Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
That's not apples to apples though.
Eberle scored 49 in 69 games two seasons ago, for a 58 point pace. Before this year he'd been around the 60 point mark/pace for 4 straight years. Now I'm not saying he's some incredible offensive weapon, but his lowest point total is essentially equivalent to Frolik's career high (not including the locked shortened season, where Eberle only scored 37 points - 27 more than Frolik in those 45~ games).
Offensive is valued more highly than defence for forwards in the open market (and defencemen, probably). He's fairly one dimensional, but Cali's example of his market is a good one: on a line where you've got two players who can cover Eberle's mistakes (like Florida), you take him over Frolik 10/10 times.
Oshie seems like a better (closer) comparable. As a UFA he's probably looking at between 5.5 and 6.5 per for much less production over the last 4 years than Eberle and not being a huge presence defensively (I don't think?).
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Oshie has a whopping 4 less points than Eberle over the last 4 years, 1 point less a year. Of course Oshie played 13 fewer games than Eberle so his points per game average was higher. He had more total goals than Eberle over the past 4 years, more goals per game. I am not sure how Oshie was "much less productive" than Eberle. Also Oshie averages over 4 goals a playoff run compared with Eberle's average of zero goals a playoff run over the last 4 years. Finally, Oshie is a much superior defensive player to Eberle.
So I am not sure why a NHL GM would give up assets for Eberle when he could get Oshie for free and likely cheaper. Oshie is better offensively, better defensively and better in the playoffs.
If they don't get Oshie, I am not sure why they would not get the following RW's for free on the free agent market
Patrick Eaves - 32 goals last year
Radulov - 54 points last year
Jagr - 46 points last year
Stafford - 8 goals in 58 games
Justin Williams - 24 goals
Vrbata - 20 goals
Parenteau - 13 goals
Connolly - 15 goals
Pitlick - 8 goals in 31 games
All of those guys would likely cost less than Eberle and would not cost a team any assets
So to get significant assets for Eberle without a very poor contract coming back, Chia needs to find a team that
a) needs a scoring RW
b) does not think any of the 10 legitimate UFA options are good enough or cannot sign them
c) feels they have nothing on their current team that compares with Jordan Eberle after doing the cost/benefit analysis both in terms of cap space and of assets to be given up.
I would suggest that that list is relatively small.
If I were the Panthers I would look at 3 or 4 of the UFA guys where before I ever considered doing something stupid like giving up significant assets for Jordan Eberle.