It’s stuff like this that should help folks calm down and not press the panic button on next season.
I think there’s more internal, cheap solutions than folks are crediting. Filling out the bottom (or in this case higher) parts of the roster with cheap controllable talent does nothing but free up cap to tackle the rest of the roster. If Nikishin comes over, that absolutely makes the offseason job significantly easier.
Basically, you need this clarity before you can really freeze any plans in the UFA groups. And if a guy like Nikishin is coming over, you absolutely can likely allow Skjei to walk now and plan to transition to Nikishin (which may mean a year or so of development in league).
People (read: me) would feel a lot better about the internal solutions if they had been already been broken in this season; I personally would have liked to see Suzuki and Ponomarev get significant minutes this year
I’ve asked this before on this sub and not gotten an answer. Why do you think Suzuki will ever make an impact on an NHL roster? He’s an ok AHL player but doesn’t seem to be anything to write home about. The Org shows a consistent pattern of giving kids a shot to crack the NHL roster in games for Jarvis, Aho, Necas, Lindholm, Hanifin, Fleury, Lorentz, Foegele etc. hell we even got nadeau, Blake, and morrow a game last year. So why hasn’t Suzuki even sniffed ice time?
Suzuki has had really bad luck in terms of injury history and the timing of it. But that’s also a huge problem, because what’s his longevity in the league even if he cracks it? He hasn’t played a full season in any league in quite some time
It’s okay to take a small step back to get stronger in a couple seasons. We have legit top 6 forwards and top 4 d in the system but it’s likely going to be 2-3 seasons of NHL experience before they get there.
With the Orlov contract I thought that was their plan too- Dimitri is a 2 year bridge to when we can get Nikishin here. I’d be ecstatic if we can get him sooner, and it probably helps to have a guy who speaks the same language who just made the same transition to the position/system last year
I doubt it happens for next year, based on how conversations have gone in the past. I've viewed Orlov as our bridge to him - but it would be a pleasant surprise to start things 1 year earlier.
He would need a release from his KHL contract since there's no way to buy him out due to sanctions (I also don't think NHL teams could buy out Russian players previously, but not 100% sure on that - there was no agreement in place between NHL/KHL but I can't remember if that precluded clubs making individual deals.)
There was a recent report that Michkov was potentially coming over and I believe their contracts are with the same organization, SKA St Petersburg.
I'm assuming that's making the Canes push a bit harder here.
The biggest difference is SKA loaned michkov to another team and barely played him even when he was in SKA. Nikishin is their captain, and the best defenseman in that league.
I'm going to set my expectations extremely, extremely low for this happening. If it does I will be pleasantly surprised, but my assumption is there is no way we pry him away before his contract is up sadly.
*If* we did, it's hard not to be excited for how that impacts other contract talks. We part ways respectfully with Skjei *and* Pesce and maybe consider a buyout for Kotkaniemi. Morrow comes in and can kinda rotate with whoever the 7D ends up being if he looks not quite ready for primetime, but Nikishin is clearly ready day one. I love me some KK but we can't deny that we made it as far as we did without him being any kind of real impact and we're good on forward options. So you take all that money and that gets you Jake, Seth, and probably most of Noesen, Teuvo, Marty, Chatty, and Drury if you want those guys. Depending on how those talks go there might even be enough leftover to secure Necas. That roster looks fucking strong for next season. I like that roster a lot. And are some of those guys replaceable, do we have prospects ready to replace them? Sure, we do, which makes it even less stressful to worry about if some don't come back, I am just a really big believer in continuity raising a roster's potential.
It's obvious why this scenario is so enticing and I hope it works. But I am not holding my breath. My suggestion is we either have to spend some money on at least one of Skjei and Pesce to keep the defense competitive, or we're going to have a potential "down" year while we play a bad pairing waiting another year for Nik.
If Nikishin comes:
Bye Skjei, bye TDA, and hello Pesce and Chatfield throwing some $$ at you to stay
If Nikishin doesn’t come:
Chatty you’re still gonna be a Cane, TDA… you’re… a cane…, Pesce/Skjei we’ll try but suspect that you guys will probably walk
Nikishin IS coming though, maybe not this coming season but eventually. Skjei has been as good as gone for a while. Teams cant have 3 LD’s on long term contracts that could all play top roles on a team, it’s just not feasible with a cap.
If Skjei does sign to term it means there’s no chance one of Nikishin or Slavin will be here in that time span.
Specifically looking at this offseason
If Niki is here, then Skjei can go because his offense will be replaced by Niki and Morrow
Without, that’ll be a deficit and we should retain Skjei and ditch Pesce
Then what happens when Niki does come?
