[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Thank you for posting what should be obvious but has been missed by many a poster in this thread. No one sensible is saying Brouwer is a scrub 4th liner that doesn't improve the team. However 4.5 million a year, for 4 years, is not small money relative to the salary cap.

This is the same money TJ Brodie is making over the same time span. Brodie will expectedly outperform his contract, which is what you need across the roster to win a Stanley Cup. I would add Backlund as another player I expect to outperform his contract, as well as ELC/Bridge guys like Tkachuk, Kulak, and Jankowski.

And you're making the classic mistake of comparing RFAs to UFAs as if they should be bringing the same value per dollar. You can't compare RFAs (Brodie, Backlund) or young players to UFAs and have it be a sensible comparison because it isn't.

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Among guys who won't "outperform" their contracts we have core players who should expect to perform to the value of their contracts (Gaudreau, Monahan, Giordano, Hamilton, Bennett?).

And you'll notice all of those except Gio were RFAs or young players. You shouldn't expect to have UFAs on steal of a deals, UFAs don't work like that, its pretty obvious.

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

There will always be a player or two who is not performing at the level of their pay. We can call that "Inevitible #4 Defenseman Signing", "Lance Bouma", Matt Stajan, heck I'd even argue Frolik isn't expected to perform at a level commensurate to his pay.. Was a right handed shot power play scorer a team need? Certainly. No argument there. But we've added another player who will fall into this category of not being worth his contract.

He's worth his contract because he's a veteran UFA and that's market value for them. Trying to argue he isn't worth it while using RFAs as comparable is folly.

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

We got away with having Raymonds and Engellands the past few years because our stars were getting paid pennies on the dollar. Now when our stars will be paid US dollars on the Canadian dollar, we will constantly be up against the cap with virtually zero flexibility to make a large scale move - the acquisition of a game-breaking type veteran talent. Your veteran forward group needs to have at least one huge-impact players - every recent champ with a young core has still had a guy Hossa, Brown, Gaborik, Sharp or the like in its top six. We not only lack that calibre of top six veteran forward, but we've actively elected to fill that player's reserved cap space with Brouwer. No one sensible is going to trade us a Mark Stone for a Troy Brouwer.

All teams can afford a couple overpaid UFAs and the only way you generally get them is to overpay slightly or greatly. Last year we had Wideman, Raymond, Hudler and Stajan as overpaid UFAs with Jones as an overpaid RFA. Raymond, Jones and Hudler are gone. Wideman will be gone within a year or sooner. Brouwer can be one of our slightly overpaid via UFA veterans. Veterans are important for young teams. We may not ever sign a huge impact UFA player. Our huge impact players are likely to come from within. Our huge impact forwards are likely to be Monahan, Gaudreau, Bennett and Tkachuk. You only need a couple complimentary players to fill out your top 6 at that point, there's no need for more huge impact veterans IMO. Brouwer is a great complimentary piece to our young skilled players as he's a right shot, big and strong, a good veteran and can produce.

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

It's lost opportunity cost, not a bad player. In isolation Brouwer is a player that has had a positive impact for his teams over at least the past six seasons and should be a middle sixer for us for at least the first two years of his deal - but he won't bring back value and as we approach the later years of the deal will passively limit our options.

Don't really see it that way. We needed a veteran, big, strong, tough, right shot RW and we got one. What opportunity are we missing out on? Treliving filled a hole. You'd rather we didn't fill our holes and instead hoped for opportunities in the future? I don't really understand your perspective.

Basically your post completely failed when you started to compare the value we get from players signed as RFAs and players on ELCs to players signed as UFA. They are basically non-comparable players in terms of the value you get from their contracts.