Morgan Rielly

[Bender]

I think he needs to spend a full year in the A in order to get his game back.

That's not an option. It's the Leafs or junior.

*FACEPALM

I meant WHL.

I surely should not have said it was illegal. The sun's too hot today.

 

[Rebel_1812]

regardless of contractual issues, no one he cracks our deep blueline.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

It's either junior hockey or the NHL. He can't go to the AHL.


edit: I guess I should have refreshed before replying.

No, no. Maybe the more it gets repeated, the less people will bring it up. Let's nip this in the bud well before training camp.

The current NHL-CHL agreement actually ends this month, and you gotta think NHL GMs would love to change that little rule. Who knows if the CHL can be convinced to budge there though.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

I think he needs to spend a full year in the A in order to get his game back.

That's not an option. It's the Leafs or junior.

What about the KHL? 

 

[Rebel_1812]

It's either junior hockey or the NHL. He can't go to the AHL.


edit: I guess I should have refreshed before replying.

No, no. Maybe the more it gets repeated, the less people will bring it up. Let's nip this in the bud well before training camp.

The current NHL-CHL agreement actually ends this month, and you gotta think NHL GMs would love to change that little rule. Who knows if the CHL can be convinced to budge there though.

Then the CHL will lose their best players even faster.  I don't see them wanting to do that.

 

[Redleaf]

If he's playing as well as Gardiner did last year at the prospect/rookie/leafs camp, than I think it's an easy decision. Otherwise you send him back for at least another year.

 

[Kin]

Then the CHL will lose their best players even faster.  I don't see them wanting to do that.

But I don't see how much of a say they really have in the matter. Their relationship with the NHL is really at the NHL's convenience.

 

[princedpw]

The best reason to send him back is to suppress his salary.  If you send him back, it's one more year on the rookie pay scale.  It's one more year to evaluate how good he is defensively and what kind of talent he can defend against (even if he is an offensive dynamo).  It's one more year before free agency.

The problem with Schenn was that it would have been nice to have one more year to evaluate his play before giving him his first RFA contract.  If we did that, we might have signed him for 1.5 million instead of 3.6 and he would have been much, much more valuable on the trade market, even if we still wanted to trade him.

Not really how it works. It's 3 professional seasons on their ELC regardless of when that first season is. Junior seasons don't change that. If the Leafs had sent Schenn back to junior, he'd be signing his 2nd contract this summer instead of last summer, and, if he had played his first 3 seasons at the same level, he'd be getting a very similar contract to the one he signed last summer.

I thought that if a guy played in Junior, that year didn't count against his ELC....

What are the circumstances under which the ELC is delayed? 

(A) None?  It can never be delayed?  The 3 year clock begins when a guy is drafted and plays anywhere in NA but in college?

Or

(B) it can be delayed in the guy plays in junior and no contract is signed?  If this is the case then I suppose the strategy is simply to not sign him until you are sure he will play on your roster.  Could that not have happened to Schenn?

Just trying to get the rules straight ... I thought there was a way to delay the onset of the 3-year ELC.

 

[bustaheims]

I thought that if a guy played in Junior, that year didn't count against his ELC....

What are the circumstances under which the ELC is delayed? 

(A) None?  It can never be delayed?  The 3 year clock begins when a guy is drafted and plays anywhere in NA but in college?

Or

(B) it can be delayed in the guy plays in junior and no contract is signed?  If this is the case then I suppose the strategy is simply to not sign him until you are sure he will play on your roster.  Could that not have happened to Schenn?

Just trying to get the rules straight ... I thought there was a way to delay the onset of the 3-year ELC.

No, tha'ts exactly what it means - 3 professional seasons under their ELC. Where you were wrong is in regards to Schenn. Regardless of whether or not he played another year in junior, his 2nd contract would have been based off of his 3 years of NHL experience, which means it likely still would have been in the $3.6M range. He played well enough in his first 3 seasons to earn that contract in the mind of his GM. Another year in junior would not have been likely to change that - in fact, there's a good chance it would have had the opposite impact. It may have made him look better in those 3 seasons and raised his salary.