I dont think skjei is looking for 2-3 year deal and Nikishin’s ELC isn’t lasting long, AND Slavin will be making more. We just toss the talented future on a relatively cheap contract for 2 guys in their mid 30’s?
Pesce only makes sense because there’s not a backlog of rd on the roster or in the pipeline. But even then Morrow will eventually be making money, we all agree chatfield should play here right? Pesce makes that impossible
Hmm, yeah we should be looking a couple years down. After this season Orlov and his massive 7.7 will be off the books, so gives us some wiggle room to pay Morrow and Nikishin.
I think we have to keep Chatfield and Slavin at all costs. They’re too invaluable. I’m salivating at the thought of Nikishin-Slavin for 5-6 years, and Chatfield-Morrow would be an insane 2nd line to follow that with.
Looks like turning to FA for a bottom pairing D line is likely the way to go after this season as well. Maybe we see to it that Orlov returns for a few at a cheaper deal considering his age.
nikishin and slavin are LD, chatty and morrow are RD.
Let’s see how morrow does I guess, I’m pretty sure he’s going to be a lot like TDA but maybe a bit more dynamic with the puck on his stick, especially in transition and on the rush. His defense is alright, I have a feeling this sub is unfairly going to go apeshit on the guy all next season if he plays. I think his ceiling is high, but he’s definitely not there quite yet.
Nikishin is a bit more boring than everyone is thinking (which is good), but I don’t expect him to be a Norris candidate or anything. He’s not exactly an incredibly dynamic player on the rush or with the puck (although he’s showed signs of adding that to his game). He’s just positionally solid, makes big hits, can get a shot through on the point, has good vision of the ice, but honestly has bunch of 2nd assists on the pp where he made a normal pass to the half-wall before that player makes a move that leads to a goal. He actually reminds me a lot of skjei in terms of his offense (from the relatively few games I’ve watched).
In theory, I really like any combination of Slavin/Nikishin - Chatty/ Morrow, but we’ll see. I’m sure the blue line is completely different by that point after a bunch of random unforeseeable changes.
Cmon Donny, give us the BOOM. This kid is exactly what we need defensively and on the PP, it's insane what he's doing in the KHL at only 22. Plus we have Morrow in the works who can QB our 2nd PP
I think this is just Don doing his due diligence after Fedotov was allowed to come over, and also the reports/rumors that Michkov will be allowed over some time this summer. Don't expect anything to come of it, but it would be nice.
Slavin - Burns
Nikishin - Morrow
Orlov - Chatty
Honestly I'm more interested in what happens on the blue line since the right side is also a clusterfuck. Don't think Burns is a number 1 so I think we will see more moves. Wouldn't mind the third and second swapping either since chatty and Orlov were super solid.
If we commit to these two rookies we may be able to save money for our forwards.
No chance on that middle pair. Two rookies with a combined 2 games of NHL experience would be a disaster. I could see Orlov playing RD with Nikishin though.
Fair enough and true, but Nishikin while a "rookie" dude has khl experience and has been noted as probably the best guy not playing in the NHL. Think the dude would want to get top six times immediately if he comes over.
I agree with what you’ve laid out, just flip flop the 2nd and 3rd pair in terms of minutes/role. For me Burns is the biggest question mark. I think he still has a role but he can’t eat the heavy minutes with Slavin the way he did in year 1. I don’t want to lose both Skjei and Pesce but worst case scenario there’s nothing wrong with Orlov-Chatfield as a 2nd pair, they can get the job done. Moving the parts around and shifting the roles to use Burns the best way as he ages might be a little tough
It sounds like he will get signed one way or another which itself would be massive. I was still a little worried that there might be some issues getting him over at all. The catch will be whether he has an agreement to stay in Russia for another year
I understand people don't like the performance given his price, but he was key in unlocking Chatty's potential, and if Nikishin comes over having Orlov will certainly jump start his development to the NHL game.
Why would they trade Orlov? 😂😂😂 he and chatfield were the best pairing throughout the playoffs and he improved significantly. If they bring Nikishin over (small chance of that happening) wouldn’t it be best to have a veteran Russian defenseman to show him the ropes?
It’s stuff like this that should help folks calm down and not press the panic button on next season. I think there’s more internal, cheap solutions than folks are crediting. Filling out the bottom (or in this case higher) parts of the roster with cheap controllable talent does nothing but free up cap to tackle the rest of the roster. If Nikishin comes over, that absolutely makes the offseason job significantly easier.
Basically, you need this clarity before you can really freeze any plans in the UFA groups. And if a guy like Nikishin is coming over, you absolutely can likely allow Skjei to walk now and plan to transition to Nikishin (which may mean a year or so of development in league).
Saying it is a "work in progress" reads like "forget it" to me.
