Is Michael Nylander at the Root of the Dale Tallon Firing?
by J.P. on Jul 19, 2009 11:14 AM EDT
34 comments
Early last week, the Chicago Blackhawks touched off a heck of a mid-summer drama when they fired General Manager Dale Tallon and ignited a few rounds of "he-said/he-said/he-said" that probably isn't over yet.
Now comes word from Larry Brooks (standard "consider the source" caveat applies) that Capitals deadweight scapegoat extraordinaire pivot Michael Nylander may have been at the center of what eventually cost Tallon his job:
The story circulating through NHL front offices, and relayed to Slap Shots by four general managers, is that Dale Tallon essentially had been operating as the Blackhawks' lame-duck GM since late November or early December, when he agreed to trade netminder Nikolai Khabibulin to Washington for center Michael Nylander. [Ed note: seems it wasn't Dustin Byfuglien and Brent Sopel after all.]
That ill-advised deal was vetoed by club president John McDonough, who then bided his time until he could come up with a reason/excuse to dismiss Tallon. The opening came when the Blackhawks were tardy delivering qualifying offers to a handful of Group II free agents, a costly blunder.
Khabibulin, of course, took the Blackhawks to the Western finals before signing a free-agent deal with Edmonton this month. Nylander, who still has two years at $4.875 million per season remaining on his contract, was a marginal player for the Caps, often a healthy scratch in the playoffs.
No wonder Washington GM George McPhee was livid when Chicago backed out of the deal. No wonder McDonough began to have second thoughts about keeping Tallon in power.
Michael Nylander's reach, apparently, has extended to screwing up teams of which he's not even a part. Amazing.
Oh, and lest you think McDonough's player valuation skills are razor sharp as evidenced by the potentially season-saving veto noted above, it's McDonough who gets the blame "for the signings of goalie Cristobal Huet and defenseman Bryan Campbell to large U.F.A. contracts" last summer.
So thanks, Dale Tallon, for trying your best to take Michael Nylander off the Caps' hands - it's truly a shame you weren't allowed to just do your job.
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There’s got to be more than just what was stated, because there’s no way the Caps could have taken Bulin’s salary in a straight up deal. Interesting.
by brs03 on Jul 19, 2009 11:32 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
I was just about to say that, too. Last I remember, Khabi was making what, 6 million? That’s just a shade more than 4.875 according my math. :-) Unless there was a plan to dump Theo, but where, exactly, would that have been? Can’t see that so early in the season, even with the rocky start.
by gfcaps fan on Jul 19, 2009 11:50 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Nylander cap hit + Johnny would have been about the same as Khabi. Doubtful we would have been able to unload theo at that point
Because now I can justify browsing and commenting during the work day with the argument that I am promoting my business.
by Sombrero Guy on Jul 19, 2009 1:32 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I can think of 3 or 4 ways the Caps could have cleared enough cap space to make this happen. The difference between Khabibulin’s cap hit and Nylander’s cap hit just wasn’t that great — especially since (as others have mentioned) there would be no need for another backup goalie with Theo and Khabibulin on the team.
by Gould Old Days on Jul 19, 2009 5:20 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Unless there was a plan to dump Theo, but where, exactly, would that have been?
I was thinking the same exact thing. This pretty much doesn’t make any sense.
by bigmac1124 on Jul 19, 2009 11:56 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Agreed. When I saw the Twitter feed, I just had to look because I was all ‘huh what?’ There’s no way that’s a straight-up deal, and I doubt it ever happened, especially since IIRC, Nylander told Tarik he was never approached when all the trade rumors were flying around. You’d think if something was that close to happening, Nylander would have been asked about it given his NMC.
Of course, consider the source.
"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." - Delores Ibarruri
by gotsparkly on Jul 19, 2009 12:03 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I wouldn’t dismiss the report entirely. The exact details might not be right, and it may also have been a case of GMGM putting a deal in place contingent on Nyls waiving his NMC and then going to the player (further, what Nylander may or may not have told Tarik isn’t necessarily any more reliable than what Larry Brooks writes on a weekly basis).
