[Signing] Ducks agree to 8 yr extension with Perry ($8.625M AAV)

[wingmaker]

Depends on the team. To the Flames, I would imagine Iggy is worth as much money as he wants, even 7+. It might sound crazy, but the Flames have the money to spend to the cap and they don't have any other player in the pipeline who is going to take over as a high priced face of the franchise. Plus, these players rarely come up on the free agent market. So if Iggy is willing to stay in Calgary, I wouldn't be shocked if he got a raise, or at least equivalent money to what he makes now. As fans, people can argue that he isn't worth it, but it isn't finances that are keeping the Flames from being competitive, it is the way they are built. If Iggy is willing to stay, I fully expect them to re-sign him and use other players to recoup draft picks/prospects with the hope that they can turn the franchise around with a quick re-tool to be competitive again next year.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

That type of money and that type of cap hit. The Flames were never close to giving Brad Richards a contract with a 10M cap hit. heck, his cap hit is only 6.6M.

You're calling me crazy because I don't think a team would be willing to give Perry a 7 year contract worth 70M ? That's the only way he was guaranteed to make more money. I don't see it, not even a terribly run team would think Perry was worth more than 15% of their cap.

Different era's... you can't have back diving contracts anymore. This is the same offers given to Brad Richards, and Perry is a far superior player.

Originally Posted by Ashasx

Way too much. No winger deserves this type of cash in this league.

Not even a league MVP? So what, only centers get it?

And just think, is Perry worth as much as Cammalleri+Babchuk? Or ROR+Babchuk?

Teams with smart cap management are able to pay their top line players and top pairing d-man top dollars, because they have reasonably priced 2nd-3rd line players and 2nd pairing defenseman and minimum paid fringe players. Teams that pay their 4th liners and 6th-7th D $2M+ are the ones that think a league MVP being paid too much.

[wingmaker]

Yeah, with Cammalleri given 6 mill even in an era where cap circumvention was alive and well, it is hard to argue that Perry is not worth this money. Will the Ducks regret it in years six, seven, and eight? Remains to be seen. But what is clear in the NHL these days is that building a championship team is incredibly difficult with no clear path. If you find yourself with players that can give you a chance to go deep every year, you do everything you can to keep them. Look at Philadelphia who traded known playoff contributors for promising youth and are on the outside looking in while the name players they dealt went on to win a cup with someone else. Signing Perry was the only option.

[FAN]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Yes, Perry could have taken a 13M pay cut with another team, or even the Ducks if he wanted. He didn't though, so what are you suggesting?

I thought I was pretty clear in suggesting that you are assuming that all Perry cares about is money.

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

I'm not trying to assume anything about Perry, but if it was going to take 69M to sign him, outside of a sign-and-trade, I feel there was only 1 team capable of offering him that.

But you are assuming it takes $69M to sign Perry if Perry went the UFA route.

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

So, not sure why Murray deserves "props" for throwing money at a guy.

And if Perry didn't care about the cash and wanted to stay with the Ducks anyways, that's far worse for Murray.

So you're only going to give Murray props for letting Perry leave as a UFA or trade him? Murray signs Perry for what you believe to be a lot of money and you don't think Murray deserves props for managing to re-sign Perry by throwing money at him. Had Murray managed to re-sign Perry for less money you would give Murray even lesser credit (not sure why). So what would you have Murray do? Let Perry go for nothing or trade him right?

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by Dion

The insanity continues! It's looking more and more like the lockout was a waste of time. A bunch of other owners in league are probably cursing Ducks management for the 2 ridiculous contracts they just gave out. The going rate for a top line player just went to over $8 mill.

You keep saying this, but that doesn't mean it's going to make more sense the next time.

As long as the costs are lower due to fixed percentage rates, top gun players will keep getting paid more and more in the future, while the lower tier players may have to take less since the high paid players will be taking a bigger percentage of the 50% split, which was going to be spent by the owners anyway. So the only thing different is which players get to take a certain amount of cut of that pie.

[AR_Six]

You know, if I'm building a team right now, I don't want two of these guys. I'm not sure I even want one. If the current climate drives up the cap hit of top players and drives down the cap hit of mid-tier non-stars (your Mikko Koivus and Joe Pavelskis), I'd rather spend my money on more of the latter. While your stars are getting their points battling against my checking line for 18 minutes a night the same way they always have, I'll roll my three other, clearly superior, lines against the soft underbelly of your AHL quality depth.

In other words, if your first line costs $22 million and mine costs $16, I'll spend the extra $6 mil on my second and third lines and probably get more bang for my buck there.