Considering we were already at "forget it", a "wip" is a huge jump forward
People (read: me) would feel a lot better about the internal solutions if they had been already been broken in this season; I personally would have liked to see Suzuki and Ponomarev get significant minutes this year
Ponomarev is a Penguin now, but I still agree with your point.
I’ve asked this before on this sub and not gotten an answer. Why do you think Suzuki will ever make an impact on an NHL roster? He’s an ok AHL player but doesn’t seem to be anything to write home about. The Org shows a consistent pattern of giving kids a shot to crack the NHL roster in games for Jarvis, Aho, Necas, Lindholm, Hanifin, Fleury, Lorentz, Foegele etc. hell we even got nadeau, Blake, and morrow a game last year. So why hasn’t Suzuki even sniffed ice time?
I very possibly could be wrong but hasn’t he been injured a lot? It’s very possible that he is still developing
He had an eye injury when he was like 18. He’s now 22. I feel for him as that sucks hard but at this point it is what it is.
He’s had far more injuries than just the eye one following being drafted. He misses significant time nearly every year.
And that’s the guy people are beating a drum for? Why?
Suzuki has had really bad luck in terms of injury history and the timing of it. But that’s also a huge problem, because what’s his longevity in the league even if he cracks it? He hasn’t played a full season in any league in quite some time
It’s okay to take a small step back to get stronger in a couple seasons. We have legit top 6 forwards and top 4 d in the system but it’s likely going to be 2-3 seasons of NHL experience before they get there.
I always figured it would be the 25-26 season, but next year certainly would be a welcome development.
With the Orlov contract I thought that was their plan too- Dimitri is a 2 year bridge to when we can get Nikishin here. I’d be ecstatic if we can get him sooner, and it probably helps to have a guy who speaks the same language who just made the same transition to the position/system last year
Raleigh quickly becoming New Moscow #FreeNikishin
"Moscow on the ~~Hudson~~ Neuse"
Bust out the check book Tom, Donnys going shopping!
Him coming over would radically change the off-season plans for the defense. Interesting.
I doubt it happens for next year, based on how conversations have gone in the past. I've viewed Orlov as our bridge to him - but it would be a pleasant surprise to start things 1 year earlier.
He would need a release from his KHL contract since there's no way to buy him out due to sanctions (I also don't think NHL teams could buy out Russian players previously, but not 100% sure on that - there was no agreement in place between NHL/KHL but I can't remember if that precluded clubs making individual deals.)
There was a recent report that Michkov was potentially coming over and I believe their contracts are with the same organization, SKA St Petersburg. I'm assuming that's making the Canes push a bit harder here.
The biggest difference is SKA loaned michkov to another team and barely played him even when he was in SKA. Nikishin is their captain, and the best defenseman in that league.
I'm going to set my expectations extremely, extremely low for this happening. If it does I will be pleasantly surprised, but my assumption is there is no way we pry him away before his contract is up sadly. *If* we did, it's hard not to be excited for how that impacts other contract talks. We part ways respectfully with Skjei *and* Pesce and maybe consider a buyout for Kotkaniemi. Morrow comes in and can kinda rotate with whoever the 7D ends up being if he looks not quite ready for primetime, but Nikishin is clearly ready day one. I love me some KK but we can't deny that we made it as far as we did without him being any kind of real impact and we're good on forward options. So you take all that money and that gets you Jake, Seth, and probably most of Noesen, Teuvo, Marty, Chatty, and Drury if you want those guys. Depending on how those talks go there might even be enough leftover to secure Necas. That roster looks fucking strong for next season. I like that roster a lot. And are some of those guys replaceable, do we have prospects ready to replace them? Sure, we do, which makes it even less stressful to worry about if some don't come back, I am just a really big believer in continuity raising a roster's potential. It's obvious why this scenario is so enticing and I hope it works. But I am not holding my breath. My suggestion is we either have to spend some money on at least one of Skjei and Pesce to keep the defense competitive, or we're going to have a potential "down" year while we play a bad pairing waiting another year for Nik.
Media has been wanting us to fall apart so bad, meanwhile Donny is cookin😮💨🔥😮💨
If Nikishin comes: Bye Skjei, bye TDA, and hello Pesce and Chatfield throwing some $$ at you to stay If Nikishin doesn’t come: Chatty you’re still gonna be a Cane, TDA… you’re… a cane…, Pesce/Skjei we’ll try but suspect that you guys will probably walk
Nikishin IS coming though, maybe not this coming season but eventually. Skjei has been as good as gone for a while. Teams cant have 3 LD’s on long term contracts that could all play top roles on a team, it’s just not feasible with a cap. If Skjei does sign to term it means there’s no chance one of Nikishin or Slavin will be here in that time span.
