Quote:
Originally Posted by Aarongavey
Nobody ever accused Neal or Brouwer of being two way players. Coleman is a two way player, which is why I did not include him. Brad backed up the brinks truck for mediocre 40 point guys when he signed Brouwer and Neal. I am saying that I would have been totally comfortable with Brad doing the same for Johnny.
For Neal and Brouwer, Brad doled out about 1.2% of the cap value for every 0.1 PPG that they had prior to signing the contract. The ratio is almost the same for both players. If he had done that for a player who had 0.88 PPG in 20/21 he would have had about 10.7% of the cap as his Gaudreau number, conveniently right in the 10-11 percent range that I think should have been his negotiating range.
If you took the PPG player from the previous 3 years, that would have been 12% of the cap (1.2% for every 0.1 PPG)
You make it seem like it was a crazy risk to sign a guy for his 29-36 year old years to a similar or lower percentage of the cap relative to production before the signing of the contract than two previous signings Brad did for guys for their 31-35 year old years and their 31-34 year old years.
I have long been on the record as saying I think the Flames should get a new GM. Regardless of whether the owners say win now, Brad burns through picks at a rate almost unseen in NHL history and definitely at a much higher rate than any previous Flames GM. Messing up Gaudreau is not even the reason I would like a new GM.
And my post said I would have offered 8-9 million. Anywhere in there I would have been comfortable. Not 11 Million. But you knew that.
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Yeah we don't know what the asks or offers were last year...but Flames should have been comfortable with $8M-$9M last year.
It's easy to get caught up in the negotiations in the moment but really anything above $9.5M for 8 years for a 29 year old winger was a pretty big overpayment.
Look at Gaudreau's 82 point pace season by season for his career
14/15: 65
15/16: 81
16-17: 70
17-18: 86
18-19: 99
19-20: 68
20-21: 72
21-22: 115
Career: 83 points per 82 games. (This was 79 points per 82 before his career year last year).
So really this season was a big outlier to be honest, and if you give him $10.5M you are paying for what was an outlier season.
Looking at his career as a whole Gaudreau is likely more of a guy that's 75 points in a bad year, and more realistically 95 points in a good year.
So depending on the ask last year it really does feel like the Flames should have been willing to lock up Gaudreau for around $8M per season in the 2021 offseason.
However we don't know what the asks were. Maybe Flames did offer $8M and Gaudreau wanted $9.5M last year, and I could see why the Flames wouldn't have wanted to do that.
In hindsight it does feel like a miss but things are always easier with the benefit of hindsight.