[Signing] Canucks Re-Sign Filip Hronek (8 years x $7.25 Million)

[NewbieCanuckFan]

While it's never bad to learn from history/from our mistakes...I prefer to look ahead rather than dwell on the rear mirror too long (eg., past GM's etc.,) even though I'm sometimes guilty of that.

 

So back to Hronek.  As with most contracts of this nature (long-term / high value), they'll tend to suck at the end of the contract.  Here's to hoping we have more than enough 'good years' to compensate for that.

[coho8888]

1 hour ago, stawns said:

 

Again, Bennings blunder wasn't OEL, it was hiring a shitty coach.  It's no coincidence that every single dman who played shitty  under BB is having a great year this year under a better coach.

 

When Fla needed a goal in the last two mins to tie it up in game 5, who did Maurice have out there?  That's right, OEL.

 

Further to that point, it wasn't just a trade for OEL, it was also a trade for Garland, who Id say is a critical player in Vancouver's lineup

 

OEL was and is not a bad player.  He's a good solid D-man in the right system.  BUT he was grossly overpaid when he signed his 2018 contract.  His stats were on the decline before that.  Yes he was a norris finalist but really, if Benning did the proper pro scouting, he would have either passed on that deal or required more than the 12% retention that he got from Arizona.  He was essentially trading one year of short term pain for 6 more years of long term pain.  Beagle and Roussel were overpaid but their contracts were not horrible.  All three only had one year left.  Conor Garland has turned out to be a good player for us but really Benning was fleeced in that trade.

 

 

[stawns]

48 minutes ago, IBatch said:

Glad we had a good season.  One more year before going for a buyout might end up hurting.   Do wonder if he's just not a Tochett guy.    He did play a much heavier game his first year with us.    Garland, well at least that part had value, with Tochett and with Green. 

 

It was definitely RT saying he didn't want OEL, imo.  He had him in AZ and there's obviously some issues there.

 

[stawns]

2 minutes ago, coho8888 said:

 

OEL was and is not a bad player.  He's a good solid D-man in the right system.  BUT he was grossly overpaid when he signed his 2018 contract.  His stats were on the decline before that.  Yes he was a norris finalist but really, if Benning did the proper pro scouting, he would have either passed on that deal or required more than the 12% retention that he got from Arizona.  He was essentially trading one year of short term pain for 6 more years of long term pain.  Beagle and Roussel were overpaid but their contracts were not horrible.  All three only had one year left.  Conor Garland has turned out to be a good player for us but really Benning was fleeced in that trade.

 

 

 

Fleeced?  They gave up a first and 2nd for OEL and Garland essentially and cleared cap space at the same time.  OEL was solid in his first year in Van, and then wheels fell off the whole organization.

 

Clearly he and Tocchet weren't going to work, I just wished they used a little patience and restored some value to his game, which is still very clearly there.

 

That buyout penalty is going to hit very hard exactly when they need cap space to make a push to the next level

[HarbularyBattery]

3 hours ago, Hammertime said:

What if Pete just stood up. We don't need all that we need Pete to play like he can and to replace Mik with someone actually playing at the level Mik is payed to play. 

 

Having Guentzel and Brock luxury not need. 

its also about what happens when we get an inevitable injury in our top6

 

lindholm is way too expensive for what we need, which is more one dimensional firepower. hes going to get paid for his well-rounded abilities

 

but we need firepower. i know kuzmenko didnt play well the first half of the season, but he was a definite top6 forward who could score 30+ goals/was a good finisher. 

 

we cant expect petey to play well beside 2 guys with no hands. if you put mcdavid between 2 janmarks, hes not going to give you much either. 

[Dr. Crossbar]

I'm convinced that some have been butthurt about Hronek from the beginning simply because they weren't familiar with him and they couldn't control the narrative around him. Allvin upended that and had the good sense to lock up our top pairing. Thankfully we have a management team that's not afraid to make uncomfortable decisions and be aggressive. We didn't make that trade to only turn around and be back at square one searching for a young RHD.

 

He also sees that Hronek has another level. I've been saying that for months. He's also been playing differently than he was in Detroit. We haven't seen the best of Hronek or Hughes yet. Hronek's contract could very well look fabulous for the value in the near future.

[coho8888]

3 minutes ago, stawns said:

 

Fleeced?  They gave up a first and 2nd for OEL and Garland essentially and cleared cap space at the same time.  OEL was solid in his first year in Van, and then wheels fell off the whole organization.

 

Clearly he and Tocchet weren't going to work, I just wished they used a little patience and restored some value to his game, which is still very clearly there.

 

That buyout penalty is going to hit very hard exactly when they need cap space to make a push to the next level

 

You are assuming that OEL was worth the salary for what he would have provided us.  He wasn't and I considered him more of a long term Cap dump.  Arizona realized their mistake and was able to find someone to take that salary.  His original salary before the miniscule salary retention was 8.2 million for 8 years.  That was in 2018 $$ Equivalent to 10+ now.  For someone averaging 0.5 to 0.6 ppg that contract was an anchor.  

[Blue]

Erhoff peaked at 29 and 30 years old. 

