Kings Sign Brayden Schenn
by Quisp on Mar 5, 2010 12:20 AM PST
in Prospects
13 comments
All the chips are falling into place. Lombardi signs Brayden Schenn to a 3-year bonus-laden ELC -- obviously with the intent of making him a King as soon as the Wheat Kings finish their season, which, since Brandon is hosting the Memorial Cup, will be May 24th, right about the time the Kings are playing game three of the conference finals -- oh, never mind. I don't think we'll be seeing Schenn any more this season (although it would be, um, nice...given that the Kings would first have to win 8 playoff games -- more playoff wins than they have had in one year since 1993).
Ever since he (along with draft-mate Kyle Clifford) almost made the cut this year, I have penciled in Schenn and Clifford (in the roster that exists only in my mind) for opening night 2010-11. There are several reasons this is foolhardy: (1) Since his cap hit with bonus is more than $3MM, they're not going to promote him just to give him 4th line minutes. (2) There's no room for him behind Kopitar, Stoll and Handzus. My response to my counter-self is, if Schenn is ready for the big leagues in October, they're not going to send him back to Brandon because Stoll and Handzus were there first. If he's ready, Lombardi will make room for him. He will either trade one of Stoll or Handzus, or he will let Schenn get his feet wet on the fourth line, or he'll convert him to wing for awhile.
The same can be said for Oscar Moller and Andrei Loktionov, both of whom may be full-grown and ready before there's a top-six center spot open for them (maybe not next season, but certainly by the one after that). In all three cases, there's no need to throw them to the wolves by placing them on the 1st line (a la Moulson, Lewis, Purcell) because there's no one else who can do the job. And, unlike most people, I don't have any problem with a fourth line of Clifford/Schenn/Clune, or Clifford/Schenn/x, where x equals a double-shift for whichever top six forward is playing extra well that night. We've seen Murray do this with the fourth line a several points this season, and I'm a huge fan of that strategy. I also prefer a fourth line that can play more than 5 minutes a game. So...
Smyth/Kopitar/Williams
(Frolov)/Stoll/Brown
LW3/Handzus/Simmonds
LW4/C4/RW4
Available candidates for the five slots are: Alexander Frolov, Brad Richardson, Scott Parse, Trevor Lewis, Marc-Andre Cliche, Rich Clune, Moller, Loktionov, Clifford, Schenn, and of course, Raitis Ivanans, Jeff Halpern, Fredrik Modin and Peter Harrold. I'm going to make some assumptions. (1) Clune will play on the fourth line. (2) Brad Richardson will make the team and be the utility forward, a better Peter Harrold. (3) Let's pretend for the moment that Frolov is gone. I like him and wish he would stay and score 40 goals. But because he's a UFA, let's just leave him off the roster for a moment, to see what it looks like. And, while we're at it, let's put Clifford and Schenn in there.
Smyth/Kopitar/Williams
LW2/Stoll/Brown
Richardson/Handzus/Simmonds
Clifford/Schenn/Clune
So we have a second line LW hole where Frolov was and maybe should be. And presumably we'll have to have a knuckle-dragger -- say, Ivanans. I can see Lombardi looking at this roster and deciding that Moller and Loktionov would do well to rule the AHL for a season (like they were doing before the entire line -- Parse/Loktionov/Moller -- was called up). Maybe those two are penciled in for arrival in 2011-12. That doesn't hurt me too much.
But, as far as that LW2 slot goes, it could be Frolov, or a UFA signing (Patrick Marleau?), or Parse. After this season, Parse's waiver-exemption runs out, so it will be sink or swim for him. He would certainly get picked up on waivers, so he either has to nail down a spot, or be Purcelled. Anyway, I think that's a pretty decent roster.
I keep meaning to ask: when Schenn makes the team for real, is he going to switch to #10?