As for Theo, one option the team had is that he could have been waived and then put on re-entry waivers hoping some team would snag him at half price.
Bottom line here is just more smoke to the Thanksgiving-ish Nyls-to-Chicago rumors, and there’s an awful lot of smoke there.
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by J.P. on Jul 19, 2009 12:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I don’t know, I’d consider first-hand comments a bit more reliable than speculation.
Maybe Nylander was discussed in a trade with Chicago. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter now, really – what’s done is done (or not as the case may be), regardless of the reasons. I don’t think it’s any more or less of a comment on Dale Tallon than what we already saw in the off-season both this year and last year. I’m not entirely convinced that Stan Bowman is much more than Scotty Bowman’s puppet, but I guess we’ll find out.
"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." - Delores Ibarruri
by gotsparkly on Jul 19, 2009 12:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Brooks cites four NHL GMs. That’s not really speculation. And, as mentioned, Nylander wouldn’t necessarily have had to have been asked to waive his NMC for this story to be largely true.
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by J.P. on Jul 19, 2009 1:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
As for Theo, one option the team had is that he could have been waived and then put on re-entry waivers hoping some team would snag him at half price.
I considered that in my thinking, but it didn’t seem to make sense to potentially have a $4.5 million goalie in Hershey, or shelling out $2.25 million for one not on a Caps roster.
by gfcaps fan on Jul 19, 2009 12:59 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Two years with 2.25 in dead cap space would have been worth getting 3 years of Nyls off the books.
by Fehr and Balanced on Jul 19, 2009 2:34 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
That’s not dead cap space, that’s dead dollars. I know Ted’s willing to spend where necessary, but after paying for Jagr to be on someone else’s payroll for a few years, I would think they’d try to avoid something similar. Don’t know anything, just surmising. Then again, 2.25 wasted is potentially better than 4.875 in a body taking up a roster slot.
Don’t hire me for cap management, that is obvious.
by gfcaps fan on Jul 19, 2009 3:22 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
And then Slap Shots also had an article on “Torts Advice to Rangers Having Problem with Brashear”. It was interesting reading the comments. Some of the posters who are Rangers’ fans really have an issue with the signing of Brashear.
Brash was actually a popular guy among Caps fans.
by CapsFan75 on Jul 19, 2009 12:34 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
I’m definitely going to miss Brashear on the Caps, but I really hope that Rangers don’t boo him every time he walks onto the ice like they’re claiming they will. He doesn’t deserve that.
by Nicci on Jul 19, 2009 12:41 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
I don’t really care too much about the Rangers team one way or the other, but I have no respect for their fans.
"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." - Delores Ibarruri
by gotsparkly on Jul 19, 2009 12:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
They talked about this trade last winter on HNIC. And it wouldn't have been impossible to fit him under the cap. They could have just waived Morrisonn in order to fit him in.
by vegas caps fan on Jul 19, 2009 12:46 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
We only had 6 D at that point, waiving Mo likely wasn’t an option because Feds would have then become our only #2 C.
by brs03 on Jul 19, 2009 12:48 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Given the injuries, did we even have 6 healthy D, not counting the guys from Hershey?
by gfcaps fan on Jul 19, 2009 12:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I think about Thanksgiving-time we had two healthy D, and ShaMo wasn’t one of them.
"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." - Delores Ibarruri
by gotsparkly on Jul 19, 2009 1:04 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Morrisonn played in every Caps game from November 20 through January 13 (he had missed the previous six games prior to November 20).
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by J.P. on Jul 19, 2009 1:31 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Okay, so he was one of the early ones to go down. Thanks.
