April 8 2000, last game of Grant Fuhr's career. Look at the crowd in Calgary.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Inflation can come fro more than one place.

I hate the Oilers and Lowe but the idea that they broke the RFA system and inflated contracts is all a Fabrication by Brian Burke.

The Penner contract was in-line with other RFA contracts already signed that offseason.

Right before Penner signed that same offseason Nathan Horton had signed for 6 x $4 as a RFA and they had pretty much identical numbers the season before. So 5 x $4.25M was a slight overpayment but it was an offer sheet so it needed to be.

I actually give Lowe some credit for going after an RFA. Would make the league way more entertaining if GMs would actually try to use that tool they have available to them every once in a while.

And the Hall / RNH contracts were no where close to being the biggest RFA contracts of the time.

Nash signed for 5 x $5.4M on August 6 2005

Kovalchuk signed for 5 x $6.4M on October 8 2005

Crosby signed for 5 x $8.7M as an RFA on July 7th 2007

Malkin signed for 5 x $8.7M as an RFA on July 2nd 2008.

Kane signed for 5 x $6.3M as an RFA on Dec 2 2009

Kessel signed for 5 x $5.4M as an RFA on Sept 18 2009.

Bobby Ryan signed for 5 x $5.1M as an RFA on Sept. 14 2010

Stamkos signed for 5 x $7.5M as an RFA on July 18, 2011

Hall didn't sign his 7 x $6M until August 22 2012 when he was coming off 53 points in 61 games. That wasn't that bad of an overpayment and wasn't close to the biggest RFA contract around that time. The Nash and Kovalchuk contracts were really the first two that changed the landscape of what RFAs were getting paid on their second contract.

[icarus]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

I was in University in 1998-1999ish and you could just walk up to the ticketmaster booth in Mac Hall and buy pretty decent Flames tickets on gameday.

I remember during UofC 101 (orientation) that year they were handing out preseason tickets for free and they literally couldn't give them away. Well except to me and a few friends, and we sat in an entirely empty section.

[GioforPM]

^^ well, again, it wasn’t just Hall - it was RNH and Eberle. Hall, like Nash, Kovalchuk, and Stamkos were all 1OAs who were expected to be a top player for years, so I can understand those. And I don’t think guys that had done what Crosby, Kane and Malkin had by their first contracts are good comparisons either. Ryan was a 2OA.

It was more the optics of signing all 3 RFAs (including a guy like Eberle) to those contracts without any seeming negotiations at all. I’d say it normalized big RFA contracts (whereas the examples you gave were always outliers for exceptional players).

But point taken.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

^^ well, again, it wasn’t just Hall - it was RNH and Eberle. Hall, like Nash, Kovalchuk, and Stamkos were all 1OAs who were expected to be a top player for years, so I can understand those. And I don’t think guys that had done what Crosby, Kane and Malkin had by their first contracts are good comparisons either. Ryan was a 2OA.

It was more the optics of signing all 3 RFAs (including a guy like Eberle) to those contracts without any seeming negotiations at all. I’d say it normalized big RFA contracts (whereas the examples you gave were always outliers for exceptional players).

But point taken.

Thing is all those guys had good years coming into that contract signing and there was lots of discussion that the Oilers couldn’t keep all three. $6M was fair at the time, the players just regressed or stopped developing with the Oilers.

Hall was a first overall coming off 53 points in 61 games when he signed his deal. He was making less than other first overalls like Stamkos.

Eberle was a highly touted first rounder coming off 76 points in 78 games when he signed this 6 x $6M. Eberle was making similar to Ryan or Kessel and was coming off a better year than those guys when they signed.

Nugent-Hopkins was the head scratcher as he was coming off a pretty poor season when he signed his deal (24 points in 40 games) but he was still a first overall pick that had a good rookie season with 52 points the season prior.

Not saying they were all good deals but really saying those deals changed the RFA market is a false narrative. The RFA market was already long gone already at that point.

Hell the Flames themselves had signed Dion to 6 x $6.5M as an RFA prior to any of the Oilers RFA deals.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Inflation can come fro more than one place.

No, Hall was not anywhere close to the highest RFA. Excluding pre-salary cap era (of which he gets obliterated by dozens of players like Fedorov and his 28M in one year poison pill five year contract or Sakic and his 1997 offersheet) there's still Ovechkin who signed his 124M contract 2 and a half years into his career that's still going (until the end of this season).

