7.06.2007

Step aside Bobby Clarke

It’s been an interesting week for Kevin Lowe. First he all but admits he messed up the Smyth trade last season and then, just the next day, he tenders an offer that makes the Kesler RFA offer last year from Clarke look like a gentle pat on the ass. Give a glove tap to Spector who basically called this some time ago.

Good on Lowe’s intestinal fortitude to welcome the wrath of all other GM’s for now pegging the value of 23-year-old, 84 point getters in the league at a mind-numbing 7 years, $50 million dollars (Vanek must be single, huh?). The Sabres amazingly shitty summer continues and free agency has only been open for six days!

If he becomes an Oiler, sir Vanek will get $5 million in the first two seasons and $6.4 million in the remaining five (fuck am I in the wrong profession). He ALSO receives a $5-million signing bonus in each of the first two years. Edmonton would have to pony up the next four first-round draft picks as compensation.

Since the Canucks continue to do nothing nearly as fun, let’s see what Regier has to do: keep a franchise guy at this bloated cost and hope his production stays at that level or risk losing three huge guys in less then two weeks. For you Buffalo fans, the good news is happy hour starts in about 4 hours from now.

12:40 ET Update: Regier will match it. The fun lasted about 30 minutes. We return you now to your regularly scheduled programming.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm personally pretty happy Vancouver's not pulling that stunt, lol. I'll let the Oilers risk

Anonymous said...

Personally, I love this move (course, I AM an Oil fan.)

All these teams signing 80 point-getters to 8m a year contracts, they better watch their backs.

Seriously, though, Vanek gets 40 goals, and Buffalo thinks they should get him half-price?

Every team has the cap to work with. Every dollar spent on an RFA, one less can be spent on an UFA. That spreads the talent around, don'tchathink?

Unknown said...

Hmm. I didn't notice last night that the comment truncated.

It should have said I'll let the Oilers risk losing 4 draft picks and picking up the incredible tab they offered Vanek! It's fun to watch, but I'm glad my team wasn't the one involved!

And rex, it'd be great if the cap was staying put, but being able to grab RFAs from teams that aren't able to pay out the full cap without going into debt is kind of silly. If it was still down at $43 mil, then it'd be fair competition to scoop someone else's RFA, but as it is I'm just waiting for a team like the Rangers to post a bid that a team like the Sabres simply can't match. If they had had a mind and put forth $10 million, would the Sabres have matched? $12 million? As of yet, it's not quite possible since the cap is still present, but if it gets up to something like $70 million, then that's exactly what we'll be looking at. And sadly, Edmonton's one of the teams that will be suffering for it, not gaining.

Unknown said...

Rex - it wasn't a bad move at all for the Oil. Lowe did what he had to do and it's a shitty business sometimes, but Buffalo could have signed Vanek already. It's a gamble for both teams; I'm now even more curious how Lowe responds now. He'll need to do more then just land Pitkanen.

And I do agree with you...some of these contract lengths are just out of control. Look at Jovo's 6.5 million a year and they're already looking to see if they can get him to waive his NTC. And then look at what Nonis has to do...sign scrappers for one year at a time. Two years max. It's so much harder to put a core together under the cap and these long term gambles just scream "failure" to me.

Then again, nothing would be bring me more joy then the big UFA teams out there - Rangers, Flyers and Avs - failing miserably next season.

Anonymous said...

Give a glove tap to Spector who basically called this some time ago.


WTF are you talking about?
Spector didnt predict shit!

Mike said...

Anonymous - learn to click the actual link I put in the post before jumping in here with the comments; if nothing else it will help you discuss the issue at hand.

Spector called someone tendering a RFA contract to Vanek that would force Buffalo's hand:
"...speculation a club shut out of the bidding for this summer's top UFA forwards might send Vanek an offer sheet for a salary potentially too expensive for Regier to match."

The only thing Spector didn't do here was say it would be Edmonton.