If you follow me on Twitter, you saw yesterday that I wasted no time getting home after the Stanley Cup was handed out to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday night.
I'm so happy that after the smoke from the U.S. fires and last week's monsoon, we're getting one last run of spectacular weather before the season changes for real. Going to do my best to make the most of this after spending the better part of the last three weeks in either my hotel room or the hockey arena.
At some point — probably when the rain rolls in — it's going to sink in that we really don't have a new hockey season to keep us occupied. While I was away, I think part of my brain was still believing that once I got home, everything would be back to normal — even though I obviously know that's not the case.
Much like in March, I think it'll take awhile before we start to see a real plan for next season start to come into focus.
Elliotte Friedman lays out some of the issues in his new
31 Thoughts column. When will the new season be able to start? How will the league be able to come up with a plan to get fans — and their wallets — safely back into arenas, even in limited numbers at first? And how will the burden of reduced revenues be shared?
As I've been saying for months, I think it's been important for the league to keep declaring that it wants to play an 82-game regular season, as a gesture of good faith toward the contracts that currently exist with its broadcast partners. But if that's not possible, will player salaries be prorated?
Larry Brooks of
The New York Post says there's language in the new memorandum of understanding which says the players cannot be asked to make more concessions than what they've already agreed to.
With his decades of experience covering the NHL, Brooks is pretty sharp when it comes to money matters. But I don't think his concerns address the fact that the new financial plan is still structured around an eventual 50/50 revenue split, but over a longer timeframe. So I think if players insist on being paid the full amount they're entitled to in 2020-21, that'll end up being deducted from payments in future years if it ends up totalling more than half of hockey-related revenues — which I'm sure it would if arenas can't operate at full capacity.
So I don't know if the financials are carved in stone quite as permanently as Brooks is suggesting. But we'll see.
These money questions do loom over the upcoming signing and free-agency period — both in terms of the real dollars that organizations need to dole out to players, and the commitments that they can make under the $81.5 million salary cap and what's being called the 'internal salary cap' that many teams are now working under — both on the player side and in their business operations.
As I said right after the Canucks were eliminated from the playoffs, a juicy contract extension for Travis Green would probably have been an early order of business in a normal offseason after his fine debut postseason performance. But as things currently stand, we don't know when Green's services will be required again — although I imagine he's probably still scouting and planning, like he did during the pause. He is under contract for one more year, and it makes sense for the Canucks to wait on signing a new deal with him until they get some idea of what next season — and its accompanying revenue stream — will look like.
My guess is that the combination of that uncertainty and the flooded goalie market will ultimately help the Canucks when it comes to Jacob Markstrom's impending free agency, though. To put it in economic terms — scarcity drives value. And even though Markstrom did get noticed on the national stage this year, finishing fourth in Vezina Trophy voting, there are plenty of quality netminding options available on the open market this offseason.
Even teams with cap space will still be trying to pinch real pennies. If they think they can get a decent goalie at a mid-range price, they'd probably think long and hard about whether or not they wanted to pony up the extra bucks for a high-end guy like Markstrom.
If there's less competition for his services, it increases Vancouver's chances of being either the highest bidder or close enough that he'd still choose the familiarity of a good situation over the unknown that would come from changing teams.
Call me crazy, but I still think a deal will get done that keeps Markstrom in Vancouver.
The other thing I'm watching closely over the next week is whether some high-end draft picks end up changing hands.
Ottawa and New Jersey both have three first-round picks — and Ottawa has four second-rounders as well. The Sens cleared even more salary-cap room with their buyout of Bobby Ryan last week, so they need some bodies for next season and could afford to take on substantial contracts. They'll always have trouble attracting free agents, and I'm sure most players who have trade protection have Ottawa on their lists. But as we saw last week, with Patric Hornqvist going to Florida, even players with protection can be moved. I don't think he'll be the last one we see change teams this offseason.
I keep wanting to say 'summer'!
Now that they've won their Stanley Cup, the Lightning are in the spotlight for another year of cap pressures. That's what happens when you keep developing talent.
CapFriendly is showing the Lightning with just 15 players signed for next season, and only $5.3 million in available cap space. So, there's talk about whether they'd be vulnerable to an offer sheet on October 9, when free agency opens.
They've got three important young RFAs to re-up: forward Anthony Cirelli, who's just 23 and is already being discussed as Selke-worthy for his two-way play, plus defensemen Mikhail Sergachev and Erik Cernak.
Sergachev is maturing into a top-pairing defenseman but Cernak's no slouch, either — picked up from L.A. as part of the deal that sent Ben Bishop to the Kings at the 2017 trade deadline. He's big, at 6'3" and 233 pounds, he has a mean streak, he's a steady right-shot defender — and he's 23.
Could the Canucks offer sheet him for the same money they'd otherwise earmark for Chris Tanev? And would Cernak accept that type of offer?
I think it's more likely that Julien BriseBois finds a way to move out a more veteran player, with a significant cap hit, in exchange for one of those first-rounders that's out in the marketplace — essentially replicating the deal he made with the Canucks last year when he moved out J.T. Miller.
Tyler Johnson gets discussed a lot as possible trade bait. I'd say Alex Killorn and Yanni Gourde are also on that tier. And given how effectively BriseBois has managed the Lightning roster since he took over as GM two years ago, I'm not betting against him getting his ducks in a row before any of his young studs are at risk of being poached.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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