The NHL pre-season that started, there are already several young renowned players trapped in the limbo. Devils from New Jersey‘Luke Hughes, Ducks Anaheim‘Mason mctavish and Nashville predators‘Luke Evangelista are the three Notable RFA left without agreement in the NHL As the training camp is well advanced. In addition, the old first round choices Alexander Holtz and Rasmus Kupari also need a new contract.
Fans and the media have learned that there is a scheme when players and teams have long conflicts in contractual negotiations. A trend has been formed over the years when players lacked the camp and were sometimes part of the season due to negotiations, only to underform once an agreement has been concluded.
In the previous articleHockey news examined how notable the contractual conservatives in the pre-Salaire CAP era have succeeded. However, with the Lock-out 2004-2005 which introduced a free agency without restrictions for the Nhlers for a long time, a limited free agency was left to young players. In addition, a deadline of December 1 for FRG and the potential for supply sheets have made sure that fewer teams are ready to establish a player throughout the season due to negotiations.
The Kyle Dubas Maple Leafs of Toronto were enthroned in two main FV negotiations which made a spiral ramp. William Nylander came out of the consecutive seasons of 60 points and 20 goals. He showed many lightnings, but at that time, he had not raised his game to that of a real star.
The Swedish hit the market closed in July 2018, and in the coming months, anxiety began to be built in Leafs Nation while “Willy” remained without contract.
He would stay in Europe, training with the Austrian team Dornbirner EC. With only a few minutes before December 1, 5 p.m., the deadline, Extension of $ 6.9 million from Nylander and $ 6.9 million was treated.
The short -term return on investment was dark. Nylander only patinated 54 games that season, having only seven goals and 27 points. Even after this disastrous campaign, Nylander picked up where he stopped before the contract dispute.
It was only in the last seasons of the agreement that it has become a flight to the Leafs when Nylander finally became the superstar that the team knew he had in him. To date, Nylander remains a Full piece of sheets And a favorite of fans.
Only one season after the Nylander saga, Mitch Marner became RFA in July 2019. He had just recorded a 94 -point career season – the most since the 90 -points of Mats Sundin campaign in 1996-97. The negotiations were incredibly tense, with its Agent tender his hand to the ZSC lions of the Swiss League This August, because the two parties could not conclude an agreement.
Marner would sign A six -year agreement Right after the start of the training camp, which would eat two years of elfi (UFA, but with a non-movement clause over the last two years of the agreement, preventing any job without the express authorization of Marner.
On the ice, the production of Marner took only a minor drop in the two overvalued seasons of the pandemic, while working on his defensive game. It would then go beyond its previous production, even reaching the 100 points bar last season.
However, the damage was caused. Difficult negotiations have transformed the child of the hometown into a punch bag for fans, who would ultimately become one of the causes of His departure from the team to the Vegas Golden Knights Last summer.
When Ottawa senators“Brady Tkachuk became an RFA at the end of the 2020-21 season and was in a similar situation in Nylander. Tkachuk had overshadowed the mark of 20 goals twice, but he had only a 45-point career summit at that time after his recruit season.
Despite stagnant production, then GM Pierre Dorion knew he had a star in the country. However, Dorion’s negotiation tactics report young players to long -term agreements on bridge contracts while offering little or no bonus money made the negotiations of Tkachuk not proven difficult, forcing Tkachuk to miss the camp and the pre-season.
Finally, the two parties settled on a From seven years to just over $ 8.2 million per seasonAnnounced when the team is opened at home. He missed three games before finally going into action, and barely 22 days later, the reconstruction senators I entrusted it as a team captain at 22 years old.
The story of Tkachuk is one of the best cases among the difficult negotiations in terms of performance. In the campaign after the contract debate, he organized his best season with 30 goals and 67 points. Now Tkachuk is a star of good faith, a leader and a favorite of fans.
While the players have shown various degrees of success after missing a camp, a pre-season or even a regular season action due to the contractual impasse, the case of Jeremy Swayman shows that the results of the goalkeepers can be clearly worse. In other words, the Boston Bruins Botched Swayman negotiations from the start.
In 2023-24, the native of anchorage, in Alberta. Get out of a winning season from the Vezina Trophy. Swayman had marginally surpassed the veteran goalkeeper in the regular season, displaying a percentage of .916 stops with .915 from Ullmark.
However, in the playoffs, Swayman was going to take the reins with a .933 SP on 12 games. At the start of the dead, the team decided to prioritize the younger goalkeeper who had better results.
The B could have easily kept Ullmark as a stake to lower the requested price of Swayman, because Swayman had no clear track to become a starter in good faith in the term short of medium with Ullmark around.
However, the Bruins rushed Ullmark Trade to OttawaGiving a lever on the Swayman camp to increase their requested price. At this point, it was clear that Boston needed Swayman as a goalkeeper n ° 1.
While the weeks turned around months, Swayman and the Bruins had a hard time reconciling until the regular season, where the parties met on a Eight -year agreement, $ 8.25 million AAV– The same price as the extension of Ullmark with the senators but twice as much.
Rust was very obvious once Swayman entered the NHL’s action, because he had the impression that he had become the worst version of himself, with accentuated weaknesses and an inconsistency. It would display a sp .892 and 3.11 goals against the average while starting 58 games.
It was far from the figures Boston I was hoping for a goalkeeper freshly out of a top-10 Vezina Trophy finish. Now, with a full camp, we can expect that in his sixth year, the 26 -year -old goalkeeper can bounce back in shape and up to the price and expectations of a legitimate starter.
The Bruins Star revenge tour is starting now
With the training camp here, all eyes are undoubtedly on Boston Bruins Goalkeeper Jeremy Swayman.
Already with several negotiations leading to the pre-season game, these examples serve as a recall that when players lack training camps due to negotiations, this can cause major short-term collapses, and long-term fractured relationships.
Luke Hughes may be willing to put water under the bridge once he reported, thanks to playing with his brother Jack, and MCTAVISH could as well do it, the Ducks potentially consider him as a future captain, which makes his situation not too different from that of Brady Tkachuk.
As the proverb says, what is happening in Vegas remains in Vegas. However, what is happening in the negotiations remains with the players.
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