Seeing the way the Panthers are able to sign top tier players to discounts now, compared to how the same team used to struggle before is neat. It really shows how much of a difference having a winning team makes for attracting players. Florida spent so long as a retirement home for washout players who wanted to collect an NHL salary without media of fan pressure.
To me this shows how important winning is for attracting the right talent. All the other factors people obsess about (weather, taxes, night life, ...) didn't get players taking discounts to stay/join the way winning did. If the rumoured contract is true, Ekblad's contract history will be an excellent way to see how much difference being a winner makes, since the other factors are the same between contracts.
|