Around The League - Everyone But The Habs

From my point of view:

1. You trade one of Guhle or Matheson now. We have too many LHD to give them all minutes and keep their values up. You trade Savard closer to the deadline.

2. Yes, we are lacking RHD. I said that for a couple of years when Weber and Petry were still here and playing well that we needed to address the future of RHD in the organization because we had nothing in our cupboards after those two were done. I advocated for trading Weber several years ago, trying to acquire someone like a Matt Dumba instead, who could have been good right away but still played a couple of years past what Weber gave us. The Habs didn't have a succession plan in place at that spot. Just like right now, they're lacking in terms of scoring wingers and only started addressing that this draft. All that to say that even if Weber were still here, he wouldn't be much help. We passed his window to be able to help us and we ended up getting no assets in return for him. We did the same thing with Markov, Plekanec, Petry, Price, Gallagher, etc... let them all grow old here and past prime and then scrambled to try to patch the holes. So I'll say it again: if you're a contending team, you can afford to overpay veterans and keep them a bit past prime and sacrifice a bit of your cap space for the future in order to take your run at the Cup. But for us, when we're not contenders, we shouldn't be sitting on assets that are likely to depreciate quickly. 

3. Matheson vs. Stamkos is two different stories. Matheson is an asset we already have. He is playing at the top of his game right now and I'd venture his trade value has never been higher. So the choice is to keep Matheson or to trade him. If we keep him, I think we'd likely get 2-3 more decent years out of him, but I highly doubt he's going to have a significantly better season than what he just put together. With Hutson coming and the logjam at LHD, I can't see him getting the same minutes he had last year over and over. I can't see him getting all the 1st-wave PP time and always getting to play with the 1st line on the ice. So realistically, Matheson's value is going to be the same or lower going forward. The decision to trade him isn't based on whether he can help the team win now or not, it's based on maximizing his value to obtain the best return possible AND it's based on the opportunity cost of trading him... deal him, and there are other players who benefit from getting his ice time. Guhle is ready to take on a bigger role. So is Xhekaj. Hutson needs a roster spot and PP time. Struble can't go back to the AHL. Conversely, we didn't have Stamkos. We had nothing to lose by signing him, other than taking on a bad contract. But we give up no assets in signing him (ie this wasn't a trade). So the choice here is to add that player to the stable or to not add him. If we add him, we get a player who is still effective and who can help to be a veteran leader in our top 6. Maybe he teaches CC and Slaf and Suzuki and Newhook and so on some stuff about winning and running a PP and so on. And if we had signed him to a 3-year deal, for example, I think we could have been competitive in that time, in part because of his being here. The downside to signing Stamkos would have been the term on his contract. Ultimately, he chose a 4-year deal with Nashville, and I likely wouldn't have taken that term because we don't want to put ourselves in a position of having 8M in wasted cap space in years where we want to be winners. But if Stamkos had been willing to take a reasonable term here, there's no question he would have been an added asset. Likewise, I advocated for trading Monahan over the past two years, but now that he was a UFA, I would have happily taken him back on a reasonable 2-year deal. Again, didn't happen, but the premise is the same. This is not about liking one player more than another so much as it is figuring out what the cost of having or not having that player is and choosing the best outcome for the team. In this case, the pluses of trading Matheson outweigh the negatives.

With respect to the future of the D, it's clear having Hutson seemed to be a consideration in drafting Reinbacher, in that he was a "fit" with what they already had. They played the two together at rookie camp last year, and I wouldn't be surprised if they start the year as a pairing in Laval. Likewise, the team played Xhekaj and Mailloux together in Laval last year and had some success. They made pairs out of Struble, Harris, and Kovacevic last year. Guhle, for his part, has mainly been paired with Matheson and Savard, but both those guys aren't going to be here longterm. I don't know if the Habs have figured out where they see Guhle in the line-up longterm. If Hutson-Reinbacher and Xhekaj-Mailloux are two of your pairings going forward, they still need to find someone to pair with Guhle, or with Engstrom or Struble or Harris.

From Hughes' end I think you want to be careful about a 4-5 year deal with Guhle in that you could end up with a player who becomes a UFA in his prime. A 2 or 3 year deal gives you some time to further your evaluation, figure out if he's a fit, and maintain trade value. I get that may not be what Guhle wants, but has he really earned the same longterm deal as a Suzuki or Caufield or Slafkovsky? IMO he has not. Too many injuries, still too inconsistent. He's highly-regarded by the media and fans, but he is a long ways away from being Shea Weber.

If we compare Guhle to Weber at the start of his career, Guhle has put up 40 points in his first 114 games (0.35 PPG). He's harboring a Corsi around 44%, and the Habs are being outscored about 1.5 to 1 with him on the ice. Weber put up 50 points in his first 107 games (0.47 PPG) and while Corsi wasn't available for the first two years of his career, his subsequent seasons were all quite positive. Weber was also more valuable as a righty, whereas Guhle is a lefty on a team deep at LHD.

If we're looking for comparable, seeing what Dallas does with Thomas Harley this summer could be a good indication. As mentioned above, Braden Schneider's 2-year 2.2M deal probably sets the tone for what Guhle could be looking at, though I think Guhle has more value to us than Schneider has to NY. Alex Vlasic signed 6 years at 4.6M AAV in Chicago, though that was an over-payment from a team with oodles of cap space. Jamie Drysdale, another oft-injured former 1st rounder (drafted 5th overall), is signed to a 3-year deal at 2.3M AAV and probably has more upside than Guhle. K'Andre Miller is on a 2-year bridge deal worth 3.8M AAV. Mario Ferraro is on a 4-year deal worth 3.25M AAV. So ultimately, I think a 2-3 year deal is going to bring Guhle in around where these bridge deals are: in the 2.25 to 3.75M range. I picked 3.5M as a reasonable end decision. I'm not sure he's worth committing 5-6M to on a longterm deal right now, one because of his health issues and two because I'm still not sure how much higher his ceiling is than where he is already. He'll get more experience and smarts as he plays more, but I don't see the offence as getting that much better and ultimately, he's a two-way minute muncher, which makes him more of a second-pairing player.