long term contracts

So with the way Lou played and given he just inked a 12 year deal which if he can't get shit shit together is going to haunt Vancouver for a long ass time, could we have seen the last big deal given. I know the NHL is going to try and avoid those with the next CBA but things like this, can fuck a team.

what do you guys think?

if GM's and teams want to spend their money that way then let them. That's their mistake to make. NHL should leave these contract ideas alone and let the teams spend their money how they want.

Well there have been rumors of Backstrom getting 10 years from the Caps, so no, its not the end.

The GM/Coach/Owner all have to be extremely confident in a player to give him more than 4 years IMO. Thats why guys like Belanger, Brodziak, and Kobasew only get 3 year deals, sure they are nice to have, but at the same time they aren't going to make or break your team.

The Wild have arguably fucked themselves as much as anyone in recent years with long term contracts, as Bouchard, Schultz, and Parrish were all terrible deals, no matter how you look at them. Too many years for all of them, whether or not the cap-hits were justified at the time.

all of the players outside of the Wild are pretty talented and i can see where those GMs would think it would be a good idea to dump a shit ton of money on them.

DR on the other hand only has a small part of his brain working, so when he sees Butch puck handle through three guys two years ago, he felt he should give him an ass load of money.

Schultz is a good stay at home D-man, but doesn't deserve the cash he's making.

and Parrish, ugh, i am surprised nobody went click, clack, boom off of a building in st. paul with a sniper rifle to douggie

Lost my reply;

My only issue with long term contracts are the cheap ways out of them. The prevailing thought is, that you can offer a player a boat load of money, front loaded, until they are 50 (exaggerated) which drops the cap hit down to a bearable amount.

The player won't play until he's fifty. Hossa is a good example. His contract is set until he is, what, 42? He won't play passed 38.

In that regard, I consider it "cheating" a bit, but it's legal cheating considering that the CBA doesn't weight the cap hit to salary, etcetera.

I think that really is what gets me about the teams I don't care for; Detroit, Chicago, Philly... Pretty much any team which "front-loads" contracts with the expectation that the player will retire at a reasonable age... Hossa, Zetterberg, Pronger...

yeah i think the NHL will look at a way to make the cap hit so its more fair for the money paid to avoid a guy being signed for a low cap hit but huge number.

The issue i have and what i hope GMCF does is to only give out longer contracts like say 5 years to guys like Koivu, and to ensure that there is always and option to trade him, maybe his last year if he doesn't re up by a certain time he can be traded so we don't get handcuffed by the player.

If Lou is as big a sieve in the years to come VAN is going to be fucked, also Chicago could be in trouble as they will have to make some uncomfortable decisions.

But to me what i was saying is GM's have to look hard when signing a player to long term, there could be an aura of "well i get paid for the next 10 years so if a suck i still get the money" that players could get with guaranteed contracts. only time will tell how it all shakes out but 2 years of getting lit up can't be a good sign for Van.

I don't have a big problem with working that sal cap loophole. Any GM can do, so it is fair to all. I think it is a stupid thing to do for both a player and a organization. A LOT can change over the course of a decade. One aspect about those long term front loaded contract is you see the final year or two is some insanely low $$$ amount. How are those legal when they are under the player minimum salary. For example Pronger's extension is a $4.9M cap hit, but his last two years are for an actual salary of $525K per season which will be well under the minimum in 2015. How does that work? Is that another loophole that a salary must be at least at or above league minimum at the time the contract is drafted and signed? Or will Pronger get a raise to whatever the league minimum at the time? Which would in turn be an albeit minor cheat on Pronger's cap hit throughout the life of the deal he signed. It's like a double helix loophole. Not that I think Pronger will be playing when he is 40-41, but you never know. I'm sure his wife will make him retire before they fall out of that lofty millionaire status. Probably why Pronger is such a mean player on the ice. The wife wears the strap-on at home. I don't know who is the bigger bitch?

forthewild wrote:

yeah i think the NHL will look at a way to make the cap hit so its more fair for the money paid to avoid a guy being signed for a low cap hit but huge number.

The issue i have and what i hope GMCF does is to only give out longer contracts like say 5 years to guys like Koivu, and to ensure that there is always and option to trade him, maybe his last year if he doesn't re up by a certain time he can be traded so we don't get handcuffed by the player.

