Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe
Your argument is that the owners would not spend BEYOND the cap. My previous post proves not only proves they would. We are not arguing that they would spend to the cap - BEYOND the cap is what we are arguing about.
|
You missed my argument. Like I said, sending down a player deemed not good enough to be on the roster isn't the type of purposeful "hiding" of money that Flash Walken and I are talking about. For example, Redden was in the AHL all those years purely because he was deemed not good enough for his cap hit and not because he wasn't good enough to be in the NHL. Kotalik was deemed not good enough to be on the roster. He would still be sent down if he was making the league minimum the same way Conroy was sent down. There are different motivations at play.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe
I have no idea what draft picks they were missing that year, but there are other ways to trade excess salary. Package deals, minor prospect, etc. If the owners were indeed NOT willing to absorb salary as you state, they would have opted to make one of these trades rather than continue paying whatever portion of Nilson's contract $ were left.
|
I'm telling you that based on my dd, the Flames didn't have a 2nd and 3rd round pick at the time. Regardless, giving up assets to get rid of salary is something that isn't easy to do, otherwise it would have been done more often. And like I said, there are different values involved. Darryl might be opposed to giving away say a draft pick or prospect just so someone takes a contract off their hands. And there is a difference between paying a guy $500K-$1M in salary (your examples) to have him play in the AHL and $3M.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe
Owners did in fact volunteer Stajan and Hagman to be sent down - Feaster spoke of this in one of the STH sessions. Also, they sent Kotalik down why exactly? As far as I recall, there was no need of the roster spot, and Kotalik could have just continued being a healthy scratch. It was in an effort by Feaster in his fabled first attempt at getting out of cap jail and "taking advantage of another team in a trade" that needed to unload salary, or add an impact high-salaried player.
|
Feaster talks a lot, but I'll take your word for it. Still, it's surprising that Feaster would even mention Stajan's name as that's equivalent to throwing Stajan under the bus.
You keep asking why Kotalik was sent down. He sucked and was deemed not good enough to be on the team. How clear can that be? Feaster's official explanation was that he wanted to promote young players who deserved it and not for adding a high-salaried player. In terms of roster spots, there's always a need for roster spots. If I recall correctly, Conroy was demoted before Kotalik so Staios can come back, and I think Kotalik was sent down to make room for Langkow as well. That's not counting the AHL callups. The team wants to win and having Kotalik on the roster was deemed to not further that goal. Again, different motivations at play.
The Flames tried hard to get rid of Kotalik's salary without buying him out or giving up assets to get rid of him. Kotalik was actually placed on waivers in the summer by Darryl and fully expected a buyout. He wasn't bought out. He was later placed on waivers by Feaster and assigned to the AHL and was promptly placed on re-entry waivers. Kotalik cleared waivers but was not recalled. Kotalik was later placed on re-entry waivers again and was then called up and later assigned back down. Clearly, the preference was to have Kotalik picked up by another team even if it's on re-entry waivers (which would result in Kotalik's cap hit being on the books).
Again, there's no argument that the Flames ownership wanted to win and were willing to spend to the cap in order to do so. Don't confuse that with Flames' willingness to pay someone to play in the AHL in return for a better deal.