I am sure that with how disgruntle people are about this signing here, I am about ready to pour gas on the proverbial fire, but what the hell! It is a good day!
While I can guess that Holland would rather not have signed big E for $3.25M/yr, here are theories as to why it happened that way. (That don't already include the Holland is dumb, smoking crack, drunk, or Big E has some questionable photos of Holland.)
While you can look, in general at the salaries of all d-men, and plop E into a 'in general' grouping of perhaps $2-2.5M/yr. Here are things to up the ante for him:
- The 'great' FA d-men, are few (if you can even argue that there are 'great' ones in the list, and not just pretty good.) The demand on the ones available will be higher, so thus, will probably get slightly more this off-season than what their 'true' market value is. Other teams, because of the 'good' d-man shortage this year would have been willing to gamble more than $2.5M on him, driving up his value.
- We will not have McCrimmon as the d-coach next year. His taint affected the d as a whole, not just Ericsson.
- Holland must believe there is still untapped potential with Ericsson. He is still young, healthy, and the biggest d-man we currently have. He is also familiar with the team (the whole the devil you know...). There is a lot of intangible value there.
So, the question for Holland before re-signing Ericsson becomes this:
Can I get 3 d-men via free market, farm system, and trades to replace Rafalski, Salei, and Ericsson that keeps our D comparable or better than the 2010-11 D that we had cheaper than if I keep Ericsson for $3.25M/yr and just have to replace Rafalski and Salei?
Obviously, Holland didn't want to chance it and thought the better bet was to keep him, albeit for more than he might have wanted to spend.