[FAN]

Originally Posted by Dion

It sets the bar for what other players of a similar calibre will be asking for from their teams GM's. You are correct that it doesn't change the total cost of salaries but at the same time it limits the number of top line players they can keep on their team.

But how many are in Perry's class? Regardless of how highly you think of Perry, Perry was a Rocket Richard winner and Hart Trophy winner and is certainly seen as a franchise player and elite player in the NHL. Guys in Perry's class can pretty much command top dollars if they really want to.

[wingmaker]

Originally Posted by AR_Six

You know, if I'm building a team right now, I don't want two of these guys. I'm not sure I even want one. If the current climate drives up the cap hit of top players and drives down the cap hit of mid-tier non-stars (your Mikko Koivus and Joe Pavelskis), I'd rather spend my money on more of the latter. While your stars are getting their points battling against my checking line for 18 minutes a night the same way they always have, I'll roll my three other, clearly superior, lines against the soft underbelly of your AHL quality depth.

In other words, if your first line costs $22 million and mine costs $16, I'll spend the extra $6 mil on my second and third lines and probably get more bang for my buck there.

Totally. In a fantasy world, most people would agree with you. But what we see in the NHL is that support players, even really top end support players, are rarely able to raise their game consistently to make a real charge for the cup. Even the "miracle" runs of Calgary and Edmonton were done on the backs of high end, elite players. A group of very good but not great players will get beat by players who can take over a game seemingly single handedly more often than not. Those type of performances raise up the players around them. This is why teams will always pay those few great players, because they have a net affect on the whole team. Look at Anaheim. Their top players had a down year last year and they languished in the cellar. But with a new year and a more consistent effort, they now look like they could win the cup. It is dangerous to bank so much money on these guys because they can go through slumps. But when they are on, they are unstoppable. Of all the top teams in the NHL this year, only Montreal can really claim to be where they are without a high paid impact player leading the way.

[Rudee]

Getzlaf and Perry are making close to Crosby kind of money. Unfortunately for Crosby, he's locked in for a long time to come.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Rudee

Getzlaf and Perry are making close to Crosby kind of money. Unfortunately for Crosby, he's locked in for a long time to come.

Poor kid, making almost 9 million a year guaranteed for the next 12 years.

Thoughts and prayers.

[FAN]

Originally Posted by AR_Six

In other words, if your first line costs $22 million and mine costs $16, I'll spend the extra $6 mil on my second and third lines and probably get more bang for my buck there.

It's hard to say. If your first line isn't that good, the line will likely be shut down by your opposition's top pairing. Is your 2nd and 3rd line good enough to pick up the offensive slack? You need elite players (not necessarily 1st line forwards) to win the Cup and you need depth to win the Cup. It's definitely a balance that is hard to strike.

[AR_Six]

Originally Posted by FAN

It's hard to say. If your first line isn't that good, the line will likely be shut down by your opposition's top pairing. Is your 2nd and 3rd line good enough to pick up the offensive slack? You need elite players (not necessarily 1st line forwards) to win the Cup and you need depth to win the Cup. It's definitely a balance that is hard to strike.

I don't necessarily know that this is the case. In my view if you're spending significantly more time in your opponent's end of the ice than they are in yours, you will, over the long run, win out. This applies to teams with above league-average goaltending, at least.

This isn't about winning the Cup. I think at this point everyone needs to sober up and realize that you do not build a team "to win the cup". You build a team to be good at hockey, and if you do that, you will win enough games over the regular season to make the playoffs. When you're in the playoffs, you need a run of good puck luck, a run of not having major injuries (which could also be termed "luck"), and a run of strong goaltending, in order to win the cup.

Basically, I like the St. Louis Blues team building mindset much better than the Anaheim Ducks mindset. If not for having the league's worst team goaltending earlier this year (which surely has to trend towards league average from here through the end of the season) they would be firmly in home-ice position much more talked-about as a contender.

[Red John]

Originally Posted by wingmaker

Totally. In a fantasy world, most people would agree with you. But what we see in the NHL is that support players, even really top end support players, are rarely able to raise their game consistently to make a real charge for the cup. Even the "miracle" runs of Calgary and Edmonton were done on the backs of high end, elite players. A group of very good but not great players will get beat by players who can take over a game seemingly single handedly more often than not. Those type of performances raise up the players around them. This is why teams will always pay those few great players, because they have a net affect on the whole team. Look at Anaheim. Their top players had a down year last year and they languished in the cellar. But with a new year and a more consistent effort, they now look like they could win the cup. It is dangerous to bank so much money on these guys because they can go through slumps. But when they are on, they are unstoppable. Of all the top teams in the NHL this year, only Montreal can really claim to be where they are without a high paid impact player leading the way.

Fantastic post - would just like to add a bit to it here.

