Matthew Tkachuk & Johnny Gaudreau Signing Watch Thread

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by Toonage

Not a North Eastern team.

Ok, Eastern US then.

[Heavy Jack]

Ughhh… if Johnny doesn’t want to take 8x11 then I don’t know what else the flames could do… beyond disappointing to say the least if this is accurate. Still holding out hope he signs but it’s becoming increasingly harder to do so the longer this drags on.

[dustygoon]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

You are assuming that comparables matter to Johnny or any team chasing him. They can be simply ignored by any team at their will, especially if leverage is completely on one side.

Ha. I guess they could be ignored, but if you want proper roster construction to leave room for others, you have to kind of use some comparables don't you? Or how do you propose arriving at a number? Owners aren't going to be cool with just picking random numbers.

[Heavy Jack]

Any CP rumours out there to help switch the vibes to a positive ?? Man this is exhausting lol.

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

Listened to Frank’s Daily face off show live a couple minutes ago talking about Johnny. He says the Flames are likely willing to go as high as 11M per on an 8 year deal so the speculation is the fact Johnny wants to go back east. They compared it to the Tavares situation in terms of how it is shaping up.

If the Flames have offered Johnny $88 million and he hasn't signed, then he's probably gonzo.

I doubt he gets $88 million over 7 years ($12.5 million AAV) in free agency, but I guess we haven't seen a player put up 115 points and go straight to UFA in the cap era yet, so maybe I'm dead wrong.

[Toonage]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

Ok, Eastern US then.

Yeah if he's looking to move close to home, they aren't a great fit. Just wants to be on the east coast, then yeah they are a dark horse candidate for sure.

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by Heavy Jack

Ughhh… if Johnny doesn’t want to take 8x11 then I don’t know what else the flames could do… beyond disappointing to say the least if this is accurate. Still holding out hope he signs but it’s becoming increasingly harder to do so the longer this drags on.

While the Flames may in fact be willing to go as high as 11 that will be their final pitch I think which would be tmrw imo. If 11 was Gaudreau's counter offer why would you not try and see if you can't add extra bonuses or other things to get him down to 10 or 10.5 in the time you have? If you can't you can always cave and do the 11 deal tmrw.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by dustygoon

Going through Capfriendly numbers...sorting by percent of cap at time of signing and then filtering for.....

- wingers
- signed in last few years

You can see why Flames could be offering that 9.5mm number (11.5% of cap), and will need to come up.

Marner isn't a great comparable i don't think since he was 22 and it was a 6 year deal (13.4% of cap).

Kucherov, Stone and Point were all recently signed wingers near JG's age (i'm assuming Point is more winger than centre) at $9.5mm and were all just under 12% of cap, but those are tax friendly states, so we need to be higher.

The best comparable for the upper range is Panarin's 7 year deal proform'd to an 8 year equivalent. That equates to $10.14mm or 12.5% of cap at time of signing. That means Johnny would be $10.3mm using 12.5% of today's cap. We can argue who is better, but i think $10.5mm would be a reasonable upper limit.

That is of course unless Johnny's comps should include centers.

If another team is going to beat $10.5mm, then they need to be offering +$12mm over 7 years which is over 14.5% of the cap. Only guys signed to that dough in modern era? McD and Matthews (Toews, Kane and Crosby are over 14.5% but those are older contracts).

Sorry for all the numbo jumbo, but just trying to frame this argument....I think there is a good chance that Johnny comes down. I don't see another team beating our offer if we go to $10.5mm.

Good analysis.
But I think it's hard for the Flames to play the comparison to wingers only card when the franchise has chosen to prioritize wingers over centres for 30 years.
When your best player is always a winger, you can't just use that as a tool to not pay them best player money.

He'll expect comparable money to other elite players putting up similar points and them being centres really shouldn't factor.

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

If the Flames have offered Johnny $88 million and he hasn't signed, then he's probably gonzo.

I doubt he gets $88 million over 7 years ($12.5 million AAV) in free agency, but I guess we haven't seen a player put up 115 points and go straight to UFA in the cap era yet, so maybe I'm dead wrong.

Makes me wonder if the “not Philly or New Jersey” premium we’d have to pay to keep him is north of $90M over 8 years.

Shaping up to be a pretty significant summer of change, as I’m guessing Tkachuk follows Johnny out of town shortly sometime this week (if Johnny does in fact leave).

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Toonage

Not a North Eastern team.

Every team other than VAN EDM AND WPG are significantly faster travel to/from hometown .

Though with NAS out of the running I think it’s incredibly unlikely he stays anywhere else in the western conference


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[Heavy Jack]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

While the Flames may in fact be willing to go as high as 11 that will be their final pitch I think which would be tmrw imo. If 11 was Gaudreau's counter offer why would you not try and see if you can't add extra bonuses or other things to get him down to 10 or 10.5 in the time you have? If you can't you can always cave and do the 11 deal tmrw.