If Lou is as big a sieve in the years to come VAN is going to be fucked, also Chicago could be in trouble as they will have to make some uncomfortable decisions.

But to me what i was saying is GM's have to look hard when signing a player to long term, there could be an aura of "well i get paid for the next 10 years so if a suck i still get the money" that players could get with guaranteed contracts. only time will tell how it all shakes out but 2 years of getting lit up can't be a good sign for Van.

Players like Kovu you give him the amount of years he wants. He's an elite player who has shown excellent work ethic and toughness his entire career. There are no concerns about him quitting on the team, or becoming useless overnight. You could argue against this for Havlat or Gaborik, given their injury histories, questionable work ethic at times, but at the same time both have immense skill(Gaborik more-so obviously). I still feel the same way about Havlat's deal as I did last year -> if he stays healthy and plays motivated its an excellent deal, 5 years would have sounded better to me(as he wasn't going to take less than that) if possible, because of the risks.

Chicago's cap issue can be attributed to an aggressive president(Mcdonough) bringing in Huet and Campbell to make the team better right away, but their younger players progressed too quickly and they are left with too much talent to keep under the cap.

You look at the Wild's worst contracts. Bouchard was a player who hadn't done anything without Rolston at the time of his deal, who was a perennial 30 goal scorer with the Wild. Nick Schultz was a defensive d-man on a successful defensive team run by a defense-first coach. Parrish was a player who overachieved with the Islanders(you could say the same thing for Rolston here) teams and was never classified as a skill player by many(1 50+ point season in his 7 full years before joining the Wild). And if you want to say Backstrom, it was also because of the Lemaire system. Bouchard and Backstrom were also "panic" moves by DR, Bouchard because we unexpectedly lost Rolston, and Backstrom because he was putting up Vezina-worthy numbers in his 2nd season.

Any teams bad contracts can be attributed to 1) overachieving based on role/team/coach or 2) panic move. 3 or less years generally means under 3M per season, so it keeps those contracts manageable(See Nolan, Miettinen) even if they were questionable.

I wouldn't mind a LT deal for koivu but he's he only player on our team that warrants one.

Also some of those deals we handed out like Backs was due to waiting to long, we inked backs at the deadline and Riser said he wasn't working on him, if he had talked to him july 1st before his huge year we might have had him cheaper.

I do expect to see koivu extended before July is out this year.

I hate how this cap era works. Sure, salaries SHOULD be linked to revenue but they should be linked to the individual TEAMS revenues. This welfare state we call revenue sharing sucks ass. Teams shouldn't exist solely on smoke and mirrors. If they lose money they move or fold. Simple as that.

Makes sense to me Ceh.

cehnehdeh wrote:

I hate how this cap era works. Sure, salaries SHOULD be linked to revenue but they should be linked to the individual TEAMS revenues. This welfare state we call revenue sharing sucks ass. Teams shouldn't exist solely on smoke and mirrors. If they lose money they move or fold. Simple as that.

bad idea, tams like MTL would have a higher salary amount and could sign more quality players, small market teams get the shaft. loot at baseball NYY BOUGHT the world series last year legally dont want for hockey.

cehnehdeh wrote:

I hate how this cap era works. Sure, salaries SHOULD be linked to revenue but they should be linked to the individual TEAMS revenues. This welfare state we call revenue sharing sucks ass. Teams shouldn't exist solely on smoke and mirrors. If they lose money they move or fold. Simple as that.

That might as well be no cap at all, as you'd be back to the Rag$ spending 70mil and the Preds spending 20.

As much as you hate the cap era, it has spread the talent much more than in years past, which is the entire point. Teams that are cap responsible can be continuously competitive... those irresponsible get management shakeups.

It just hurts more in the NHL than it does in the NFL since contracts are guaranteed. It is a much better system currently though overall, than your suggestion would be.

I don't give a shit if the small market teams can be competitive or not. It's not like the Rags were able to buy multiple Stanley Cups anyways.

soooo, Backstrom and the Caps agree to 10 years 67 million........wowsers

00Xtremeninja wrote:

soooo, Backstrom and the Caps agree to 10 years 67 million........wowsers

yeah, but he's shown an ability to generate points, as well as he plays well with Ovie.

tho this isn't him getting a reduced cap hit.

Now the question begins who will they trade semin to