 

Just imagine how fuct we'd be if we signed him to a 1 or 2 year bridge and he played as good or better than the 1st half last year. He would cost us 8 million + and it would run past 35. Or we'd lose him. 

 

 

[stawns]

5 minutes ago, coho8888 said:

 

You are assuming that OEL was worth the salary for what he would have provided us.  He wasn't and I considered him more of a long term Cap dump.  Arizona realized their mistake and was able to find someone to take that salary.  His original salary before the miniscule salary retention was 8.2 million for 8 years.  That was in 2018 $$ Equivalent to 10+ now.  For someone averaging 0.5 to 0.6 ppg that contract was an anchor.  

 

I agree, he was a cap dump to some degree, but he was still a very good dman and showed that in his first season in Van.

 

The way I see it, that trade had the potential to be a fleece the other way if JB had hired a competent coach after Green lost the room.

[Bob Long]

3 minutes ago, stawns said:

 

I agree, he was a cap dump to some degree, but he was still a very good dman and showed that in his first season in Van.

 

The way I see it, that trade had the potential to be a fleece the other way if JB had hired a competent coach after Green lost the room.

 

sometimes you just need to move on from a mistake. I mean look at LA, what they gave up to basically end up with Kuemper. End of the day tho, they removed what may have been a toxic mistake from their group. 

 

I don't think OEL is a toxic person by any stretch, but the ill fit with Tocc + his salary just made it something we needed to do to improve the team. 

 

 

[DrJockitch]

18 minutes ago, Dr. Crossbar said:

I'm convinced that some have been butthurt about Hronek from the beginning simply because they weren't familiar with him and they couldn't control the narrative around him. Allvin upended that and had the good sense to lock up our top pairing. Thankfully we have a management team that's not afraid to make uncomfortable decisions and be aggressive. We didn't make that trade to only turn around and be back at square one searching for a young RHD.

 

He also sees that Hronek has another level. I've been saying that for months. He's also been playing differently than he was in Detroit. We haven't seen the best of Hronek or Hughes yet. Hronek's contract could very well look fabulous for the value in the near future.

I think sometimes that is the extremities of tone on sites like this and in general for digital.

I thought we overpaid slightly in the trade and was non-sensical timing for the deal, at the deadline as a non-playoff team for an injured player.

So not mad or butthurt or whatever but did have some minor criticisms of the deal.

[stawns]

6 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

sometimes you just need to move on from a mistake. I mean look at LA, what they gave up to basically end up with Kuemper. End of the day tho, they removed what may have been a toxic mistake from their group. 

 

I don't think OEL is a toxic person by any stretch, but the ill fit with Tocc + his salary just made it something we needed to do to improve the team. 

 

 

 

I agree they had to move on, they just chose the wrong way to do it, imo 

[Blue]

13 minutes ago, stawns said:

 

Fleeced?  They gave up a first and 2nd for OEL and Garland essentially and cleared cap space at the same time.  OEL was solid in his first year in Van, and then wheels fell off the whole organization.

 

Clearly he and Tocchet weren't going to work, I just wished they used a little patience and restored some value to his game, which is still very clearly there.

 

That buyout penalty is going to hit very hard exactly when they need cap space to make a push to the next level

Yeah. The buyout was too aggressive. He was playing injured. We could have moved him for some retention that would have been cheaper 

[coho8888]

22 minutes ago, stawns said:

 

I agree, he was a cap dump to some degree, but he was still a very good dman and showed that in his first season in Van.

 

The way I see it, that trade had the potential to be a fleece the other way if JB had hired a competent coach after Green lost the room.

I’m not disputing that he’s not a good defenseman.  I was hoping that he would live up to his contract but it didn’t seem like it was going to happen.  Benning was horrible at cap management.

[coho8888]

10 minutes ago, Blue said:

Yeah. The buyout was too aggressive. He was playing injured. We could have moved him for some retention that would have been cheaper 

We don’t really know though what the price was in moving him.  

[Dr. Crossbar]

29 minutes ago, DrJockitch said:

I think sometimes that is the extremities of tone on sites like this and in general for digital.

I thought we overpaid slightly in the trade and was non-sensical timing for the deal, at the deadline as a non-playoff team for an injured player.

So not mad or butthurt or whatever but did have some minor criticisms of the deal.

 

That's fine. I'm not saying everyone. Recurring patterns of online behavior on here eventually tell the real tale anyway.

 

I had him in my pools from his first year so I knew what we were getting from the get-go. It was something to be excited about. Especially since he was exactly what people were crying about for years.

 

I was relentless and over the top in fighting for that because he deserved a fair shake on these boards rather than the negative narratives tainting and taking hold from the start. It was certainly far from negative.

 

Overall, though, I think he got a fair shake despite the negative attempts to marginalize him. His play in the first half silenced his critics. His play in the second half was certainly fair game.

 

We have our top pairing locked up and their best is yet to come. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 20 by Dr. Crossbar

[stawns]

20 minutes ago, coho8888 said:

We don’t really know though what the price was in moving him.  

