Last summer Christian Ehrhoff was bought out by the Buffalo Sabres and became a 32-year old free agent. Word on the street was that he was less concerned about money given what he still had coming from Buffalo as part of his buy out and more concerned about finding a chance to compete for the Cup. In a white hot market for defensemen last summer (Orpik $5.5M? Niskanen $5.8M, etc.), he signed for what was considered a discount for $4M with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Fast forward to the summer of 2015. Ehrhoff’s goal is reported to again be joining a Cup contender, but the rest of the story is wildly different. The market for the players left over after the initially free agent frenzy is incredibly weak. Cody Franson who seemed to be a wanted pickup heading into July 1st seems to have lost the game of musical chairs, is still unsigned and might now be contemplating a shorter-term deal instead of a lucrative pay off. Ehrhoff’s value seems to have declined and despite that he is only being tied to a small number of teams who seem to have any interest at this point.

In an ideal world, I think Christian Ehrhoff would have wanted two things: 1-Something close to fair value at least in the $3M range and ideally more like the $4M he received last year; 2-The chance to pick an elite team with a good shot at the Cup.

But I think we might have hit the ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ phase of free agency. If I had to guess, it seems like he would be more likely to compromise on $ to get the right team. But is that even an option? When you sort through a list of expected Cup contenders, I really do not see an option for him even if he takes a big discount.

--Chicago. If they move Bickell just maybe that frees up enough cash to sign him, but right now the team needs to use any first allotment of salary cap relief to finally sign Marcus Kruger. It seems unlikely that Chicago can make any room even if Ehrhoff is willing to play for cheap.

--Anaheim. The Ducks definitely have room, but I do not think they have any need. Last season, they added veteran James Wisniewski at the trade deadline only to healthy scratch him in the playoffs when they thought were better going with the young players they already had. They also added Bieksa (who swapped in for Beauchemin) this summer giving them a solid set of 7 – Bieksa, Fowler, Stoner, Vatanen, Lindholm, Despres and Holzer. It is not clear that Ehrhoff is anything more than extra depth on this team with some good young blue liners.

--Tampa. The Lightning returns a blue line that was good enough to make the finals last season. Theoretically, they will create cap space when Ohlund hits LTIR, but with Matthew Carle already pushed down to the #5 slot, it is not clear that Tampa really needs any more veteran depth on the blue line.

--New York Rangers. The Rangers are strong and deep on defense with a solid set of veterans. And even if they wanted to add extra depth Derek Stepan’s deal drained any extra salary cap space that they might have spent on another player. The Rangers sit within a few $100,000 of the cap ceiling and pretty much have their roster built out, so an addition on defense would require some other financial maneuvering and would be a surprise given the team’s strength at this position.

--Pittsburgh. I actually think the Pens could use another veteran defenseman to provide some depth and a plan B in case the youth has a setback. And the team does have about $2M in salary cap. But the 2014-15 season was not a success for Ehrhoff and Pittsburgh, and they parted ways pretty firmly at the end of the season. There was no mention of “would like to have him back”, “if we can work out a price” or anything like that. Both just seemed to move on which makes a return to Pittsburgh real unlikely.

--Montreal. The Habs actually have some cap space (nearly $3M), but they are probably set on defense. The Habs go 5 deep with veteran defensemen who had decent 2014-15 campaigns (Subban, Petry, Markov, Gilbert, Emelin) and have Nathan Belieu ready to jump into the mix and some other youth behind him. In fact, there was some talk that the Habs might actually look to unload one veteran defenseman (Emelin?) to cut a bit of cost and make more room for the kids to assume bigger roles. So adding a veteran like Ehrhoff seems to go in the opposite direction from where they are heading.

--Washington. The Caps go about 5 deep in terms of veteran defensemen and seemed reasonably happy with what they got from the group last season. The Caps also made some key additions offensively to a pretty good 2014-15 team and seem content to tread into the 2015-16 and see what they have. Plus they are right up against the salary cap with no room to add without also subtracting.

--Nashville. The Predators blue line core is solid and also pretty young. They did add a veteran depth defenseman in Barret Jackman, so that would figure to be their only addition this summer unless they just decide to stockpile depth on the cheap in a buyer’s market. But that seems unlikely.

--Minnesota. The Wild is loaded with young defensemen who are both NHL ready and on the way and is fairly tight against the salary cap with about $2M left. I doubt they push all the way to the cap just to add an extra defenseman even if Ehrhoff is available for that price.

--St. Louis. The Blues are another team who are reasonably set at least with the key parts of their blue line and have limited cap space left. They have about $1.8M of cap space which probably is not enough to land Ehrhoff, and even it if is, I doubt they want to limit their flexibility by spending all the way to the cap just to add depth before the season even starts.

We can quibble about who exactly are the bottom couple teams in a top 10, but this list of 10 is fairly close to carving out the top 1/3 of the NHL and finding no likely homes for Christian Ehrhoff’s services.

So if his goal is to play for a Cup contender, he should just continue working his way down the pecking order until he finds a team with a need. Right? Actually, I do not think this makes sense. With the goal of playing for a Cup contender “IN THE PLAYOFFS” not necessarily in October and November, I think he might do better doing the opposite. I think the best indirect path to a chance a deep playoff run goes like this – sign a 1-year deal for reasonable $ (minimizing cap hit) where he can get top 4 ice time and with a partial no-trade clause (basically where he can submit a list of teams). This sets him up to increase his value in a big role and have some degree of control over where he goes at the trade deadline if the team he signs with is out of the playoff chase. Enter the Carolina Hurricanes. Coach Bill Peters would need to sort out the personnel, but my early guess is that with Ehrhoff, the Canes top 4 goes Ehrhoff/Faulk and Hainsey/Wisniewski. The optimistic schemer in me thinks that if a couple things fall into place at forward and in goal that this Canes team could compete for a playoff spot, but an outsider like Ehrhoff would look at this as a chance to build his resume in time for a March trade. I am okay with that.

Think about it. If I am right that there just is no room at the inn for Ehrhoff on a true start of the year Cup contender, is he really better off going to a team likely to be on the playoff fringe or better off going to a team likely to trade him to a contender in March? I say it is the latter.

From a Canes standpoint, I think it also makes sense. Right now, the Canes have 4 veteran defensemen (Faulk, Hainsey, Wisniewski, Liles) and younger, less experienced Michal Jordan also signed to a 1-way deal. The addition of Ehrhoff on a 1-year deal would fill out the top 4-5 slots. This at least makes a rebound and surprise playoff push possible, but it also leaves one slot to be won in training camp by the youth or used to shuttle players in and out of it. It would also push one veteran down to the third pairing to provide a bit of stability instead of throwing 2 kids into the deep end together. And if the kids progress faster than expected and seize higher roles, it is a short-term issue as both Ehrhoff (assumed 1-year deal) and Liles will be free agents next summer and then Wisniewski and Hainsey the following summer.

For Canes fans, we have a fun NCAA tourney bracket style event up and running on the new site where fans vote to see who moves forward. Stop by if you get a chance.

Matt Karash is a long-time passionate Hurricanes hockey fan, season ticket holder and also the founder of Canes and Coffee web site

Twitter=@CanesandCoffee

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