2018/2019 Trade Speculation and Rumors

[SuperMatt18]

With the cap going up recently the general trend has been that you get $1M for every 10 points when signing a contract.

That would put Bennett between $2.5-$3M.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

These are fair points. However, 3 million AAV is par for the course for young forwards who put up 30 points. A quick search on cap friendly shows that lots of comparable players get paid that much

Cody Eakin 3,850,000
Jean-Gabriel Pageau 3,100,000
André Burakovsky $3,000,000
Marcus Foligno $2,875,000
Conor Sheary $3,000,000

All of these players are under 27, and scored no more than 30 points last season. Granted, a lot of teams have gotten better value for their 3 million, but those are mostly older deals. The cap is going up, 3 Mill simply does not buy you as much as it used to.

Most of those are generally considered to be bad contracts though - not the worst in the league but not good value. Pageau was signed after a good playoff run with the Senators, Eakin was exposed in the expansion draft and Sheary was traded for a conditional fourth round pick. I like Bennett and I think he brings more to the game than all those listed above, but he is the type of player who I think you don't sign for over 2.5, especially as the Flames start creeping closer and closer to the cap.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

With the cap going up recently the general trend has been that you get $1M for every 10 points when signing a contract.

Damn, a hundred grand per point. What a living.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

This seems to be the primary reason for the Bennett hate. Basing his value entirely on his point totals won't give you a very good impression of the player. Neither really will full season fancy stats give anything but the partial picture.

He is one of the only forward players on the team who will put as much effort into preventing a goal as scoring one.

His hits, chirping and energy has turned the tide of a game on more than a few occasions.

Although he is a winger, he can slide into the middle and is a good faceoff man.

All in all, if I were to say that we had the bastard baby of stephan yelle and Ville neimimen on the team, and there was still a 20 percent chance he could break out offensively and be a star, everyone should be losing losing their minds with happiness that he's on the team.

Everyone please forget that he was fourth overall, and look at the player.

I apologize for this having nothing to do with this thread.

You lost me with the bolded.

He is OK defensively and may even be getting better, but there are a lot of guys on this team playing well both ways, and some that are oodles better.

Simplisticly as an example, since he entered the NHL his +/- is an abysmal -43 on this club, dead last among the 68 different players to wear the flaming C.

The next worse? Troy Brouwer at -18. That gap is grand canyon sized and is a bit more applicable because its a comparison among guys he plays with.

I agree he has intangibles that are important, especially for this club. That does not mean you pay them what amounts to over a million a year more than similar guys of his ilk....no?

A a greasy 3rd line guy who can kill penalties in a pinch, he is great to have around....at a decent price. It's just figuring out what that price is.

[Nelson]

My estimate for Bennett was obviously low.

I agree that 2.5-2.75 should not make me say that Bennett is a bust. His change in value is not directly related to the change in his salary because salary negotiations do not take into account all a player's contributions to a team. Bennett's underlying numbers have improved significantly over the last couple of years and I love having him on the team.

[David Struch]

Lance Bouma had a career high 34 points too, the Flames still owe $766,667 on that 2.1 million x 3 year contract.

https://www.capfriendly.com/players/lance-bouma

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by neo45

Best comparable offensively to Bennett there is Foligno. None of the others signed their deals off of three sub-30 point seasons in a row. Some guys had significantly more production to their credit (Sheary had a 55 point season etc.)

I think that more proves that Bennett SHOULDN’T get three million if he produces less than 30 points three seasons in a row.

On a second look these, and at a better search I agree, 3M is slightly above average for the player that Sam Bennett is. He would have to have a point total closer to 40 than 30 if he wanted a contract that size.

Here is a list of players that signed between 21-24, who are currently under the age of 27. This tells me that Bennett should be under the 3M mark.

https://www.capfriendly.com/browse/a...gningage-21-24

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by transplant99

You lost me with the bolded.

He is OK defensively and may even be getting better, but there are a lot of guys on this team playing well both ways, and some that are oodles better.

Simplisticly as an example, since he entered the NHL his +/- is an abysmal -43 on this club, dead last among the 68 different players to wear the flaming C.

The next worse? Troy Brouwer at -18. That gap is grand canyon sized and is a bit more applicable because its a comparison among guys he plays with.

I agree he has intangibles that are important, especially for this club. That does not mean you pay them what amounts to over a million a year more than similar guys of his ilk....no?

A a greasy 3rd line guy who can kill penalties in a pinch, he is great to have around....at a decent price. It's just figuring out what that price is.

Still has upside, and he's on the top half of the third line player league wide by numbers.

Player 9 vs player 7 is certainly a range.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by David Struch

Lance Bouma had a career high 34 points too, the Flames still owe $766,667 on that 2.1 million x 3 year contract.

https://www.capfriendly.com/players/lance-bouma

Is that relevant though?

It's one of Treliving's biggest mistakes, and doesn't speak at all to this situation.

The averages for point production and salary have been established, Bouma's contract was signed five years ago and I'm guessing the salary average for players in that range have gone up a lot in that time frame.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Bennett's next contract is also (likely) to be completely RFA years too. A comparable player like Foligno signed his contract which was mostly UFA years and he still got under 3M. If you're not accounting for RFA and UFA contract discrepancies, there's not much of a point in trying to draw comparisons or analyze.

[getoverit]

I had to double check that i was infact reading the 2019 trade speculation and rumour thread, who would knew

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

Most of those are generally considered to be bad contracts though - not the worst in the league but not good value. Pageau was signed after a good playoff run with the Senators, Eakin was exposed in the expansion draft and Sheary was traded for a conditional fourth round pick. I like Bennett and I think he brings more to the game than all those listed above, but he is the type of player who I think you don't sign for over 2.5, especially as the Flames start creeping closer and closer to the cap.