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We're thinking along the same lines about Frolov
I think one reason Lombardi is willing to risk losing Fro as a UFA is that he has 8 of the top 9 forward spots locked in for next fall. If he re-signs Fro to lock up all 9 spots, it would block the advancement of Moller (who would return to the wing if he replaces Fro) or Schenn (assuming he’s ready).
I think he wants to re-sign Fro. And I want him to re-sign Fro. But the price has to be right, and it appears that no real progress has been made to date. And the presence of Schenn and Moller gives DL some peace of mind about life after Fro if some other GM decides to overpay for him.
I gotta say, i like these options. I saw Schenn in a pre-season game and the kid can play.
sportstalkbuzz.com
by Great Ice-Pectations on Mar 5, 2010 8:29 AM PST reply actions
One of...
is your trademark. You LOVE saying that.
Don’t need to trade Stoll. He’s becoming a winger. ;)
One thing you have to remember about Schenn is that he was 17 when he was drafted. He’s only 3 months older than Taylor Hall, this year’s top draft prospect. He’s still pretty young and he has time to mature.
I could see the Kings evaluating Schenn in the off-season and in training camp and determining if he’s ready to come up; if he is, the Kings either move Stoll over to wing again or trade either Handzus or Stoll and make Schenn their third line center. He could play the same role Richardson is playing now, where he’s given easy even-strength minutes and a little special teams time.
The West Coast is the Best Coast.
IF Schenn is not ready to come up to the Kings next season, would he still be too young for assignment to the AHL? Would he have to be returned to the Wheat Kings or whichever junior team still has Schenn’s rights?
2009-10 Kings Hockey: Delivering Milk Steaks from the Meat Train at an arena near you!
by DodgerBlueBalls on Mar 5, 2010 9:36 AM PST up reply actions
I am caught between two emotions: “Yay, baby Schenn” and “Maybe I should root for Fro to stop scoring goals.”
I can’t wait for Loktionov, either — I hope his injury won’t set him back too much. But it’s great to look to the future of our roster and not be terrified. Go Dinglebarn go.
In Dinglebarn We Trust
Loktionov
It’s a weird fact of life that some people just have loose shoulders. The good thing is, now they have a surgery for that. He can have it all tightened and tucked and his shoulder should be better than it was naturally. Compare this to just twenty years ago, when they would just saw off the arm and hand you a bugle.
I don’t think Schenn plays his fourth year of juniors. If that has to happen (because the Kings are just so insanely good that there just isn’t room for him — uh huh, yeah), the kid will just be treading water down there. Since he won’t be 20, he won’t be able to play in the AHL, which makes it interesting for DL. But I think he’ll end up on the fourth line with lots of spot duty on the other lines. If I had to put money on something, that’s where I’d put it.
Rudy:
The Handzus/Stoll issue may be resolved by the cap. Schenn has a cap hit of $3MM+. I think it’s pretty likely that $4MM-$7MM is the range Lombardi will be spending to fill the second unit LW spot (whether that’s Frolov — low end of the range — or Marleau, or Kovalchuk). If Lombardi adds $10MM in cap hit for Schenn plus UFA LW2, that brings the Kings to…$44.64MM (current number for 2010-11, for 16 players)…plus $10MM for Schenn plus UFA LW2…plus $2.5MM for resigning Richardson and Clune (both RFA) and recalling Moller….plus two million to replace SOD and Jones or Harrold. Total: $59.14MM with a bonus cushion of around $7MM (the bonus cushion allows us to go over the cap temporarily by the amount of the potential bonuses you might have to pay; but the bonuses become actual payments, the team has to immediately get under the cap — so you spend your cushion at your own peril). So with a Marleau/Kovalchuk signing and a Schenn promotion, the Kings are $2-3MM over the cap, depending on whether it goes down a bit, goes up a bit, or holds steady. You could swap out Marleau/Kovi for Frolov and sign him for $4MM, and we would be right up against the ceiling. However:
This would mean that Thomas Hickey, who also has the big bonuses, would be a tight squeeze. Add him into the mix as one of the two new defensemen, and you’ve got a cap hit of $62MM with a staggering bonus cushion of just under $10MM. The Kings would be in the weird position of being able to keep Hickey up as long as he didn’t threaten to trigger his bonuses (don’t know what they are, but I’m guessing it’s something like, at 10 goals, he gets x, and then at 15, he gets y, etc.). Now, I’m sure Lombardi has an entire spreadsheet dedicated to the different possible combination of successes and failures and what it might mean for the bonuses and the cap. But it strikes me as precarious, if not dangerous, to assume that your prized assets won’t achieve.