Also Eberle signed his contract after posting a 0.97 PPG season, good for 12th in the NHL. He was the least controversial of the signings really.

I also somewhat disagree with your premise that top tier UFA's are making more. That's not quite the case. Iginla was making 7M when the cap was 39M, 18%. Today that would be 15M, and no one is making that. Gaborik made 14%, Kovalchuk 16%. McDavid signed at 16% of the cap.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

No, Hall was not anywhere close to the highest RFA. Excluding pre-salary cap era (of which he gets obliterated by dozens of players like Fedorov and his 28M in one year poison pill five year contract or Sakic and his 1997 offersheet) there's still Ovechkin who signed his 124M contract 2 and a half years into his career that's still going (until the end of this season).

Also Eberle signed his contract after posting a 0.97 PPG season, good for 12th in the NHL. He was the least controversial of the signings really.

I also somewhat disagree with your premise that top tier UFA's are making more. That's not quite the case. Iginla was making 7M when the cap was 39M, 18%. Today that would be 15M, and no one is making that. Gaborik made 14%, Kovalchuk 16%. McDavid signed at 16% of the cap.

Did I say he was the top paid RFA? I still say using extreme outliers like Fedorov or Ovie who were obvious phenoms to compare to guys who looked like really good young players but not generational is not apt. And like I said, it was more the “we’re not even gonna negotiate - we’ll just hand them contracts” that people were surprised at IIRC.

% of cap means nothing to players. They care what other guys are making.

ETA: I may be misremembering, but weren’t the Hall and Eberle contracts over a full year away from their ELC expiring? That was part of the surprise IIRC.

[simonsays]

Lowe didn't blow the doors off the RFA with the 6x6s, he blew it off with the 7,142,857 x7 offer sheet to Vanek after the 06/07 season where he posted 84 points and Buffalo was an elite team. Buffalo lost Drury and Briere that off season and were loath to lose another top 6 player so they matched. But that piece of work, coupled with Penner shortly thereafter changed the 2nd contract for everyone.

[Buff]

Originally Posted by simonsays

Lowe didn't blow the doors off the RFA with the 6x6s, he blew it off with the 7,142,857 x7 offer sheet to Vanek after the 06/07 season where he posted 84 points and Buffalo was an elite team. Buffalo lost Drury and Briere that off season and were loath to lose another top 6 player so they matched. But that piece of work, coupled with Penner shortly thereafter changed the 2nd contract for everyone.

Just getting back to this thread now but those were the contacts I was thinking of. Pancake Penner wasn't quite as much but it was considerably higher than what he would have received from Anaheim or any other offer sheet.

[drewtastic]

I was also at this game--lower bowl directly behind the Flames' net (my buddy won tickets). Couldn't believe that Sutter refused to start Fuhr, but, then again, we COULD believe it. (Stubborn Sutter "logic"--"We have a game to win"...Brutal.)

Was great to see Fuhr's final game, but it also sucked to see Titov in an Oilers' jersey. He was one of my favourites.

[cam_wmh]

Originally Posted by simonsays

Lowe didn't blow the doors off the RFA with the 6x6s, he blew it off with the 7,142,857 x7 offer sheet to Vanek after the 06/07 season where he posted 84 points and Buffalo was an elite team. Buffalo lost Drury and Briere that off season and were loath to lose another top 6 player so they matched. But that piece of work, coupled with Penner shortly thereafter changed the 2nd contract for everyone.

Just imagine if they didn't match, and those first rounders went to Buffalo.

Edmonton might not even have an NH--- errrrr, they would be without a profess--- errrr , I mean the Oilers would've probably folded.

[MoneyGuy]

I was the first media member to interview Grant Fuhr. I still have that clipping. I’ve talked to him since and the quiet, reserved person he is now is the same as he was then. He’s my all-time favourite goalie.

[rhino]

Originally Posted by Royal Eagle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eivj...=oilerfanatic1


Half empty building and the only people in it were Oilers fans.

The dark years of the dead puck era, of the young guns era and Flames fandom.

What’s the point of this post? Not enough negativity in your life so you had to dig this up?