks, they had an even bigger glutton of goaltending to work with and as the Canes gave Lack a chance to be better somewhere else, they were good enough to offer Anton Khudobin the same prospect elsewhere, given it was about his time to do something.

For the Anaheim Ducks, James Wisniewski was the highest paid healthy scratch of the playoffs, as he did not make it into the good graces of the Anaheim coaching staff and he found himself watching from the press box, as his team was eliminated by the eventual Stanley Cup Champions.  There's no doubt, that something had to give.

To be fair, the Ducks didn't need any more goaltending with the big club, as Frederik Andersen and John Gibson are being looked towards as two big pieces to a small puzzle down the line.  One of those two might get the same treatment that both Lack and Khudobin got today, before too long.  It isn't quite understood, who might take the reins in the minors, but this doesn't look very good good for the new acquisition, unless the Ducks are wanting Gibson to continue to make starts in the AHL.

The Hurricanes already have a lot of bodies signed on to the roster, but when you take a good portion of those away, they had cap space to give.  Carolina could certainly take on the contract and the potential of possibly seeing a few more points from the blueline, trying to turn that ship around.  Wisniewski can be a very good hockey pool defenseman and there is a definite potential for ice-time in this deal.

Canucks Send Lack to Canes

			2015		2016
To Carolina	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
Eddie Lack	G	27	18	40	$1.15 mil
--------------
To Vancouver	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
2015 3rd Round Draft Pick
2016 7th Round Draft Pick

The Vancouver Canucks were in the business of dealing a goalie over this weekend and were hoping to capture a 2nd round draft pick for one of theirs, but that didn't quite materialize.  However, a deal did materialize, where the Canucks were able to move one of their goalies, Eddie Lack, and in return, they picked up a 3rd round pick from this year and a very late pick next year.

Lack has proven that he can manage a decent sized workload in the NHL and with 18 wins and 40 points last season, the Hurricanes get themselves a pool-capable goalie, who is now scheduled to play behind Cam Ward, possibly pushing him a little harder to become a starting goalie again.

Palmieri to the Devils

This one may be more of a fringe trade, but later on Friday night, not long after the opening round of the Entry Draft, the Anaheim Ducks off-loaded a little bit of fringe hockey pool talent to the New Jersey Devils, who were in need of a bit more depth.  The Devils acquiring forward Kyle Palmieri for the #41st overall pick, it will be interesting to see where the New York native fits with the Devils.

			2015		2016
To New Jersey	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
Kyle Palmieri	F	24	14	29	$1.5 mil
--------------
To Anaheim	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
2015 2nd Round Draft Pick, #41 Overall

Palmieri ranked 196th among all forwards in scoring last season and currently 154th among those with contracts for next season.  He'll surely fall down that list, but he gets a fringe benefit mention in this deal.

Fringe Signings (June 26)

It was a pretty big deal for the Minnesota Wild to sign NCAA defenseman Mike Reilly on Friday, but at this point, he will still only count as a fringe signing, since we haven't really seen him play, nor do we really know what kind of impact he'll have on the NHL in his rookie season.  He will, however, be under the microscope, after signing a 2-year entry-level deal, which carries a cap hit of $925,000 per season.

Reilly was made into a free agent, after the Blue Jackets failed to sign him as their 2011 4th round pick, coming out of college.  If he doesn't sign, he can become a free agent and that's what he did.  Reilly played his NCAA career in Minnesota and his father is a part of the Wild ownership group, so it added up quickly in the Wild's favour.

Shortly after the Bruins dealt Dougie Hamilton to the Flames, they were able to re-sign defender Adam McQuaid, giving him a 4-year deal, worth $11 million.  McQuaid, known more for his responsibility in his own end, might see a little bit more offense time, given the depth on the line has shrunk considerably in recent years.  This would be why he would be considered a fringe signing... a lofty expectation, to say the least.

Last season, in 63 games, McQuaid scored 1 goal and 7 points.

Sabres Add O'Reilly

			2015		2016
To Buffalo	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
Ryan O'Reilly	F	24	17	55	$6 mil
Jamie McGinn	F	26	4	16	$2.95 mil
--------------
To Colorado	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
Nikita Zadorov	D	20	3	15	$894k
Mikhail Grigorenko	F	21	3	6	RFA
J.T. Compher	F	20	0	0	USD
2015 2nd Round Draft Pick, #31 Overall

The Buffalo Sabres added another piece to their rebuilding puzzle, taking advantage of the Colorado Avalanche and their budget woes, snapping up forward Ryan O'Reilly in a pretty decent sized package deal.

O'Reilly was joined by forward Jamie McGinn, while the package back included a couple of Russian prospects with some NHL experience in Nikita Zadorov and Mikhail Girgorenko, a 2013 draft pick in J.T. Compher and the 31st overall pick, the first pick of the 2nd round.

The biggest piece of this deal, O'Reilly, adds a huge piece down the middle for the Sabres, one of the most important pieces an NHL team is looking for.  O'Reilly brings a very solid two-way game, leadership and a lot of intangibles to a team that is desperately in need of them.

The Avalanche, who needed to make this move for budgetary reasons, picked up a couple of X factor players in Zadorov and Grigorenko, both have some exceptional skill, but haven't been able to bring that talent to the mature levels of the NHL yet.

