Quote:
Originally Posted by Groot
I don't know why you've chosen to carry water for the Oilers but whatever.
Henrique Is 34 years old, hasn't played a full season due to injury in 5 years, and he's a 3rd or 4th line player. He may be slightly more than $3 on the open market, but the Oilers gave him 2 years to bring the AAV down. $3 million for 2 years of a 34-year old, 3rd/4th line player that likely won't play more than 3/4 of the season. Hardly any discount.
Skinner made $100M as one of the worst contracts in the league. He's a huge risk. He's 32. He's a defensive liability and if he's not scoring he's useless. 1/4 of his goals were on the Powerplay. He won't be playing on the PP in Edmonton unless they give unit 2 a couple seconds every other game. He signed a fair value "show me" contract.
Yes, Arvidsson is a bounce back candidate. He's also an injury risk. A back injury for a 31-year old is no small thing, especially when it caused him to miss basically the season. Until another injury took him out after he returned. Regardless, his last contract was $4.25 per year. He signed for $4 per year. Hard to say he warranted getting a raise, he signed a contract that values 31-year old injury return Arvidsson the same as 24-year old, healthy and higher production Arvidsson. No discount there.
So no, it hasn't happened 3 times this offseason alone, it hasn't happened at all. Oilers signed risky vets to market value contracts, no matter what the Oilers media or insane fanboys try to sell you.
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Players with inconsistent play and lengthy injury histories were getting $5+ all over this offseason. Monahan, Bertuzzi, Wennberg, Zucker, Debrusk, Teravainen, etc.
I think most unbiased fans would agree the 3 Oilers vets you mention in your post left some money on the table.
Anything you say about Skinner being useless when he's not scoring you could apply to Mantha, and Skinner took less money than him despite scoring about 50 more goals over the last 3 seasons.