Will there be an increase in offer sheets going forward?
Donnie & Dhali: Forward Florida Assistant GM Steve Werier thinks there will be more offer sheets going forward.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Rick Dhaliwal: “From the people that you’re talking to, because you’re still well connected in the NHL circles, offer sheets. Boy, did St Louis turn some heads. They got two good ones in (Philip) Broberg and (Dylan) Holloway last year out of Edmonton. Do you see offer sheets coming with the cap going up? Take us into the inside of an offer sheet.”
Werier: “Yeah, like, short answer, absolutely. I think offer sheets like, like in other sports, and the trend that’s been going the NHL lately, there will be more and with good reason. You know, I think the name of the game if you’re trying to build a contender, is you want to stockpile elite young players. And you can do that if you’re lucky in the draft, but you can also do it by an offer sheet.
And like you said, St Louis had some good success with Broberg and Holloway. And this year you have some really interesting candidates, including, you know, watching last night, guys like Matthew Knies.
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And, yeah, you know, the cap going up gives, gives some measure of flexibility to teams, but you’ll also see, you know, the officer sheet numbers go up, and teams have to sign other players as well.
So you’re definitely going to see it, I think, for teams that might be a little cap-crunched, like Edmonton was when St. Louis pounced. And then you’ll, you know, also probably see some aspirational ones for players like Knies, and you might even, I don’t know, I see some surprising ones, like we did with (Jesperi) Kotkaniemi.
But yeah, I think they’re here to stay. I think they’re a fantastic tool. They’re one, you know, it’s something we talked a lot about in Florida and toyed with, and really spent a lot of time looking at offer sheeting some top young players at that time. And I really don’t see, you know, the argument against it. It’s just it’s that hard to acquire sort of generational young players and keep them, and that’s an excellent tool to do it.”
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