 

I think my approach always been that RT could suck it up for a couple months at the start of this year while they rebuilt his value, then find someone to take him, even if they had to retain or throw in a sweetener.

[Rip The Mesh]

 

Filip Hronek inked an 8-year, $58 million deal, keeping him in Vancouver throughout his prime.
The front-loaded deal carrying a $7.25 million AAV cap hit vaults the Czech defenceman into the 30th highest-paid defenceman in the league. For the first half of the season, Hronek performed up to that billing and then some, but an injury-riddled second half put a bit of a damper on the overall view of his season.
Still, the contract represents very good business. For one, locking up a 26-year-old right-handed defenceman with proven chemistry with Quinn Hughes provides stability moving forward. Hughes knows he has a partner on defence that he can rely on—it’s unlikely Hronek will drop off a cliff anytime soon, either. At 26, there are plenty of prime years left in Hronek before age-related decline creeps into his performance. One question is whether Hronek can buoy his own pairing. However, at the minimum, he’s one-half of the best defensive pairings in the league.

 That was definitely not a guarantee with the names in free agency, players who are older and don’t have that proven fit with Hughes. Plus, it would be almost certain that Vancouver would have to overpay in free agency to secure one of those RHD targets.

 

It’s solid value to get Hronek locked in at the cap hit that he’s at. The $7.25 million cap hit represents about 8.24% of the Canucks’ cap hit for next season. Most of the UFA right-handed defencemen who put up similar production are coming in at a higher cap hit than him, with the only two exceptions being 37-year-old Kris Letang and 30-year-old Mackenzie Weegar. Chances are, Hronek is more likely to reproduce his level of production than those two. As for 24-year-olds Noah Dobson and Evan Bouchard, both will be getting hefty raises after next season, given their roles as their team’s number 1 defencemen. Getting Hughes and Hronek locked up at a combined 17.1% of the cap hit is a pretty darn solid business, especially considering that Darnell Nurse alone takes up 10.5% of his team’s cap space without contributing top-pairing play.

[PavelB]

Hronek's signing is a win-win situation for both parties involved. It's hard to understand how anyone could be dissatisfied with it. After all, he's a talented 26-year-old right-handed defenseman, and there aren't many players of his caliber available. If we were to find someone like him in free agency, it would truly be a miracle.

[higgyfan]

29 minutes ago, stawns said:

 

Fleeced?  They gave up a first and 2nd for OEL and Garland essentially and cleared cap space at the same time.  OEL was solid in his first year in Van, and then wheels fell off the whole organization.

 

Clearly he and Tocchet weren't going to work, I just wished they used a little patience and restored some value to his game, which is still very clearly there.

 

That buyout penalty is going to hit very hard exactly when they need cap space to make a push to the next level

 

Tocc and OEL suffered through 4 seasons on a hopeless team with horrific defence. Being a 6oa pic

entering his prime, Tocc likely had huge expectations on OEL; as a player and a team leader.  I can

see the friction between them, as OEL certainly could play a physical game and his offensive game

was terrific; his defensive game was not so good and we all know how important defense is to Tocc.

 

I agree that the management should have put their foot down and insisted on waiting until he was

fully recovered from his injury, before thinking of buying him out.  Allowing him to get healthy and

start playing like he did in his previous season with the Nucks (and current season with Panthers),

would have had a more positive outcome. 

[stawns]

32 minutes ago, PavelB said:

Hronek's signing is a win-win situation for both parties involved. It's hard to understand how anyone could be dissatisfied with it. After all, he's a talented 26-year-old right-handed defenseman, and there aren't many players of his caliber available. If we were to find someone like him in free agency, it would truly be a miracle.

 

Likd I said, I'm fine with the deal in a vacuum, but if it costs them zadorov, then I'm not

[Dr. Crossbar]

38 minutes ago, PavelB said:

Hronek's signing is a win-win situation for both parties involved. It's hard to understand how anyone could be dissatisfied with it. After all, he's a talented 26-year-old right-handed defenseman, and there aren't many players of his caliber available. If we were to find someone like him in free agency, it would truly be a miracle.

 

Exactly this. Agree completely. Top pairing takes priority. 

[JeremyCuddles]

1 hour ago, stawns said:

 

I agree they had to move on, they just chose the wrong way to do it, imo 

Any time I agree with Stawns I get worried. But yeah. I think waiting a year on OEL would have been smart. Guy was playing on one ankle, on a blueline that was Hughes deep, and had Myers on his back. I really wanted to see a OEL and Hronek pairing. I think Hronek has more to offer if he's in the 2nd pair role and not the 1st pair role. The buyout has us with too much dead cap for too long. And for a team that is 3 prospects deep in the pool. I dunno. We are gonna need to hit home runs on cheap reclamation projects for like 4-5 straight years. Just a lot to ask for unless you're playing NHL 24.

[testycal]

Did not the OEL wheels fall of the bus when the elevator in his house issue arose?

[PhillipBlunt]

32 minutes ago, stawns said:

 

Likd I said, I'm fine with the deal in a vacuum, but if it costs them zadorov, then I'm not

Sounds like Milstein is actively working with the team to make something happen that works for both sides.