As mentioned, look at the Flames from 2003-2009. They made the playoffs every year basically on the back of Iginla and Kiprusoff in their primes - at one point you could argue they were the best forward and goalie in the NHL.

Darryl was famous for changing a lot of the secondary parts each year after playoff failures - but basically the team went as their stars went and unfortunately Kiprusoff and Iginla rarely had elite seasons at the same time but that's another story.

The Hawks are a playoff team every year on the back of Toews and Kane. When those two have an off-year, (2011) the team is still good enough to get in, when they are playing well (2010, now) look how they do.

Pittsburgh had garbage up front besides Crosby and Malkin (and Staal to some extent) and they won a Cup. Now they picked up Neal but Crosby continues to produce with Dupuis on his wing.

Carolina won the Cup with Eric Staal and Cam Ward. Detroit with Datsyuk and Zetterberg, only now are they faltering because Lidstrom retired. Boston did it without a high end forward but had Chara and possibly the greatest playoff goaltending peformance of all time from Tim Thomas.

Vancouver won two straight presidents trophies with not one but two 100-point players.

Hate to use so much playoff evidence as playoffs are a small sample size and tend to be based more on luck than regular seasons, but in the playoffs coaches tend to shorten their benches so winning those 2nd and 3rd line matchups that AR_6 was talking about, doesn't matter nearly as much.

Your best players need to be better than the other teams best players more often than not to win. If your best players aren't elite calibre players that just isn't going to happen often. Phoenix might be an exception to that rule as well as St. Louis but neither of those teams are performing up to elite standards right now either.

Seems the key to winning is to have a couple of elite players and then surround them by young cheap players that you draft and develop who can plug the other holes.

[AR_Six]

Originally Posted by Red John

Fantastic post - would just like to add a bit to it here.

The Hawks are a playoff team every year on the back of Toews and Kane. When those two have an off-year, (2011) the team is still good enough to get in, when they are playing well (2010, now) look how they do.

This is not true at all. They won the cup on the back of an astoundingly strong collection of (at the time) depth players - Byfuglien, Ladd, Versteeg, Sharp, Bolland. The lineup was stacked. Even now, they are not doing as well as they are because of their top guys alone. Sure, Kane's great, but the reason they're winning so much is that Hjalmarsson / Oduya are playing like a top-flite #1 pairing and both of their goalies are playing out of their minds - not to mention guys like Saad and Kruger and Shaw are playing like top 6 forwards.

Pittsburgh had garbage up front besides Crosby and Malkin (and Staal to some extent) and they won a Cup. Now they picked up Neal but Crosby continues to produce with Dupuis on his wing.

Classic example of how Pittsburgh players are underrated because C and M get all the credit. That team is just plain good, top to bottom, outside of goaltending. The role-players, guys like Kennedy and Orpik and even Cooke, get no credit. This is why they're winning and the Lightning, despite having similar top-end skill, are not. That being said, having arguably the two best players in the world on your team does make a difference - I'm not saying you can't win on this model, but it's not exactly easy to build a team that way.

Carolina won the Cup with Eric Staal and Cam Ward. Detroit with Datsyuk and Zetterberg, only now are they faltering because Lidstrom retired. Boston did it without a high end forward but had Chara and possibly the greatest playoff goaltending peformance of all time from Tim Thomas.

You're just naming big names off each of these teams. The Carolina run was on the backs of stellar performances by Brind'Amour, Francis, Cole, Stillman, Ray Whitney and a bunch of OT goals by Nic Wallin. As for Detroit... well yeah, it was pretty much just Nick Lidstrom. Wait, no there was Cleary, Draper, Franzen, Helm, Holmstrom, Kronwall, Rafalski and others on that team too...

The Bruins had contributions from everyone from top to bottom, the reason they won wasn't just good goaltending and big Chara slapshots, they were tough, a large part of the contribution came from the Rich Peverleys, Brad Marchands and Shawn Thorntons of the world not to mention Seidenberg playing all-world. If anything Boston's a good example of what I'm talking about; outside of Chara they don't have any real superstars but they just kick the crap out of everyone.

Really though none of the past examples matter because my assertion is based on the CURRENT CBA MARKET.

Vancouver won two straight presidents trophies with not one but two 100-point players.

No, they won because they had Malhotra taking all the defensive minutes and Kesler destroying the other teams' 3rd and 4th lines while the Sedins spent all their time in the offensive zone because Malhotra and company took all the defensive assignments. Your comments is so wrong, just look at how the Canucks are doing right now WITH the Sedins and WITHOUT Kesler, Malhotra and the rest of their depth. They demonstrate my point perfectly - a team with a fantastic top line, but every other line is just trying not to get outplayed by the other team. And they're losing. In this case it's more because of injuries and mediocre goaltending (and some bad luck; they're like 5th in the NHL in fenwick or something and have lost games they should've won) but the roster makeup looks like a team that overspent on its first line and couldn't afford the depth guys.

