Huet loaned to Swiss team?

[MacK_Attack 108]

NHL sanctioned cap circumvention at it's finest. If you're gonna let this BS fly, reinstate the Kovulchuk contract (not that I like it). The Hawks should be held accountable for their idiotic signings. What an absolute load of BS.

There's a huge difference in that the player in this case has agreed to go to the Swiss league.

This is no different than what Washington did to Nylander, other than it took Washington much longer to find an overseas taker.

[Rivalred 630]

I smell a rat

[Buppy 1,720]

There's absolutely no ill will from the Huet camp towards the Hawks. In fact, his agent has gone out of his way to compliment the Hawks for trying as hard as they could to make it work for Huet.

As has been said, the CBA doesn't allow contracts to be ripped up or renegotiated, and Huet's agent says Huet would have done that to stay in the NHL. Now whether they really would have done that if allowed is anyone's guess. But this will have zero affect on the Hawks and getting free agents in the future.

The CBA does allow buyouts though. That would have allowed Huet at least the chance to sign somewhere else. Now, most likely, he'll never come back to the NHL. I doubt he's really taking it as graciously as it might seem.

I doubt there will be any major impact for the Hawks, but there's sure to be a few FAs in coming seasons who will be a little leary of taking an offer from Chicago, more guys looking for NMCs, that sort of thing.

Really??? (They can be carrying a 22 man roster right now if they wanted with still a million in space left. Even more if Toivonen beats out Crawford for the backup)

...

How is that different than what you quoted?

Edited August 25, 2010 by Buppy

[henrik40 76]

I mean as much as I don't agree with it, they are playing within the rules. The NHL already has a system in place that punishes teams for bad contracts. If you punish teams for every single bad contract, you could argue every team would be left handicapped at some point. Not every team can avoid bad contracts.

[cusimano_brothers 1,655]

One player with two supposedly legal contracts at the same time?

[MacK_Attack 108]

The CBA does allow buyouts though. That would have allowed Huet at least the chance to sign somewhere else. Now, most likely, he'll never come back to the NHL. I doubt he's really taking it as graciously as it might seem.

I doubt there will be any major impact for the Hawks, but there's sure to be a few FAs in coming seasons who will be a little leary of taking an offer from Chicago, more guys looking for NMCs, that sort of thing.

There's no way Huet would have found an NHL contract. Hell, Niemi can't even get a contract.

Going this route gets him all of the money he was to be paid the next two years. I bet he's not taking it too poorly.

Edited August 25, 2010 by MacK_Attack

[NeverForgetMac25 483]

Why is that funny? The hawks have screwed around with players for the past 20 years, obviously with the old management mostly, and the guy that overpaid Huet and Campbell is long gone now.

Then they sign a goalie who turned down more money and more years from another team just to play for the hawks, and whether Pisani or John Scott are even any good, they accepted much lower pay to play in Chicago as well. I guess we will have to wait till NEXT year to see if Huet moving to a swiss team will result in free agents NOT wanting to come to Chicago. Silliness.

Really??? (They can be carrying a 22 man roster right now if they wanted with still a million in space left. Even more if Toivonen beats out Crawford for the backup)

CAPGEEK.COM CAP CALCULATOR

FORWARDS

Troy Brouwer ($1.025m) / Jonathan Toews ($6.300m) / Patrick Kane ($6.300m)

Viktor Stalberg ($0.850m) / Patrick Sharp ($3.900m) / Marian Hossa ($5.275m)

Fernando Pisani ($0.500m) / Dave Bolland ($3.375m) / Jack Skille ($0.600m)

Bryan Bickell ($0.541m) / Jake Dowell ($0.525m) / Tomas Kopecky ($1.200m)

Igor Makarov ($0.552m)

DEFENSEMEN

Duncan Keith ($5.538m) / Brent Seabrook ($3.500m)

Brian Campbell ($7.142m) / Niklas Hjalmarsson ($3.500m)

Nick Boynton ($0.500m) / Jordan Hendry ($0.600m)

John Scott ($0.512m)

GOALTENDERS

Marty Turco ($1.300m) /Corey Crawford ($0.800m)

CARRY-OVER BONUS PENALTY: $4,157,753

CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)

(these totals are compiled using the bonus cushion)

SALARY CAP: $59,400,000; CAP PAYROLL: $58,495,757; BONUSES: $65,000

CAP SPACE (22-man roster): $969,243

I'm fairly confident you just repeated what I said, and listed the Hawks roster to go with it.

[Buppy 1,720]

There's no way Huet would have found an NHL contract. Hell, Niemi can't even get a contract.

Going this route gets him all of the money he was to be paid the next two years. I bet he's not taking it too poorly.