Sending a player back to junior doesn't give teams another season to evaluate a player's value for their next contract, because their play in junior is not relevant to their NHL value once they have 3 professional seasons under their belt. 2nd contracts for NHL players are based on their professional play, not their junior play.

 

[Tigger]

I think the idea is less about suppressing salary/cap hits and more about price performance.

 

[bustaheims]

I think the idea is less about suppressing salary/cap hits and more about price performance.

I've always felt it was more about proper development time and more NHL time when the player is fully developed. The problem with starting the lock at 18 is that you risk closing the player in their prime at 25. Pushing that back a season or two helps mediate some of that.

 

[Tigger]

I think the idea is less about suppressing salary/cap hits and more about price performance.

I've always felt it was more about proper development time and more NHL time when the player is fully developed. The problem with starting the lock at 18 is that you risk closing the player in their prime at 25. Pushing that back a season or two helps mediate some of that.

Yeah, I mean we talk about teams like Detroit doing it better than some, being patient with prospects and letting them take the right amount of time to develop seems like a good idea, generally.

 

[princedpw]

I thought that if a guy played in Junior, that year didn't count against his ELC....

What are the circumstances under which the ELC is delayed? 

(A) None?  It can never be delayed?  The 3 year clock begins when a guy is drafted and plays anywhere in NA but in college?

Or

(B) it can be delayed in the guy plays in junior and no contract is signed?  If this is the case then I suppose the strategy is simply to not sign him until you are sure he will play on your roster.  Could that not have happened to Schenn?

Just trying to get the rules straight ... I thought there was a way to delay the onset of the 3-year ELC.

No, tha'ts exactly what it means - 3 professional seasons under their ELC. Where you were wrong is in regards to Schenn. Regardless of whether or not he played another year in junior, his 2nd contract would have been based off of his 3 years of NHL experience, which means it likely still would have been in the $3.6M range. He played well enough in his first 3 seasons to earn that contract in the mind of his GM. Another year in junior would not have been likely to change that - in fact, there's a good chance it would have had the opposite impact. It may have made him look better in those 3 seasons and raised his salary.

Sending a player back to junior doesn't give teams another season to evaluate a player's value for their next contract, because their play in junior is not relevant to their NHL value once they have 3 professional seasons under their belt. 2nd contracts for NHL players are based on their professional play, not their junior play.

Hi -- yeah, I misread your earlier post.  It works exactly the way I thought it worked.

My reasoning was 1 year of junior (age 18) + 3 years at age 19, 20, 21 gives you more time to evaluate a player than 3 years at age 18, 19, 20.

It happened to be the case for Schenn that he had an uptick in performance in his age 20 year.  The next year, we saw that was a bit transient and not necessarily indicative of a permanent breakout.  My thought was that Burke gave him the 3.6 million contract because he had yet to see the next year of Schenn's play which happened to be a downtick.  If he'd seen that, the contract might have been more in line with a 5-6 dman, not 3.6 million. 

The counterargument is that he is paying for potential and we bought out some of Schenn's UFA years and hence the 3.6 million contract remains justified.... I'm not so sure ... but regardless, at least I understand the rules correctly.

 

[bustaheims]

Hi -- yeah, I misread your earlier post.  It works exactly the way I thought it worked.

My reasoning was 1 year of junior (age 18) + 3 years at age 19, 20, 21 gives you more time to evaluate a player than 3 years at age 18, 19, 20.

It happened to be the case for Schenn that he had an uptick in performance in his age 20 year.  The next year, we saw that was a bit transient and not necessarily indicative of a permanent breakout.  My thought was that Burke gave him the 3.6 million contract because he had yet to see the next year of Schenn's play which happened to be a downtick.  If he'd seen that, the contract might have been more in line with a 5-6 dman, not 3.6 million. 

The counterargument is that he is paying for potential and we bought out some of Schenn's UFA years and hence the 3.6 million contract remains justified.... I'm not so sure ... but regardless, at least I understand the rules correctly.

