Quote:
Originally Posted by Loyal and True
Sigh.
The current Iginla contract is merely a one year deal and over 2/3 of the dollars will not count against the cap this year... it carries over to next year. You missed the point. It shows how difficult it would have been to add a veteran winger with a straight 7M cap hit with two or three years left. So the market for Iginla would have been extremely small, not to mention Iginla's leverage to pick his destination. I am not sure Iginla would have chosen LA since they did not have Richards, Carter or Sutter back then and had not yet done any damage in playoffs. The cap hit is a huge part of the trade equation, and Iginla's huge cap hit was prohibitive to most suitors, since most teams Iginla would consider are already close to the cap.
In offseason a team with cap room could sign a ufa winger to a 2 or 3 year deal at 7 per, without giving away the precious long term assets. Obviously you can't get a young Mike Richards with his long term cap friendly deal on the ufa market, so you can justify trading long term assets for him. Totally different from Iginla.
So I understand that 33 years is more attractive than 35 and that a late 40 goal season should help trade value as opposed to 30 goals, but I maintain that the huge cap hit for long term was a major negative in any hypothetical trade scenario.
The flames season was not Oilers-bad-60 point season, as you implied the Flames were just as bad as the Oilers when they totally bottomed out. Flames were .500 about mid march before the Iginla distraction took hold and the teardown followed soon after. Mediocre along with Dallas, Phx etc. Further if you read Kent Wilson or look at behind-the-net advanced stats you know that the team was 8th or 9th in Fenwick Close, but the story of the season was that save percentage was rock bottom which cost the team in the win/loss column.
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You never had a point to miss. If you think there was an extremely small market for a guy like Iginla coming off of a 40+ G 80+ P season because he made 7-million you don't know what you are talking about. The guy had better then a PPG in 4 of the prior 5 seasons and was coming off his tenth 30 goal season. You think teams were going to balk at 7M for 3 more seasons? Rubbish.
I stand by my argument that the Flames would be in much better shape if they started the rebuild following the 10/11 season rather then let themselves get fooled by the late season push. To be frank I am surprised that is even a debate as it is as obvious as saying you get wet when you jump in the water.
As for the rest I get the Flames weren't as bad last season as the Oiler's were at their worst. I never said they were. I said we are in a similar place as the Oiler's were coming off of their 08/09 season.
However, since we traded away two of our three best players with the third retiring without actually replacing them chances are we are inline for a 60ish point season next season. Barring a series of breakouts from Flames prospects we are in for a long long season.