Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
I'll repost this again to show that Russell is too expensive.
Every dollar overpaid to one player has to come out of the budget elsewhere. You really need to see the numbers in action to get a better understanding of what a few dollars here and there means. Take a $70M budget as an example, which is a fair number to use considering the cap and the space you need for call-ups for injuries and such. I would think a healthy budget breakdown is going to look like $40M on forwards, $24M on defense, and $6M on goaltending. So something like this, taking names out the mix.
$7M-$7M-$5M
$3M-$5M-$3M
$2M-$3M-$2M
$1M-$1M-$1M
$.75M-$.75M
$7M-$5M
$4M-$3M
$2M-$1.5M
.75M
$5M
$1M
Giordano ($4.0M), Hamilton ($5.75)
Wideman ($5.25M), Brodie ($4.65)
Engelland ($2.92M), Russell ($2.6M)
Wotherspoon ($.925M)
Total: $26.1M or $2.1 over budget.
To update this post a bit and show the accuracy of the premise, Giordano did sign for just under the $7M budget number, so almost balances out what Hamilton is being paid. They are still a shade over budget for their top pair. With Brodie on the 2nd pair as a budget number that means the dollars available are limited. When you add in Wideman's $5.25M and Engelland's $2.9M we are seriously screwed.
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This is overly dramatic, "we are seriously screwed". Uh no, 1.5 years from now we have the long term core of Gio, Brodie and Hamilton locked up pretty much on par with other good teams top 3 in terms of AAV. When Wideman, Engelland and Smid are off the books then the Flames are fine. By then some D prospects can fill into the bottom pair for cheap. We knew that Engelland and Smid were just filler for a few years and the Wideman contract was inherited. It's actually perfect the way it is IMO, those guys will fill in for the rest of this year and next year, which gives our D prospects time to develop. When they're ready to make the jump the team should be a force in the West (2 years) and have a bunch of salary coming off the books with which to sign that last FA or two up front.
If you can sign Russell for say 4 years at $3M, you absolutely do it because he is an excellent #4 guy with Hamilton. Fits right into your "ideal" structure above.
What am I missing that screws the Flames? Aside from getting into a debate on whether Russell is a #4 or #5 guy, which I don't want to do. If you don't think he's #4 quality then yeah you don't sign him.