[Rumour] UPD: Friedman: Thinks a deal will get done between Gaudreau and the Flames in the next week

[pylon]

Originally Posted by gaudreauvertime

never mind that i have led paid seminars teaching fortune 500 executives how to negotiate.

6'8"....275

[Chonger]

Originally Posted by Samonadreau

Points wise yes. 3rd best winger no.

Kane, Benn, Ovi.....

You forgot Hall

[taxbuster]

IMNSHO the Flames executive also recognize Johnny as a marketing tool - so as long as his on-ice performance does not degrade (and regardless of whether his out-of-town performance improves significantly) he sells a lot of seats, jerseys and other things from which they recoup significant funds.

With his focused, deep and intense desire to win (qv his quick exit from the game after TNA lost) and great eyes for open space, I think they won't trade him and they won't risk losing him.

But maybe until JG inserts himself in the conversation, his agent is going to play brinksmanship with BT. Then we might see if Johnny really is the person he's supposed to be by telling his agent "Make a deal and make it now. I want to play, and I want to play here!"

Crossing fingers.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Gaudreauvertime

The fact that you would compare bargaining for a car (a one and done purchase) vs negotiations with a star player (essentially a strategic business partner) tells me all I need to know about your negotiation skills/experience. Never mind that I have led paid seminars teaching fortune 500 executives how to negotiate.

When you negotiate with a strategic partner, you don't need to 'win' the negotiation to 'win' the partnership. You're not buying a car, low ball offers are not constructive, especially when you have said partner over a barrel. You want your partner to feel the terms of the deal are reflective of his value in the relationship and to feel motivated to continuing delivering value to the relationship. The last thing you want to do is short change him. That's the moment when relationships move from strategic to tactical, and even adversarial.

One of my favorite quotes is from John Ruskin - it's not completely relevant but it kind of fits. He was a big "pay for quality" advocate.

"It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better."

To be clear, I'm not advocating for overpayment. I'm advocating for paying him fair market value. Just because there are special circumstances that allow us to hold our strategic partner hostage, doesn't mean it's wise to exercise that power. $1M in cap space is hardly worth a disgruntled player.

Does that make sense? And can we please limit the personal attacks? This goes for me as well, though I have been trying to not retaliate to all the crap people are spewing about me because it fills the thread with garbage. It would be nice if those who felt the need to throw out personal attacks would make the same effort.

Ruskin's comment is a good one, and one that I agree with. Yours, however, I do not.

Your fallacy here is that you continue to state that Gaudreau's ask is 'fair market value' as if it is a fact. It is not. It is your opinion. We can't even say that it is Gross' opinion, because in all likelihood he is completely aware that his ask is not 'market', it is a starting point for negotiations.

Saying he deserves 'fair market value' is an empty statement unless we actually put some unbiased parameters around what it might be.

Fortunately, we have a bunch of recent contract signings from young stars that range from $5.9M to $7.5M AAV. All star players. Depending on how we - as individuals - rank those players, we might put Gaudreau above some, maybe not above others. It is debatable - highly debatable - but at least it is something real.

That is the market. That range. Not the highest price paid, not the lowest price paid. But the range of recent signings. As long as the contract comes in somewhere in or around that ballpark, and both parties have agreed to it, it will be deemed fair market value.

Your second fallacy, is assuming that Gaudreau will be disgruntled. I highly doubt it. The world of sports is not fair. Will Monahan be disgruntled if Gaudreau signs for $1M+ more than him? No he won't. Will Giordano? No.

And there is no reason for Gaudreau to be disgruntled either. Will he get what he wants? Probably not. But neither will the Flames. That is the nature of negotiations, which you - as a professional negotiator - should know as well as anyone. Right? Right?

My final comment to you is that, if you are a professional negotiator as you claim, you would know that negotiations aren't personal. Emotions need to be kept out of them.

Do people sometimes justifiably get disgruntled? Absolutely. If one side is being completely unreasonable, or is employing disrespectful or underhanded tactics, then parties can become justifiably frustrated.

Is there any reason to think that is happening here? No. None, IMO. Nothing Treliving or the Flames organization has done over the past few years suggests they would treat a player unfairly. Not saying it absolutely won't happen, but there is nothing from recent history to suggest that we need to be concerned in that regard.

So I would suggest to everyone here, that we try to keep personal emotions, hyperbole, and scare tactics, out of these discussions, just as the Flames and Gross are (hopefully) keeping emotions out of theirs.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by Machiavelli

...
Some of the things he supposedly said are a little strange; too bad we don't have the context

Not much of the context, actually. Ken was doing a presentation of CalgaryNEXT and then took a few questions from the audience, first one being about Gaudreau signing. I just quickly typed the notes into my phone as I thought they'd be of interest here. He did preface his answer by saying that in this day and age he can't be too specific until the deal is 100% done. Again, quite understandable.

P.S. Not relevant to this thread, but one remark was really funny. Ken said that when he congratulated Gulutzan on his hiring he told him: "If Flames end up with the worst record in history of 1 win in 81 games this season, he wants that win to be against Edmonton in the first game at the Rogers arena."

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by taxbuster

IMNSHO the Flames executive also recognize Johnny as a marketing tool - so as long as his on-ice performance does not degrade (and regardless of whether his out-of-town performance improves significantly) he sells a lot of seats, jerseys and other things from which they recoup significant funds...

I think the significance of this is overblown. In Calgary—like in many other Canadian markets—all those Gaudreau jerseys would simply be Flames jerseys with another player's name plate stitched on. Gaudreau is indeed extremely popular, and we as fans are fortunate that he is so dynamic as a player, but let's not kid ourselves: if Gaudreau did not play with the Calgary Flames, they would still sell the same number of seats and the same amount of jerseys.

