Comments on: Free Agency — It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World

By: PremiumPress Discount Coupon

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By: OrderedChaos

OrderedChaos — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 18:53:59 +0000

Darren Eliot agrees about the ridiculousness of the $50M cap:
“As a league, if your cap number exceeds the reach of most member clubs and contract precedent is set for both term and dollars, economic and competitive viability as part of the post-lockout vision becomes a false promise.”
Good article overall, worth a read:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/darren_eliot/07/03/free.aqency/index.html

By: OrderedChaos

OrderedChaos — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 08:05:11 +0000

Those are likely offer candidates TG. You know they’d have had to at least make offers to Smyth, Gomez & Drury, though I doubt they were among the final two or three teams in the final bidding war. Still, when players of that caliber are available, you’ve gotta give it a try.
Wouldn’t surprise me if they approached Hamrlik as well, and perhaps Mathieu Schneider. Still, I’m pretty happy with the three players they’ve acquired, and am hopeful they can make a deal for one more d-man. Even if they stand pat, this is already a much better team than last year’s.

By: TG

TG — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:24:39 +0000

Last night on Washington Post Live, McPhee said that the Caps had made offers to nine free agents, with (obviously) three of them accepted. Any guesses who the other six were?
I’m thinking that they at least made offers to Gomez, Drury and Briere, with the other three calls going to Rafalski, Smyth, and Hannan.
Anyone else have any thoughts?

By: Jean

Jean — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 16:42:43 +0000

Having watched salary caps here in Europe (I’m a displaced Caps fan), I really don’t understand why leagues bother.
Caps are there to be broken. Teams here in Britain (who had only ¬£215,000 to spend on the entire team) found lots of ways around it. One of the more entertaining involved paying players extra money every week to run the zamboni. Rumor has it they each did so once. It must have come out to something like ¬£500 per lap per player. Several teams use player coaches as that offsets part of the player-coach’s salary. Others have players “working” for the rink or pay their accomodation.
Big cap, little cap – doesn’t matter, there will always be creative team accountants.

By: Yngwie

Yngwie — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 08:31:39 +0000

Worst *&^%$ pic of LL I’ve ever seen. She looked a lot better crabwalking naked on “Family Guy”

By: OrderedChaos

OrderedChaos — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 02:43:35 +0000

Zubrus to NJD, $20.4M for six years.
Zoinks. I liked Zubie, and would have happily had him back in the Caps’ lineup as a winger… but not for that money, and not as a center (which he prefers for some reason).

By: Thunderweenie

Thunderweenie — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 01:54:22 +0000

Still can’t believe the Flyers signed Briere for eight years. They’d better hope he doesn’t tank and/or that he never has a serious injury (gee whiz, no chance of THAT happening in eight years, is there?). I honestly don’t understand why clubs are voluntarily exposing themselves to that kind of long-term risk these days.
I mean, hell, that long-term deal for Yashin on Long Island sure worked out great, didn’t it? And does anyone seriously think that DiPietro WON’T be a liability in 10 years when he’s in his late 30s and STILL has four years to go on his contract?
Between these long contracts, the high salary cap, and the insistence on staying in obscure markets where nobody cares, I don’t get the “new” NHL’s business model. I just don’t.

By: OrderedChaos

OrderedChaos — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 01:38:44 +0000

TW & TG, I agree that the $50M cap is a surprisingly high increase. A cap that most teams couldn’t possibly justify exceeding seems impotent. With so much of the league’s money coming from high ticket prices (and yes, the Caps are among the more reasonably priced), such a cap jump is dangerous indeed.

By: TG

TG — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 01:33:38 +0000

I may be in the minority here, but I think Pittsburgh’s moves are pretty good. Sykora will allow Recchi to slide down to the third line, and I think Sydor has a bit more get-up-and-go than Hatcher does.
As for the Rangers and Flyers, I have no problem watching them continue to self-destruct. Makes you wonder if they thought there was an NBA-style cap with lots of loopholes.
And just how high can the salary cap go? Given all the items about drops in attendance last season, is anyone else amazed it went up that much?