Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
I understand you have to pay to keep your top players. But it's a matter of timing, value, and age. Negotiating a big 8-year contract where you get 4 years of the player's prime at the cost of overpaying for the final 4 years may be worth it. However, Gio won't be 29 or even 30 when his next contract kicks in - he'll be 33. That means, optimistically, he'll have maybe 2 more seasons of top play left in him. So is getting 2 years of a player's prime worth overpaying him for 5 or 6 years? I don't think it is.
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Thats what makes a Giordano extension so tricky...you still have him under contract for one more season at great value. The odds heavily suggest that will be the most productive season thats left in his career. You start paying him the big salary when his play is likely to start declining.
If this was the NFL you would have added money to Giordano's contract last summer. Personally I ride out this year and depending how the team does maybe look to trade him. Managers cant get tricked into paying players back for past over achievement.
At most a team can consider giving Giordano 3 years at a premium salary, than need to start peeling it back. But I don't believe the market has been set for a 33 year old top pairing defenceman on a new contract. Bouwmeester who was 31 to start this season just played the first year of a 5 year 5.4 year per deal. I hate that tin man....but that contract starts 2 years earlier than a Giordano one would. So its tough to appraise Giordano's value because its more of a market setter, and its at an age that is honestly two years too late when time is the critical factor.