I think the Tkachuk deadline on the qualifier bring today might speed this up or at least was hoping it would. At the end of the day maybe Gaudreau camp is committed to taking it to the last minute. At any rate I’ve lost a good 5 years off my life expectancy lol.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

Listened to Frank’s Daily face off show live a couple minutes ago talking about Johnny. He says the Flames are likely willing to go as high as 11M per on an 8 year deal so the speculation is the fact Johnny wants to go back east. They compared it to the Tavares situation in terms of how it is shaping up.

Right. So, much like pretty much every other insider with news about what is going on, this is more just stuff thrown at the wall to see what sticks. With all the conflicting rumours out there I think it is a solid indication that no one outside of the tiny circle of negotiators has the faintest clue about what is happening, nor how this will turn out.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Heavy Jack

Any CP rumours out there to help switch the vibes to a positive ?? Man this is exhausting lol.

The easiest thing to do is to stop believing all the rumours. The pundits are all saying slightly different things, anyways. No one knows what is going on.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Heavy Jack

Any CP rumours out there to help switch the vibes to a positive ?? Man this is exhausting lol.

From my POV here's how I think about it
- Losing Johnny would suck. He's earned a big payday. Losing that asset for nothing would suck
- That being said, I'm not sure this team can win a cup paying two wingers north of $10M per year.
- So if they lose Johnny I'm interested to see what dominoes fall. Frankly I'm encouraged by the rumors that "others will want out" because if it is the first of a few dominoes to fall, that would force the club to maybe take a different approach.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

People can talk about what they want, but whenever fans start to speculate on injuries and how those are treated we are leaning even more into talking completely out of our asses.

This thread is 99% people talking out of their asses. The particulars of Monahan's situation are certainly speculation, but speculation less wild than a lot of what has already been discussed in here. Either way, all of this talking out of our asses can still be kept civil.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

Gaudreau is great but IMO he’s not Ovechkin, Malkin, Crosby tier.

He’s more in the Perry, Getzlaf, Carter type of tier, and those guys were all more in the $2-4M contract type of range.

And my guess is 8 years from now the age is trending even younger, just like it’s much younger than it was 8 years ago at this point.

The league is very much going to RFA players being the core of teams. And not only are a lot of players like you mention signing one year contracts for 2-4, there's also injury risk, fatigue/burnout risk, family risk. Not every elite player even wants to play forever. Datsyuk, who people compared to Gaudreau early on, played NHL hockey only until 37 (and then only played 1/2 to 2/3 of a season in his last 4 years). His buddy Zetterberg played to 36. Would anyone be shocked if Max Pacioretty retired within 2 years? Or sometimes the skills drop. Kessel had 92 points in 2017-18 at age 29. Last year he had 52 at age 33 and looked terrible. I guarantee he's going to sign a very team friendly contract somewhere.

[Heavy Jack]

Yea I’m pretty much of the opinion that anything coming from the Seravelli’s, Friedman’s, Lebrun’s etc at this point are to be taken with a mega grain of salt. If Johnny leaves then their position of he’s most likely leaving through this whole thing makes them look good and like insiders, if Johnny elects to stay it’s an easy pivot in reporting for them and easy to speak to. It’s not exactly going out on a limb to say Johnny is going back East as far as I’m concerned.

[devo22]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

- So if they lose Johnny I'm interested to see what dominoes fall. Frankly I'm encouraged by the rumors that "others will want out" because if it is the first of a few dominoes to fall, that would force the club to maybe take a different approach.

I'd be up for "a different approach", but my fear is they'll just overpay a UFA to make up for losing Johnny and try to keep this window open until Tkachuk forces their hands next year. Pretty much the worst scenario. Hope it plays out differently.

[Toonage]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

From my POV here's how I think about it
- Losing Johnny would suck. He's earned a big payday. Losing that asset for nothing would suck
- That being said, I'm not sure this team can win a cup paying two wingers north of $10M per year.
- So if they lose Johnny I'm interested to see what dominoes fall. Frankly I'm encouraged by the rumors that "others will want out" because if it is the first of a few dominoes to fall, that would force the club to maybe take a different approach.

Semi related but when it comes to players wanting out, Blake Coleman Immediately comes to mind. Referenced playing with Gaudreau when he signed, vocal in trying to get Johnny to stay, etc. I could see him asking to move.

[Imported_Aussie]

With the numbers that were shared by Dion earlier, it seems like Gross thinks that the 80M the flames are offering over 8 years Johnny can get in 7 on the open market, then possibly add another contract after that.

If the flames come up a touch, it's like getting that 7 year deal and then another 1 year but keeping the team cap hit lower. But he won't be worth 11.5M at 36, even with an increasing cap.

I think it's all bargaining to see how much the flames can move, and if the are prepared to wait it out or push up to avoid him hitting the market.

Would 84M work? Assuming a 36-37 year is possibly worth around 3-4M? Does it need to go to 86M or 88M?

With these numbers coming out, if a deal gets done it is going to have to come in between somewhere to save face. I'm thinking mid 80s.

If he goes to market I think he's gone, unless the market craters and the flames can come in with an AAV in the 10s.