It's a fine balance between getting paid what your actually worth and playing well and another thing to get cocky or force managements hand by a cap crunched club.
Valimaki was in a rough position regardless but how often do player agents really get honest with players and really discuss some of the truth?
Was Valimaki really in a position of strength in regards to his contract? Could he have benefited from being a better value guy while still making what is a very good salary and being in the league? He is playing with Arizona and they were the only team to put a claim in, so in essence, he is what a lot of people may think as an AHL caliber player.
I don't know if agents sometimes have their clients overall career and total financial future in their best interest. I see what happened with Johnny and think that that side completely overplayed their hand by a significant amount. Johnny can say all he wants about loving Columbus but being closer to home, on a better team and with a somewhat better deal than he got if they had given some of his preferred teams time to make a trade and sign deal work.
Rhett Warener always talks about some tough contract dealings with Daryl Sutter going down the drain quickly with his agent, and when he got word that the deal was about to break, it a panic situation. "What, were saying no to $2.5 mil while playing in Calgary, near friends and family in SK. Let me talk to the GM myself"
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