Wings no longer interested in Phaneuf

[Nik]

What if we move (most) players before they need to be paid market rate?

It depends on what you mean by "most" No team is going to draft/develop well enough that they can just replace good secondary players whenever they want and those are the guys you're going to lose. Imagine what kind of cap situation Chicago would be in if Hossa/Keith were getting paid what they should cap hit wise. That's the environment the Leafs will be building in.

[Significantly Insignificant]

What if we move (most) players before they need to be paid market rate?

It depends on what you mean by "most" No team is going to draft/develop well enough that they can just replace good secondary players whenever they want and those are the guys you're going to lose. Imagine what kind of cap situation Chicago would be in if Hossa/Keith were getting paid what they should cap hit wise. That's the environment the Leafs will be building in.

But don't you get saved by inflation in that case to a certain degree?  Hossa's deal at the time was probably considered to be a slight underpayment but still fair.  I'll agree that Keith should probably fire his agent. 

[Nik]

What if we move (most) players before they need to be paid market rate?

It depends on what you mean by "most" No team is going to draft/develop well enough that they can just replace good secondary players whenever they want and those are the guys you're going to lose. Imagine what kind of cap situation Chicago would be in if Hossa/Keith were getting paid what they should cap hit wise. That's the environment the Leafs will be building in.

But don't you get saved by inflation in that case to a certain degree?  Hossa's deal at the time was probably considered to be a slight underpayment but still fair.  I'll agree that Keith should probably fire his agent.

Hossa's deal was only possible at that price point because of the rules at the time about structuring deals. If Hossa was really looking to maximize his dollars he probably could have gotten 7 or 7.5 per.

And re: inflation, as we're seeing this year that's anything but a certainty going forward.

[herman]

What if we move (most) players before they need to be paid market rate?

It depends on what you mean by "most" No team is going to draft/develop well enough that they can just replace good secondary players whenever they want and those are the guys you're going to lose. Imagine what kind of cap situation Chicago would be in if Hossa/Keith were getting paid what they should cap hit wise. That's the environment the Leafs will be building in.

That's a great point (bolded).

I do still believe that not having a GM hand out $4-5+M deals to Bozak, Clarkson, Lupul types would go a long way to keeping us in the hunt, but I agree there will come a time when we need to try to draft in the top 10 for a few years again.

[Nik]

I do still believe that not having a GM hand out $4-5+M deals to Bozak, Clarkson, Lupul types would go a long way to keeping us in the hunt, but I agree there will come a time when we need to try to draft in the top 10 for a few years again.

But that's not the issue. Good teams already don't have those contracts but have to deal with the cap coming at them. Chicago doesn't have piles of deadweight on their books but they're going to have to say goodbye to good players at reasonable rates because there's just no room for them if 4 or 5 of your best players are taking up 50-60% of your cap.

[herman]

I do still believe that not having a GM hand out $4-5+M deals to Bozak, Clarkson, Lupul types would go a long way to keeping us in the hunt, but I agree there will come a time when we need to try to draft in the top 10 for a few years again.

But that's not the issue. Good teams already don't have those contracts but have to deal with the cap coming at them. Chicago doesn't have piles of deadweight on their books but they're going to have to say goodbye to good players at reasonable rates because there's just no room for them if 4 or 5 of your best players are taking up 50-60% of your cap.

I've been thinking about not letting the 50% of the cap be taken up by a handful of players. Can we succeed with only 3 franchise-level players and contracts?

[Nik]

I've been thinking about not letting the 50% of the cap be taken up by a handful of players. Can we succeed with only 3 franchise-level players and contracts?

It's not much of a distinction. If you have three 9 million dollar players, and 9 million might be on the low side for a real top flight player at market rates, you're already at three players taking up 38% of next year's cap. Just by having two other players at 4.5 each you're already back up to 5 players taking up over 50% of the cap

[herman]

I've been thinking about not letting the 50% of the cap be taken up by a handful of players. Can we succeed with only 3 franchise-level players and contracts?

It's not much of a distinction. If you have three 9 million dollar players, and 9 million might be on the low side for a real top flight player at market rates, you're already at three players taking up 38% of next year's cap. Just by having two other players at 4.5 each you're already back up to 5 players taking up over 50% of the cap

So unless we can sucker our franchise-level talent into JvR long-bridge deals... boo.

Sounds like the trick will be knowing when to start stripping it down again, rather than limping along like the Wings in the upper-echelon of mediocre.

[Nik]

So unless we can sucker our franchise-level talent into JvR long-bridge deals... boo.

And if JVR was a franchise leve talent he wouldn't have signed that kind of deal.

Sounds like the trick will be knowing when to start stripping it down again, rather than limping along like the Wings in the upper-echelon of mediocre.

I don't think it'll be hard to figure. You compete with the core you have until the cap forces you to make changes and then you make those changes.

And the Wings won a cup and came within a hair of a second. They're not exactly a model the team should avoid.

[herman]

Sounds like the trick will be knowing when to start stripping it down again, rather than limping along like the Wings in the upper-echelon of mediocre.

I don't think it'll be hard to figure. You compete with the core you have until the cap forces you to make changes and then you make those changes.

And the Wings won a cup and came within a hair of a second. They're not exactly a model the team should avoid.

I meant Wings of the last 3-5 years where they pursued playoff contention after their winning core retired. Not disagreeing, just clarifying my vague statement.

[Significantly Insignificant]

What if we move (most) players before they need to be paid market rate?

It depends on what you mean by "most" No team is going to draft/develop well enough that they can just replace good secondary players whenever they want and those are the guys you're going to lose. Imagine what kind of cap situation Chicago would be in if Hossa/Keith were getting paid what they should cap hit wise. That's the environment the Leafs will be building in.

But don't you get saved by inflation in that case to a certain degree?  Hossa's deal at the time was probably considered to be a slight underpayment but still fair.  I'll agree that Keith should probably fire his agent.

Hossa's deal was only possible at that price point because of the rules at the time about structuring deals. If Hossa was really looking to maximize his dollars he probably could have gotten 7 or 7.5 per.

And re: inflation, as we're seeing this year that's anything but a certainty going forward.

True.  I guess I was confusing inflation on the individual contracts versus the inflation of the overall cap.  You hear people use that as an excuse on some these deals that players sign.  He got x amount of dollars, and that looks like a lot, but in three years time it's going to look like he's underpaid.

I'm not really sure that even applies anymore.  I'm not sure Brian Campbell's deal will ever look like an underpayment. But that might be more of a bad contract versus a good one. 

[Britishbulldog]

True.  I guess I was confusing inflation on the individual contracts versus the inflation of the overall cap.  You hear people use that as an excuse on some these deals that players sign.  He got x amount of dollars, and that looks like a lot, but in three years time it's going to look like he's underpaid.

I'm not really sure that even applies anymore.  I'm not sure Brian Campbell's deal will ever look like an underpayment. But that might be more of a bad contract versus a good one.

I wondered if Florida is a place Phaneuf could be sent with Campbell entering his final year of his $7.14 MIL contract.