Which is why I think, if Schenn is good enough to make the team — and especially if Schenn AND Hickey make the team — one of the big salaries is going to have to go. The easiest players to pick on are Handzus and Stoll. And I like both of them.
It’s easier, of course, if Schenn plays another year of junior and Hickey plays an entire season in the AHL. Then those decisions to have to be made for another year. Wipe sweat from brow.
Wait till this year.
Been reading our Civil War history, have we?
“… they would just saw off the arm and hand you a bugle.” Great line.
Over at Hammond’s blog the other day, I was soundly thumped in the comments for suggesting that Kovalchuk might well be out of DL’s price range, but your math kind of bears me out. I think $7 mil/year is the least he will sign for, and even if they can play games with the actual cap hit, it will still take a big chunk out of DL’s margin of error. I just can’t see him going hard up against the cap at the beginning of the year and leaving himself no room for mid-season/trade deadline adds to fortify the team for the playoff run.
I agree that he will offer Frolov $4 mil. but no more. I hope that’s good enough. But if it isn’t, he return Moller to the wing, or go for a UFA.
Kovalchuk and the cap
Of course, you’re right about the Kovalchuk math, especially if he gets a cap hit as high as people are saying. But I think what Lombardi will do is something like this:
10 years, $70MM, cap hit of $7MM, paid out something like this:
2010 – $11MM
2011 – $11MM
2012 – $10MM
2013 – $9MM
2014 – $8MM
2015 – $7MM
2016 – $5MM
2017 – $4MM
2018 – $3MM
2019 – $2MM
Add a year or two if you want. The point is, Kovalchuk wants to be the highest paid player in the league. So give him that, two years of being #1. Then taper it off down to a reasonable $7MM salary for the sixth season, and then further down to $2MM in the last four years. Kovalchuk will presumably want to be the highest cap hit on the team (although maybe he doesn’t care, I don’t know). The $7MM cap hit is a hair higher than Kopitar’s, and it’s actually fair, since that’s about what Kovalchuk is worth, in my opinion. He’s not to the level of Ovechkin or Crosby. But $7MM for IK is at least as fair as $6.8MM for Kopitar.
Whether he gets a better offer or not, that’s not something Lombardi can control. But not only do I think this is a great offer IK might take, but I would be upset if Lombardi offered more, because I think beyond that you’re starting to hurt the team.
Wait till this year.
by Quisp on Mar 5, 2010 2:38 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs
You keep saying this like it has any chance of happening. It’s admirable, in a way.
The West Coast is the Best Coast.
I don't see Kovalchuk in a King uniform, either
But like I said, some of the goobers in the peanut gallery at LA Kings Insider jumped all over me for saying as much.
Personally, I think that someone in the KHL will make a serious play for him, and will offer more money than any sane NHL GM (i.e., one cognizant of the salary cap) could offer. And then we’ll see where Mr. Ilya Kovalchuk’s priorities lie.
I'm not saying I want it to happen.
I have always said I didn’t know if getting him would be a good thing or not. I find that kind of hard to “know.” For now, I’m agnostic. But it helps me to know whether it’s even possible, and if so, what the ramifications are, especially cap-wise. I still have no idea whether getting Kovalchuk at $7MM would end up being a good thing, but I am sure paying more than that will be a bad thing; and not getting him doesn’t bother me at all. That picture of him in the weird kilt-like towel is all I need to see to be rid of the whole Kovi idea in one fell swoop.
Wait till this year.
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