Guest GordieSid&Ted Report post Posted June 21, 2007 I don't know if as and NHL GM, I would really care if the other GM's were upset with me about doing what Clarke did. It was a very savvy move. It happens all the time in baseball. It's smart business. The time will come when Kenny pays more than he wants to in order to retain a RFA. Oh wait, that already happened with Sergei way back when.... What exactly is "savvy" about it? Clarke ended up not getting Kesler. Vancouver was pissed b/c they had to overpay Kesler. More than a handful of GM's got pissed off at Clarke for doing it. In essence all Clarke did was force a Western Conference team he doesn't play against to overpay a player and by doing so pissed off that GM and many others. These are people who he'll have to deal with when wanting to make trades and such and people that can do the same thing to him when his young players reach RFA status. People who probably had no intention of doing that to him to begin with but now....Think about the 2 contracts the Flyers just gave to Hartnell and Timonnen. You think some GM isn't thinking about how to stick it to Clarke when Richards and Carter are RFA's and Clarke thinks he can sign them for 1.8 or 2.2 and it ends up costing him 3.5 instead? He's gonna have serious cap issues. I don't see anything savvy about pissing off your contemporaries and failing to acquire the player anyway and furthermore doing it to a team in another conference who's salary constraints in the end mean nothing to you b/c any damage you do to them...you don't play them anyway so it isn't like your tying their hands in some way that benefits you directly. Those that think its savvy, probably would sign a different tune if it happened to us. What if Clarke ponied up an offer for Filpulla next year. Flip is gonna make about $750K this year and he'll be RFA next year. What if we're in need of replacing some older guys by then and want to try to nab some key free agents and we're figuring Flip will sign for 850K and he's totally worth it but along comes Clarke and offers him 1.7 mil. You still going to view Clarke as savvy? Where I come from I view that as being an *******. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
eva unit zero 271 Report post Posted June 21, 2007 Yeah he got the 28 mil up front but I'm sure they felt that was ok since they won the cup. And his base salary was 2 mil a year for the following 5 years. Not bad for what he did. It was probably better that they did get to the conference finals and had to pay him that because I believe the rest of that money would have been spread out over the length of the contract am I correct? Sergei's contract was a six year deal for 2m per year, plus a 14m signing bonus and 12m for reaching the conference finals in the first year. The CF bonus actually counted as salary in the second season, only counted for doing it in the first season (otherwise he'd have recieved it in 2002 as well) and the average value of the contract was only 6.33m per year including all bonuses. [/font] For reference, Joe Sakic signed a comparable deal the prior season that was 2m per year and a 15m signing bonus, an average of 7m per season. If you adjust the contract of Fedorov to the average, he would have been among the top paid players the first two seasons, but he quickly drops beyond the top 10, and then 20 even using the figure of 6.333m for all years. Considering he was among the best five or ten players in the world pretty much every season of that contract, it's hard to argue he was anythng but underpaid. What exactly is "savvy" about it? Clarke ended up not getting Kesler. Vancouver was pissed b/c they had to overpay Kesler. More than a handful of GM's got pissed off at Clarke for doing it. In essence all Clarke did was force a Western Conference team he doesn't play against to overpay a player and by doing so pissed off that GM and many others. These are people who he'll have to deal with when wanting to make trades and such and people that can do the same thing to him when his young players reach RFA status. People who probably had no intention of doing that to him to begin with but now....Think about the 2 contracts the Flyers just gave to Hartnell and Timonnen. You think some GM isn't thinking about how to stick it to Clarke when Richards and Carter are RFA's and Clarke thinks he can sign them for 1.8 or 2.2 and it ends up costing him 3.5 instead? He's gonna have serious cap issues. I don't see anything savvy about pissing off your contemporaries and failing to acquire the player anyway and furthermore doing it to a team in another conference who's salary constraints in the end mean nothing to you b/c any damage you do to them...you don't play them anyway so it isn't like your tying their hands in some way that benefits you directly. Those that think its savvy, probably would sign a different tune if it happened to us. What if Clarke ponied up an offer for Filpulla next year. Flip is gonna make about $750K this year and he'll be RFA next year. What if we're in need of replacing some older guys by then and want to try to nab some key free agents and we're figuring Flip will sign for 850K and he's totally worth it but along comes Clarke and offers him 1.7 mil. You still going to view Clarke as savvy? Where I come from I view that as being an *******. Didn't Clarke get fired like a year ago? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BigTex 1 Report post Posted June 21, 2007 (edited) Aren't the GM's all trying to make their teams better? This isn't a game where we all hold hands and sing cum bay ya around a campfire. the rule is there, why not use it? If someone signed Flip for 2 mil I'd say go ahead and give us your draft picks. Based on the structure for giving up picks and Vanek's probable price it would be giving up way too much to sign him as an RFA. 3 or 4 first rounders minimum. Yeah, too much. Edited June 21, 2007 by BigTex Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kp-Wings 3 Report post Posted June 21, 2007 Didn't Clarke get fired like a year ago? He quit. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