[TheoFleury]

Originally Posted by pylon

6'8"....275

And he'll beat yo ass in a dance off while he dribbles a basketball and balances a spoon on his nose

[taxbuster]

Originally Posted by Gaudreauvertime

Never mind that I have led paid seminars teaching fortune 500 executives how to negotiate.

And my wife taught math to kids in elementary school for 30 years, but she still can't do math in her head or on paper.....so what?

[Since1984]

Originally Posted by taxbuster

And my wife taught math to kids in elementary school for 30 years, but she still can't do math in her head or on paper.....so what?

Maybe she taught Gaudreauvertime??

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by taxbuster

IMNSHO the Flames executive also recognize Johnny as a marketing tool - so as long as his on-ice performance does not degrade (and regardless of whether his out-of-town performance improves significantly) he sells a lot of seats, jerseys and other things from which they recoup significant funds.

With his focused, deep and intense desire to win (qv his quick exit from the game after TNA lost) and great eyes for open space, I think they won't trade him and they won't risk losing him.

But maybe until JG inserts himself in the conversation, his agent is going to play brinksmanship with BT. Then we might see if Johnny really is the person he's supposed to be by telling his agent "Make a deal and make it now. I want to play, and I want to play here!"

Crossing fingers.

Marketing my ass. People would buy Bennett or Monahan jerseys instead. I bought a Monahan.

[direwolf]

Fer christ sakes, the Flames are not trading Gaudreau. This will get done before opening night.

[Murph]

Originally Posted by Gaudreauvertime

The fact that you would compare bargaining for a car (a one and done purchase) vs negotiations with a star player (essentially a strategic business partner) tells me all I need to know about your negotiation skills/experience. Never mind that I have led paid seminars teaching fortune 500 executives how to negotiate...

So from the frequency and detail of your posts on this topic, we can infer that business on the paid lecturing circuit is a little slow these days?

[taxbuster]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I think the significance of this is overblown. In Calgary—like in many other Canadian markets—all those Gaudreau jerseys would simply be Flames jerseys with another player's name plate stitched on. Gaudreau is indeed extremely popular, and we as fans are fortunate that he is so dynamic as a player, but let's not kid ourselves: if Gaudreau did not play with the Calgary Flames, they would still sell the same number of seats and the same amount of jerseys.

Maybe - but I'm not convinced of that. People have favourites and buy things based on that favouritism. I have an Iggy/2002 Gold Medal Goal framed picture that I (foolishly) purchased b/c I was an Iggy fan. If it had been a picture of someone else I wouldn't have done so.

And I've never bought a Flames jersey as such, though I've cheered them since their arrival in Calgary. But I did buy a 2004 team-signed jersey at an charity auction just before they went on that run.

Would you have bought tickets in the awful "Young Guns" era when they were trying to hawk every young guy as the saviour of the team? Nope - and neither did a lot of other people.

It's all based on emotion.

[polak]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I think the significance of this is overblown. In Calgary—like in many other Canadian markets—all those Gaudreau jerseys would simply be Flames jerseys with another player's name plate stitched on. Gaudreau is indeed extremely popular, and we as fans are fortunate that he is so dynamic as a player, but let's not kid ourselves: if Gaudreau did not play with the Calgary Flames, they would still sell the same number of seats and the same amount of jerseys.

Doubtful because the rebuild would probably be significantly further back and there would've never been playoffs in 2015. That means less excitement about the team and a building frustration from fans which, combined with a deep recession almost guarantees less ticket sales and even less jersey sales.

Trading Johnny, would set this franchise back a lot (depending on the return). Nothing positive would come out of that situation for the Flames, that's for sure, so I doubt they don't consider all of the non-on ice related consequences as well.

[PepsiFree]

I love hate to pile on, but Gaudreauvertime's picture on Tapatalk before he made his profile private certainly didn't look like someone old enough to be teaching anyone anything.

Poor control of emotions and antagonist behaviour is basically the antithesis of a good negotiator, or any real negotiator.

[mdubz]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I love hate to pile on, but Gaudreauvertime's picture on Tapatalk before he made his profile private certainly didn't look like someone old enough to be teaching anyone anything.

Poor control of emotions and antagonist behaviour is basically the antithesis of a good negotiator, or any real negotiator.

Gaudreau doesn't look like someone old enough to be playing NHL hockey either.

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

No doubt. But King is allowed to be a bit biased.

no it is just based on statistics..... maybe the Flames significantly overweight 3 on 3 in their stats packages.

[Moneyhands23]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I love hate to pile on, but Gaudreauvertime's picture on Tapatalk before he made his profile private certainly didn't look like someone old enough to be teaching anyone anything.

Poor control of emotions and antagonist behaviour is basically the antithesis of a good negotiator, or any real negotiator.

Probably has negotiated many pokemon trades at the park!

[Enoch Root]

Regarding King's comments:

Nothing unusual there - and certainly nothing stupid.

I am sure he meant 3rd best winger in points, but regardless, all he was saying was that that was Gross' stance - which is totally reasonable.

As far as being far apart goes, sure. Define far apart. Based on info that trickles out from past negotiations, 'close' seems to mean $100k or so. And 'far apart' can be anything from a couple hundred thousand to two million. Since he didn't give a number, there is no reason to panic and think it is some sort of unbridgeable chasm.

And as far as him saying he has no doubt it will wrap up in the next couple weeks, I would imagine that a) he believes that, and b) optimism on these types of subjects is part of his job (publicly).

Calling him stupid is, frankly, stupid.

[Dan403]

Originally Posted by Moneyhands23

Probably has negotiated many pokemon trades at the park!

HEY! Those 11 year olds can be TOUGH negotiators.