"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." - Delores Ibarruri
by gotsparkly on Jul 19, 2009 2:09 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Why did Tallon think that trading Khabibulin for Nylander was a good idea in the first place? If he’s the GM of an NHL team, he can’t be THAT stupid. What do you think his reasoning was?
by jakeshapiro on Jul 19, 2009 12:52 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
I guess it was that Khabibulin was gone after the season anyway, and Nyls’ trade value has cratered big time since this rumor occurred. He still had some plausible “he can turn it around, just a bad situation in Washington” potential at the time.
It’s kind of fascinating to think of the ramifications this deal would have had. I doubt Khabi would have been good enough to prevent what happened vs. Pitt (if that matchup ever happens), but we probably still don’t know what Varlamov is capable of if this trade happens (assuming we do now). Aucoin might be considered a regular Caps forward. Chicago probably doesn’t have its strong playoff run, and then can’t sign Hossa because of Nyls’ cap number. Etc. etc.
by grapejoos on Jul 19, 2009 1:02 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Thats almost exactly what I was thinking. Looking back at the rammifications that may or may not have happened. I think I’m fine with how things turned out.
by MetalCap on Jul 19, 2009 3:58 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Bulin hadn’t taken over completely by that point, and the Nylander situation here wasn’t as bleak at the time.
by brs03 on Jul 19, 2009 1:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Just because Nylander doesn’t/didn’t fit in with BB’s system for the Caps doesn’t mean that he’s not a good fit for another system. Remember he was close to a point per game during his injury plagued 07/08 season and was over a point per game with the Rags in 06/07.
I’m still holding out hope that he has a similar season with the Caps next year.
by Yoshietree on Jul 19, 2009 1:09 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
And the flip side is that if Nylander knew he was being actively shopped and was being asked to waive his NMC, that might have decreased his desire to play. He seemed to get worse after this (not that he’d been great to begin with).
by Gould Old Days on Jul 19, 2009 5:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
His reasoning was probably that the increase in overall team ability that would be gained from the difference between Nylander and whomever he replaced in the lineup would be greater than what would be lost by playing Huet rather than Khabby. Chicago had questions down the middle at the start of last season and didn’t seem to have that much of a drop off between their two goalies.
He was almost certainly wrong, but that would have been the logic.
by David M. Getz on Jul 19, 2009 1:16 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Exactly. The logic would have been “we have a $5.5m goalie sitting on the bench, which is an awful lot of dead weight – if we get a productive center who may not be producing in the system in which he’s currently playing and move our $6m starting goalie in the process, we’re getting a lot more out of our assets.” Especially if Huet was forced on him (Tallon), moving Khabby and doing something more productive with that money makes a lot of sense.
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by J.P. on Jul 19, 2009 1:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Chicago had questions down the middle at the start of last season
This is the big thing. Chicago had been playing Sharp as their 2C and they really like him better at the W from what I understand. They wanted a true C to play with Havlat on the second line (Toews was centering Kane on the first line) and I guess figured that Nylander may have been capable of doing that. They obviously had a ton of confidence in Huet to give him that contract, and Khabi had been injured/inconsistent since the lockout so I don’t think they expected the season he ended up putting together. If only…
by Fehr and Balanced on Jul 19, 2009 2:38 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Right – they had to move Lang for cap reasons and then spent a while trying to replace him.
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by J.P. on Jul 19, 2009 4:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
if tallon wasn’t the triggerman on the huet and campbell deals, he was already a lame-duck GM in my mind.
i think puck daddy’s take on this was correct, though. it’s all about the results. if the hawks can pull a magic trick or two and manage to keep their young stars, the new GM will be praised universally. regardless of the actual circumstances, the campbell and huet contracts will be during the “tallon era.”
oh, and the rest of the league is hip to the plague of nylander? to the point where GMs are getting fired for trying to acquire him? bummer.
by Natty Bumppo on Jul 19, 2009 3:13 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
The money being paid to Campbell is just plain stupid.
uhh...uhh...uhh...
by hotdog88gt on Jul 19, 2009 10:47 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
that can't be Nylander
total spin (no pun intended) I know…. but look at that picture – he’s shooting!
by nuftjedi on Jul 20, 2009 9:17 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
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