Depends on how badly he wants to stay in the NHL.

I'm sure someone would give him a deal in the $500k-1M range. He isn't nearly as bad a player as some people make him out to be. And if the Hawks had bought him out when they first knew they had no plans on keeping him, he would have had a lot more options.

Not suggesting he's all that torn up over it, but if he wanted to stay in the NHL I'm sure he isn't happy either. And more to the point, is future FAs who want to stay in the NHL will be more wary of seemingly lucrative offers coming from the Hawks.

[MacK_Attack 108]

Depends on how badly he wants to stay in the NHL.

I'm sure someone would give him a deal in the $500k-1M range. He isn't nearly as bad a player as some people make him out to be. And if the Hawks had bought him out when they first knew they had no plans on keeping him, he would have had a lot more options.

Not suggesting he's all that torn up over it, but if he wanted to stay in the NHL I'm sure he isn't happy either. And more to the point, is future FAs who want to stay in the NHL will be more wary of seemingly lucrative offers coming from the Hawks.

I don't doubt it hurts the Hawks chances to lure free agents.

What about the Caps? They did it to Nylander. They wouldn't even let him play for a good portion of the year.

If you fear possible repercussions, try to get an NMC.

[dobbles 252]

I don't doubt it hurts the Hawks chances to lure free agents.

What about the Caps? They did it to Nylander. They wouldn't even let him play for a good portion of the year.

If you fear possible repercussions, try to get an NMC.

i know a lot of people like to mention nylander as a comparable, however, i feel its a bit apples to oranges. nylander had injury issues that significantly affected his value between the time the contract was signed and the time they unloaded him to a european team. with huet though, the hawks just signed a bad contract and are looking to unload him.

[Sarava 55]

The CBA does allow buyouts though. That would have allowed Huet at least the chance to sign somewhere else. Now, most likely, he'll never come back to the NHL. I doubt he's really taking it as graciously as it might seem.

I doubt there will be any major impact for the Hawks, but there's sure to be a few FAs in coming seasons who will be a little leary of taking an offer from Chicago, more guys looking for NMCs, that sort of thing.

How is that different than what you quoted?

Huet is better off with going to Switzerland than getting bought out. He gets every last penny that's owed him. Even if he's bought out, he probably wouldn't ever make up the lost difference by playing in the NHL. Because do you really think any team would pay him more than the league minimum as a backup...and even that happening is questionable.

As a Hawk fan even if their cap hits were the same, I'd rather has Crawford backing up Turco than Huet. Huet has shown over and over that he can go on decent runs, but when something rough happens, his confidence gets shot and his play goes to hell.

The only real evidence one way or another we can look at is Marty Turco. He took far less from the Hawks than the Flyers supposedly offered him. So if another goaltender not only doesn't hold the Huet situation against the Hawks, but takes less money to play for them...I think we all have our answer.

[Buppy 1,720]

Huet is better off with going to Switzerland than getting bought out. He gets every last penny that's owed him. Even if he's bought out, he probably wouldn't ever make up the lost difference by playing in the NHL. Because do you really think any team would pay him more than the league minimum as a backup...and even that happening is questionable.

As a Hawk fan even if their cap hits were the same, I'd rather has Crawford backing up Turco than Huet. Huet has shown over and over that he can go on decent runs, but when something rough happens, his confidence gets shot and his play goes to hell.

The only real evidence one way or another we can look at is Marty Turco. He took far less from the Hawks than the Flyers supposedly offered him. So if another goaltender not only doesn't hold the Huet situation against the Hawks, but takes less money to play for them...I think we all have our answer.

Again, it would depend on how much he values playing in the NHL. A buyout would have given him $7.5M and the chance to stay in the NHL this season.

And keep in mind, with Turco, he turned down the Flyers before FA even started (Flyers had permission from Dallas to talk to him) then after a month with no reported offers he signed with the Hawks. You're stretching things to say he turned down more money to play in Chicago. There's nothing to suggest that the Chicago offer was there when he turned down Philly, nor that Philly's was still there when he signed with Chicago.

I'm not suggesting that this will cripple Chicago's ability to sign FAs in the future. Nor is it out of the question that Chicago's current management can repair what damage is done. There are many factors in a player's decision on where to sign. This will certainly be one of them. The Hawks still offer a lot of positives, this will just add one in the negative column.

[Drake_Marcus 890]

This is disappointing to see the Hawks get an extra $5+ mil in cap space.

I also posted this in the rumour mill.

Don't worry-- they've already pissed away all the cheap young complementary players that won them the Cup as well as the winning goalie.

This is too little too late.

[Frozen-Man 144]

I'm fairly confident you just repeated what I said, and listed the Hawks roster to go with it.