Well, there's a couple problems there. The first is that any judements made during the extra junior year are pretty much irrelevant when it comes to NHL contracts, because NHL contracts are based on NHL play, not junior play. The second is that you're tying performance to age year rather than experience year. Schenn saw an uptick in his 3rd NHL season - how old he was at that point is of little note (especially when we're talking about a 1 year difference). Had his first 3 seasons seen him play a similar calibre of play after having an extra junior year, his contract would have reflected that play - the same play that saw him earn a $3.6M per contract - regardless of whether he was 20 or 21. Now, had he played to the point where he'd only earned a $1.5M contract, that wouldn't have increased his trade value at all, since, well, he would have only played well enough to earn a $1.5M per contract - which he would have signed this summer. He wouldn't have yet had the opportunity to show he was worth more than that/better than a 5/6 defenceman. Had the situation played out as you lay it out, the Leafs likely wouldn't have been able to net JvR in return for him - never mind assets more valuable than JvR.

 

[bustaheims]

Yeah, I mean we talk about teams like Detroit doing it better than some, being patient with prospects and letting them take the right amount of time to develop seems like a good idea, generally.

Yeah. Price performance is going to work itself out either way. If a player is thrown straight into the fire to develop in the NHL, that's likely to reflected in their next contract - as in, it'll likely be lower than it would if that same player develops a little longer in junior and therefore plays at a higher level in his 3 ELC seasons.

 

[Tigger]

Yeah, I mean we talk about teams like Detroit doing it better than some, being patient with prospects and letting them take the right amount of time to develop seems like a good idea, generally.

Yeah. Price performance is going to work itself out either way. If a player is thrown straight into the fire to develop in the NHL, that's likely to reflected in their next contract - as in, it'll likely be lower than it would if that same player develops a little longer in junior and therefore plays at a higher level in his 3 ELC seasons.

The difference being, as you say, it's based on NHL experience/tenure/performance. If players spend time developing in the AHL for a while I think it's reflected in value of their second contract and extends the overall value of the player to the organization, generally.

If performance is a saw off, tenure and experience come in to play.

 

[bustaheims]

The difference being, as you say, it's based on NHL experience/tenure/performance. If players spend time developing in the AHL for a while I think it's reflected in value of their second contract and extends the overall value of the player to the organization, generally.

If performance is a saw off, tenure and experience come in to play.

AHL time, sure, but that's a completely different animal. AHL seasons burn years off contracts whereas junior seasons don't. That means less NHL seasons to judge a player on.

 

[Tigger]

The difference being, as you say, it's based on NHL experience/tenure/performance. If players spend time developing in the AHL for a while I think it's reflected in value of their second contract and extends the overall value of the player to the organization, generally.

If performance is a saw off, tenure and experience come in to play.

AHL time, sure, but that's a completely different animal. AHL seasons burn years off contracts whereas junior seasons don't. That means less NHL seasons to judge a player on.

Sorry, when you said 'thrown in to the fire' I just assumed bypassing the AHL and revisited development time which is what I considered junior years to be too. I think we're agreeing here... I think...

 

[Rebel_1812]

Then the CHL will lose their best players even faster.  I don't see them wanting to do that.

But I don't see how much of a say they really have in the matter. Their relationship with the NHL is really at the NHL's convenience.

The NHL had the same haughty tone with the russian leagues.  Now look at how that has turned out.  The NHL needs to make deals instead of trying to issue dictates. 

 

[Kin]

The NHL had the same haughty tone with the russian leagues.  Now look at how that has turned out.

You mean how Russian clubs don't get to individually negotiate the purchase price of their players and the vast majority of the best russians are in the NHL? That's exactly how the NHL wanted it to turn out.

  The NHL needs to make deals instead of trying to issue dictates.

It's in the NHL's interest to have a good relationship with these leagues but not to the point where they agree to things that don't make sense.

If a NHL team wants to send a 19 year old to the AHL there's no reason they shouldn't get to.