Seems the key to winning is to have a couple of elite players and then surround them by young cheap players that you draft and develop who can plug the other holes.

Again, the key to winning the cup is being generally good at hockey, having a goalie play well and then getting luckier than the other guys in terms of games, calls, and injuries.

Basically everything you just said was wrong.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by AR_Six

You know, if I'm building a team right now, I don't want two of these guys. I'm not sure I even want one. If the current climate drives up the cap hit of top players and drives down the cap hit of mid-tier non-stars (your Mikko Koivus and Joe Pavelskis), I'd rather spend my money on more of the latter. While your stars are getting their points battling against my checking line for 18 minutes a night the same way they always have, I'll roll my three other, clearly superior, lines against the soft underbelly of your AHL quality depth.

In other words, if your first line costs $22 million and mine costs $16, I'll spend the extra $6 mil on my second and third lines and probably get more bang for my buck there.

It isn't quite as simple as you make it out to be.

You could almost argue that the Flames have done exactly as you've described for their top 9.

The biggest problem I have with your argument is that the league is now dominated by special teams - with those select top line players getting significant minutes and majority of PP goals. Depth can be nice, but it does not help your offensive special teams

Can you even name anyone on Pens 3rd and 4th lines aside from Brandon Sutter? They decided to stack very top heavy and plug some holes on the 3rd and 4th lines.

[OzSome]

And we have a lockout because of what again?

Wow, Anaheim is just spending money these days. I wonder if they have some money left for Bobby Ryan?

[AR_Six]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

It isn't quite as simple as you make it out to be.
You could almost argue that the Flames have done exactly as you've described for their top 9.
The biggest problem I have with your argument is that the league is now dominated by special teams - with those select top line players getting significant minutes and majority of PP goals. Depth can be nice, but it does not help your offensive special teams

This is a fair point to argue... but really, your special teams are best served by drawing penalties. Once that's happened, you're probably somewhere between 16-22% of penalties drawn ending up in the back of the net more or less regardless of whether it's Stamkos and St. Louis on your PP unit or Oshie and Berglund. Note that the top half of the NHL in PP% is a mix of teams with and without big stars and the top team in the league is the Blues, tied with the Penguins, and the bottom of the league includes Vancouver, Carolina and the Rangers, with all their offensive star firepower.

So, basically, if your non-Stamkoses can out-hustle the other team's plugs and spend enough time carrying the puck as opposed to their opponents, they will draw more penalties than said opponents and at the end of the year you'll have more total PP goals... At least, that's my theory.

Can you even name anyone on Pens 3rd and 4th lines aside from Brandon Sutter? They decided to stack very top heavy and plug some holes on the 3rd and 4th lines.

Yes, I can, but it doesn't matter - the Penguins shouldn't be used as an example for anything, really. They are a unique case. As I said, if you have the two best offensive players in the world (probably, with an argument to be made for Stammer) you're going to be pretty good - and that's not giving credit to Letang, who for me is top 5 d-men in the league.

Most teams do not have the luxury of acquiring Crosby. They may be able to sign non-generational but still superstar level guys like Getz, Perry, Staal, Nash, Richards etc. to big money deals. That's what we're talking about here; whether those guys are worth it given what they cost as a % of cap in the current CBA world.

Honestly I think if I was going to sign one of those elite-level players it'd be a defenseman. If I'm going to spend a bunch of my cap on one of those guys I want him on the ice for 27 minutes a night.

[The Voice of Reason]

Over paying him now is probably better for the team in the short term than losing him for nothing as an UFA.

That said I'm going to enjoy laughing at how ridiculous this contract is in a couple years when he hasn't had a sniff of the Hart since signing it.

[CSharp]

Geez if you compare Perry to Iggy when both are at their prime, I think the Flames got a heck of a deal for an incredibly long time. If you compare the accolades of the two, Iggy's got 2 Rocket Richard trophies, 1 Art Ross Trophie, and I dare to say he should've had the Hart Trophie as he got robbed of that. The only thing that Iggy doesn't have is Stanley Cup victory in the end of 2004 season. But Corey is lucky in that his team is definitely more talented and he plays with a true #1 centerman. And everyone is whining about Iggy, for crying out loud!

[Nasty]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

Doan's contract last year set the stage for Iginla to get 3-4 years at 6m per...so yeah, the Flames should be trading Jarome because we aren't going to win anything paying Iginla that much money at this stage.

30+ , leadership, means nothing to you??