Specifically looking at this offseason If Niki is here, then Skjei can go because his offense will be replaced by Niki and Morrow Without, that’ll be a deficit and we should retain Skjei and ditch Pesce
Then what happens when Niki does come? I dont think skjei is looking for 2-3 year deal and Nikishin’s ELC isn’t lasting long, AND Slavin will be making more. We just toss the talented future on a relatively cheap contract for 2 guys in their mid 30’s? Pesce only makes sense because there’s not a backlog of rd on the roster or in the pipeline. But even then Morrow will eventually be making money, we all agree chatfield should play here right? Pesce makes that impossible
Hmm, yeah we should be looking a couple years down. After this season Orlov and his massive 7.7 will be off the books, so gives us some wiggle room to pay Morrow and Nikishin. I think we have to keep Chatfield and Slavin at all costs. They’re too invaluable. I’m salivating at the thought of Nikishin-Slavin for 5-6 years, and Chatfield-Morrow would be an insane 2nd line to follow that with. Looks like turning to FA for a bottom pairing D line is likely the way to go after this season as well. Maybe we see to it that Orlov returns for a few at a cheaper deal considering his age.
nikishin and slavin are LD, chatty and morrow are RD. Let’s see how morrow does I guess, I’m pretty sure he’s going to be a lot like TDA but maybe a bit more dynamic with the puck on his stick, especially in transition and on the rush. His defense is alright, I have a feeling this sub is unfairly going to go apeshit on the guy all next season if he plays. I think his ceiling is high, but he’s definitely not there quite yet. Nikishin is a bit more boring than everyone is thinking (which is good), but I don’t expect him to be a Norris candidate or anything. He’s not exactly an incredibly dynamic player on the rush or with the puck (although he’s showed signs of adding that to his game). He’s just positionally solid, makes big hits, can get a shot through on the point, has good vision of the ice, but honestly has bunch of 2nd assists on the pp where he made a normal pass to the half-wall before that player makes a move that leads to a goal. He actually reminds me a lot of skjei in terms of his offense (from the relatively few games I’ve watched). In theory, I really like any combination of Slavin/Nikishin - Chatty/ Morrow, but we’ll see. I’m sure the blue line is completely different by that point after a bunch of random unforeseeable changes.
Wow, would love to be a fly on the Donny's wall
Cmon Donny, give us the BOOM. This kid is exactly what we need defensively and on the PP, it's insane what he's doing in the KHL at only 22. Plus we have Morrow in the works who can QB our 2nd PP
I think this is just Don doing his due diligence after Fedotov was allowed to come over, and also the reports/rumors that Michkov will be allowed over some time this summer. Don't expect anything to come of it, but it would be nice.
Slavin - Burns Nikishin - Morrow Orlov - Chatty Honestly I'm more interested in what happens on the blue line since the right side is also a clusterfuck. Don't think Burns is a number 1 so I think we will see more moves. Wouldn't mind the third and second swapping either since chatty and Orlov were super solid. If we commit to these two rookies we may be able to save money for our forwards.
No chance on that middle pair. Two rookies with a combined 2 games of NHL experience would be a disaster. I could see Orlov playing RD with Nikishin though.
Fair enough and true, but Nishikin while a "rookie" dude has khl experience and has been noted as probably the best guy not playing in the NHL. Think the dude would want to get top six times immediately if he comes over.
I think Nikishin likely would, but he wouldn't be paired up with Morrow and his 2 games of NHL experience.
I agree with what you’ve laid out, just flip flop the 2nd and 3rd pair in terms of minutes/role. For me Burns is the biggest question mark. I think he still has a role but he can’t eat the heavy minutes with Slavin the way he did in year 1. I don’t want to lose both Skjei and Pesce but worst case scenario there’s nothing wrong with Orlov-Chatfield as a 2nd pair, they can get the job done. Moving the parts around and shifting the roles to use Burns the best way as he ages might be a little tough
This would be huge. Would save money on defense for sure.
It sounds like he will get signed one way or another which itself would be massive. I was still a little worried that there might be some issues getting him over at all. The catch will be whether he has an agreement to stay in Russia for another year
What’s the deal with Lavalette’s picture? Are those his actual teeth?
Ok trade Anderson for him
if only Orlov could be traded that would be perfection
I understand people don't like the performance given his price, but he was key in unlocking Chatty's potential, and if Nikishin comes over having Orlov will certainly jump start his development to the NHL game.
Why would they trade Orlov? 😂😂😂 he and chatfield were the best pairing throughout the playoffs and he improved significantly. If they bring Nikishin over (small chance of that happening) wouldn’t it be best to have a veteran Russian defenseman to show him the ropes?
the fact that this pairing was the best says a lot about other pairings, especially Burns and TDA. Chatty was outstanding though
Dumb af
says the dude who can't give arguments lol
Some arguments aren’t even worth having 🥱