Off-Season Signings

[Frank E]

Oilers landed Caggiula:

http://www.tsn.ca/oilers-sign-collegiate-f-caggiula-1.485600

I would suppose there is an allure to potentially playing with McDavid.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

The Islanders signed Casey Cizikas to a 5-year contract extension with an AAV of $3.35mil.

Cizikas averaged 10:24 at even-strength this past season, which puts him squarely in the 4th line category. He might be a pretty good 4th liner, but that's still insane money to hand out. I mean it's only $1.15mil more than Kadri for goodness sakes.

 

[Tigger]

The Islanders signed Casey Cizikas to a 5-year contract extension with an AAV of $3.35mil.

Cizikas averaged 10:24 at even-strength this past season, which puts him squarely in the 4th line category. He might be a pretty good 4th liner, but that's still insane money to hand out. I mean it's only $1.15mil more than Kadri for goodness sakes.

He had 14:51 toi in the playoffs, they must like what they see somewhat, though that may have been due to Strome sitting for a few games too.

 

[Nik]

Pretty decent points per 60 and a lot of SH time for one of the league's better penalty kills. Maybe they plan on a bigger role for him?

Anyways, the money doesn't bother me as much as the term.

 

[WhatIfGodWasALeaf]

I feel like when you look at quite a few mediocre cap teams it's contracts like this that end up hamstringing them.

Guys that are making close to double what they are realistically worth on the open market and they are in their late twenties/early thirties.

Guys making from around 3 million to about 5.5 usually.

Some teams have about 10/12 of those signed and they really hurt teams flexibility.

They are good enough to be NHL'ers and good enough that they have deserved a bit of a pay bump off the league minimum, often times they've had 2 good seasons in the past five years, but they are not good enough to be a needle mover.

The teams wind up saddled with a bunch of largely unmovable assets and don't have the room to either sign up and comers, pending UFA's or upcoming FA's on July 1st.

The Czikas stinks of this type of deal. Even if he is only 25.

Surely they have someone in the pipeline who can bring what Czikas did at significantly lower cost?

It just strikes me as old school thinking, rewarding brawn over brain/finesse.