Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
Every other team was impacted. Better and worse is measured in wins and losses. If the Flames and the Devils both got better, that came at the expense of other teams getting worse. A team can make absolutely no moves and get worse just as a result of other teams improving. Because every win is another team’s loss.
But again, this is about signing free agents, so the trade thing muddles it a bit.
If the Devils have a star free agent that they refuse to pay up for, another team will sign that free agent. That team gets better, the Devils get worse.
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Maybe, but those events don't happen in a vacuum. Lots of examples of UFAs tanking after signing big deals. There's nothing to say that tank happens if they sign with team X vs team Y. Lots factors at play there including line mates, personal city preference, current life, etc.. And, in a cap world, NOT signing a player to a long term, big money contract potentially opens room for players who wouldn't otherwise have seen ice time to thrive and maybe you didn't end up needing that player after all, and now you have 4-6M extra cap space to boot.
Huberdeau is a good example. Technically a free agent that the Flames had rights to. Given his past performance and market conditions, he probably earned the contract he got. If it wasn't the Flames, someone would have paid him that. Would it have been a regrettable deal for every team that would have potentially made that deal if not for the Flames? Who knows. But his performance was such that it didn't make the signing team better than the team he left. The team he left was free to use that potential cap space on other players which ultimately netted them a Cup.