After a longer look they were poor examples.

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Totally fair ...



But in the argument of range I think a 29 point season still gets him 2.5-2.75 and it shouldn't cause a panic or a rush to use the word "bust"

And my post has a 6 year, $4M dollar contract “projected” in it due to another strong playoff performance.

Players get paid for strong playoff performances, and with Bennett’s continued improvement, I don’t think it’d be wild to see the Flames and Bennett come to a long-term agreement that sees us possibly “overpaying” in cap-hit a touch upfront to lock up later years.

Bennett has two RFA years left (I believe) after this year. So take his current 30 point pace, add consistency and continued improvement - what are 4 prime UFA years worth? Frolik snagged a 5 year 4.3M per contract 3 years ago. I think it’s entirely reasonable to expect/believe that Bennett is on track to become a Frolik-like player, possibly better. So 4.3M + cap inflation...6 years at 4M just doesn’t seem wild to me at all, and could be a very good value deal.

Salary breakdown:

RFA: 2.5M
RFA: 2.5M
UFA: 4.25M
UFA: 4.25M
UFA: 5M
UFA: 5.5M

Historically Tree hasn’t really been keen on paying for UFA years. Johnny for example got a 6 year at 6.75M. How many of us would rather that we signed him for an 8 year deal at 7.75M-8M?

There are times where buying those extra years are worth it. I think Bennett could be one of those players, but we’ll see.

[dammage79]

Hope it's Marcus Johansson. Or Kronwall. Or Both.

Also. Seasons not close to being over. Sam Bennett's been great this year despite what people have against him. We will see what his future holds once we get through the playoffs. I suspect that's when Sam Bennett shows his stripes.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by transplant99

You lost me with the bolded.

He is OK defensively and may even be getting better, but there are a lot of guys on this team playing well both ways, and some that are oodles better.

Simplisticly as an example, since he entered the NHL his +/- is an abysmal -43 on this club, dead last among the 68 different players to wear the flaming C.

The next worse? Troy Brouwer at -18. That gap is grand canyon sized and is a bit more applicable because its a comparison among guys he plays with.

I agree he has intangibles that are important, especially for this club. That does not mean you pay them what amounts to over a million a year more than similar guys of his ilk....no?

A a greasy 3rd line guy who can kill penalties in a pinch, he is great to have around....at a decent price. It's just figuring out what that price is.

You quoted +/- stats in attempting to prove defensive responsibility.

Go stand in the corner.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by David Struch

Lance Bouma had a career high 34 points too, the Flames still owe $766,667 on that 2.1 million x 3 year contract.

https://www.capfriendly.com/players/lance-bouma

Bouma had more than 15 points once. He is not a comparable for Bennett in any way, shape, or form.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

And my post has a 6 year, $4M dollar contract “projected” in it due to another strong playoff performance.

Players get paid for strong playoff performances, and with Bennett’s continued improvement, I don’t think it’d be wild to see the Flames and Bennett come to a long-term agreement that sees us possibly “overpaying” in cap-hit a touch upfront to lock up later years.

Bennett has two RFA years left (I believe) after this year. So take his current 30 point pace, add consistency and continued improvement - what are 4 prime UFA years worth? Frolik snagged a 5 year 4.3M per contract 3 years ago. I think it’s entirely reasonable to expect/believe that Bennett is on track to become a Frolik-like player, possibly better. So 4.3M + cap inflation...6 years at 4M just doesn’t seem wild to me at all, and could be a very good value deal.

Salary breakdown:

RFA: 2.5M
RFA: 2.5M
UFA: 4.25M
UFA: 4.25M
UFA: 5M
UFA: 5.5M

Bennett has three years RFA. Also Frolik, to his credit, was coming off a 19 goal season and had multiple 40+ point seasons on multiple teams. All doing so while being defensively reliable. Bennett is still a ways from that. Even if you think he will become as good as Frolik was, there's a "potential" cost factor because Frolik was as good as Frolik when he signed which probably nullifies the cap-increase. So I'd see it closer to something like:

RFA: 2.5M
RFA: 2.5M
RFA: 2.75M
UFA: 4.125M
UFA: 4.25M
UFA: 4.5M

For a 3.4M/year cap hit.

I think there's also a bit of a security factor that young RFAs who you don't really know what you're getting with. Think Arvidsson who signed 7 years at 4M after his 61 point season. Bennett may become a top 6 player, in which case the contract would be solid. If he doesn't though, there's a lot of players you can get at sub 4M to play in your bottom six, so it's Bennett's camp who needs to take a hit for a long-term contract security. I just don't see really much of any chance of Bennett getting over 3.5M regardless of cap length (barring an absolute exceptional playoff).

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Bouma had more than 15 points once. He is not a comparable for Bennett in any way, shape, or form.

Both of them broke 30 points once in their careers (so far). It's not as far off as we'd like to believe, and give Bouma some credit with his career year it wasn't half-bad.

[Karl]

Originally Posted by David Struch

Lance Bouma had a career high 34 points too, the Flames still owe $766,667 on that 2.1 million x 3 year contract.

https://www.capfriendly.com/players/lance-bouma

Utter definition of one-hit wonder. Lance Bouma is horrible. He wouldn't be in the Swiss league now if he didn't suck.

[Karl]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Both of them broke 30 points once in their careers (so far). It's not as far off as we'd like to believe, and give Bouma some credit with his career year it wasn't half-bad.

One hit wonder. The rest of the time Bouma sucked and was barely NHL calibre at best, other than that one season.

Bouma doesn't and never ever had the offensive upside or puck skills that Bennett has.