This is a very dynamic trade, it will be interesting to see how much good it will bring the Avalanche, but the Sabres know that they have done a huge amount of work already to turn this organization around and that includes taking Jack Eichel in the number two pick spot.

Kings Collect Lucic from Bruins

			2015		2016
To Los Angeles	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
Milan Lucic	F	27	18	44	$3.3 mil
--------------
To Boston	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
2015 1st Round Draft Pick, #13 Overall
Retains $2.7 mil of Lucic's 2016 cap hit
Martin Jones	G	25	4	15	RFA
Colin Miller	D	22	0	0	$603k

The Boston Bruins are keeping busy on this draft day, as they try to retool their team from a disappointing 2015 season, missing out on the playoffs.

With their second big deal of the day, the Bruins shipped Milan Lucic off to the Los Angeles Kings for a package, which included restricted free agent goalie Martin Jones, prospect defender Colin Miller and the Kings 1st round pick, the 13th overall selection.

Lucic, will get a new refreshing place to play, while the Bruins get a new back-up goalie and a little bit more cap flexibility with the deal.

With Dougie Hamilton shipped off to Calgary, a good chunk of Lucic's cap hit off to Los Angeles, an Adam McQuaid signing, the Bruins now have 14 players on their projected roster, now coming in at $58.7 million, now giving them $15.4 million in cap space to sign in nine players.  They are now miles better than they were 24 hours ago and now they have three 1st round picks: 13th, 14th and 15th overall.

This might not be all for them today.

Bruins Ship Hamilton's Rights to Calgary

			2015		2016
To Calgary	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
Dougie Hamilton	D	22	10	42	RFA
--------------
To Boston	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
2015 1st Round Draft Pick, #15 Overall
2015 2nd Round Draft Pick, #45 Overall
2015 2nd Round Draft Pick, #54 Overall

The threat of an impending offer sheet was far too great for the Boston Bruins, given their salary cap status and the potential of defenseman Dougie Hamilton, so they had their hand forced and sourced out a huge deal with the Calgary Flames, as three top end picks in a deep draft head the other way.

Of course, the Flames will have to work hard to sign Hamilton to a new deal, which will likely not reflect a bridge deal or anything like that, so it will be fairly hefty moving forward.  Hamilton will join a very deep blueline already, having Mark Giordano, Dennis Wideman, T.J. Brodie and Kris Russell already.

This will definitely offer up some good debate, as to which team has the better blueline, indeed.  More will certainly drop, when the contract is eventually signed.

Toffoli Re-Signs in Hollywood

Another one of the key RFA's of the Summer has been struck from the list, as the Los Angeles Kings have re-signed forward Tyler Toffoli, giving him a new deal worth $6.5 million over the next two seasons.

His $3.25 million cap hit should be a pretty good bargain for an improvement on his 23 goals and 49 points in 76 games during the 2015 season, where he ranked 80th among all forwards in scoring.  At age 23, his career trajectory is heading in the right direction and he could be a pretty good pick-up in the 5th round of the hockey pool draft.

The Kings are back to putting together a competitive side for the 2016 season, now having most of their key free agents in place and likely letting some older talent move on.  By my early count, I have the Kings in with 19 players at around $64.6 million, giving them plenty of room to wiggle in some free agents under the cap ceiling.

Sabres Start Goalie Dominoes

			2015		2016
To Buffalo	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
Robin Lehner	G	23	9	19	$2.25 mil
David Legwand	F	34	9	27	$3 mil
--------------
To Ottawa	POS	Age	G/W	P	Cap
2015 1st Round Draft Pick, #21 Overall

The hotly-anticipated goalie trade market got off to an early start, with the Sabres taking on Robin Lehner from the Ottawa Senators, immediately giving him the role as a number one keeper, barring any more moves today.

Lehner was acquired with veteran centre, David Legwand, in a deal, which sent the 21st overall draft pick to Ottawa, which now gives them a pair of picks in the opening round of the draft tonight, #18 and #21.

We'll keep these posts short and sweet, since it will be a busy day today, but I think the Senators did an amazing job on this trade, coming out as sure winners, by far.  They gain a huge draft pick, they dump a serious chunk of change, be rid of a goalie that really didn't jump at the chance at being a number one and they are far more flexible then they were before.

The Sabres do okay, in the short-term, as well, but I don't think they come away as winners on this one.  Sure, management knows their new goalie from their time in Ottawa, but the combination of Lehner/Chad Johnson is not going to dazzle anyone.  Legwand will be a big help to a kid like Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart, but he won't be a guy that puts this team back in the saddle any time soon.  I don't think the Sabres got fleeced, but I'm not sure they blew the doors off with this deal.

Predators Ink Fisher

The Nashville Predators have the longest list of things to-do in this off-season, but they were able to take care of one of those things, checking off one of the top unrestricted free agent forwards from the list.

On Friday morning, it was announced that the Predators re-signed forward Mike Fisher to a new 2-year deal, worth $8.8 million over the course of the contract.  That works out to be a $4.4 million cap hit per season.

Thanks to his Achilles injury, just before the regular season, his 2015 year was limited to only 59 games, but he was still able to score 19 goals and 39 points in that time.  This made for a very impressive scoring rate and he turned into one of the key Waiver Draft picks of last season.

Fisher certainly keeps a bit of scoring depth with the Predators, heading into the 2016 season.  It will be more interesting to see how the team decides to dress up his line for the most amount of success.