The Kotkaniemi affair ended in pretty dramatic fashion, with the Canadiens choosing not to match Carolina's offer sheet, then trading for Christian Dvorak to shore up their depth at centre.
Once again, Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek put out a weekend edition of the '31 Thoughts' podcast to dissect the whole situation on Sunday.
When talking about whether this successful offer sheet will change the landscape going forward, Friedman mentioned a couple of things that would be of interest to Canucks fans.
Most importantly, he mentioned that Vancouver was the team with the most concern about a potential offer sheet this summer, on Elias Pettersson. And that theory was certainly backed up by the way the Canucks cleared out cap space before free agency, to make sure they could match an offer that might arise.
As we saw over the last week, Carolina's late-summer timing may have been an important part of the offer sheet's success.
On their own side, the Hurricanes didn't move until they had their own major offseason business complete, with Andrei Svechnikov signed. And I don't think it's a coincidence that they waited until after this matter was settled before announcing that Jake Gardiner and his $4.05 million cap hit will be on long-term injured reserve this season while he recovers from a pair of major surgeries.
That will easily balance the cap overage caused by Kotkaniemi's new contract. But I can see why they wouldn't have wanted the Canadiens — and possibly even Svechnikov's reps — to know that they had that wiggle room.
Meanwhile, on the Montreal side, it might have been easier for them to make budget adjustments if the offer sheet had come on the morning of the first day of free agency — like their offer to Sebastian Aho two years ago.
Per
CapFriendly, the Habs made seven free-agent signings on July 28 and 29, as well as re-upping two of their own players during that same timeframe.
The cap hits that are over $1 million:
Joel Armia: 4 years @ $3.4 million (pending UFA signed July 27)
Arturri Lekhonen: 1 year @ $2.3 million
David Savard: 4 years @ $3.5 million
Mike Hoffman: 3 years @ $4.5 million
When Montreal GM Marc Bergevin spoke to the media on Monday, he said that a two-year bridge deal for Kotkaniemi was 'coming.'
Friedman said that over the last week, Bergevin explored every possibility of how he could potentially fill his hole at centre if he let Kotkaniemi go. That certainly included an exploration of Tomas Hertl in San Jose, and there were questions about whether he might try to offer sheet Pettersson to fill the void.
In the end, slotting in an established two-way guy in Christian Dvorak was a good fit.
And of course, a successful offer on Pettersson would have cost more than the first and second-round picks that Bergevin gave up to acquire Dvorak. Kotkaniemi's $6.1 million cap hit brought back a first and a third to the Canadiens, but if his cap hit had been higher, the price would have gone up.
An $8 million offer, for instance, would deliver compensation of a first, a second and a third. At $9 or $10 million, it'd be two firsts, a second and a third, and by $10.5 million, you're up to four first-round picks.
Also, there's the whole, 'He'd have to sign it' factor. And while some have argued that it was an easy decision for Kotkaniemi to bite on $6.1 million when the Habs were offering something like $2.5 million, I'm sure his decision was also influenced by the fact that in Carolina, he'll get a chance to play with two other outstanding Finns in Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen.
Still — when we see an offer sheet successfully executed for the first time since 2007 and just the second time in the salary-cap era, there will probably be ripple effects. In the past, Jim Benning was willing to wait till the eve of training camp to sign RFAs Bo Horvat and Brock Boeser to their second deals. He — and other general managers — may need to think about adjusting that approach going forward.
I also wonder if we'll see a chance in how late-season signings play out, which lead to those 10.2(c) designations that leave players like Quinn Hughes ineligible for offer sheets.
As far as the current negotiations for Hughes and Pettersson go right now, Friedman reiterated the report we saw on the weekend from Rick Dhaliwal. He said that the two sides took a break from talks for most of last month but are ready to get back to bargaining this week.
According to his Instagram, Pettersson is still in Sweden, where he has just put himself through the grueling VO2Max test on the stationary bike.
Meanwhile, Vasily Podkolzin posted a couple of Instagram stories since my last blog — one from the airport in Moscow, and one from a balcony that appears to be part of the Georgia St. rental building that's attached to Rogers Arena and looks west toward the downtown Vancouver skyline. After the long wait, it's great to see him here at last!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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