Stajan's contract was one of the worst perhaps only exceeded by Widemans contract. Flames are a much better team without Wideman in the lineup and I believe Wideman has actually had a major impact on their points. He actually has seriously harmed the power play with his total lack of mobility and speed. Stajan is a good guy, but with a 46.2% face off record he is definitely past his best before date and the team would be improved by his removal. How some posters believe he is even close to Backlund in value to the team totally baffles me. The best thing to happen to the Flames is the injury to Ramo as the Flames cannot do well with Hiller in net as he is not NHL caliber and, therefore, we will have a good chance at picking top 3. Hartley is too dedicated to old vets like Hiller and Wideman so will fore sake the chance of winning games by playing Hiller over Ortio. Hiller will not play another NHL game after this season as he is the worst Goalie in the NHL.
Yeah that was a really bad signing by Burke. I wonder what his reasoning was at the time. I could've seen maybe a 2 year extension but he is signed until 2017/2018 at 3.125 mill. Pretty rough stuff.
So much dead weight on this roster still after this year:
Stajan - 3.125 until 2017/18
Raymond - 3.15 until 2016/17
Smid - 3.50 until 2016/17
Wideman - 5.25 until 2016/17
Engelland - 2.917 until 2016/17
Bollig - 1.25 until 2016/17
19.19 Million that contributes very little. Engelland is probably the only guy on the list that I am okay with. Yes he makes too much money but he's a pretty decent bottom pairing guy that brings toughness and leadership. You need guys like that. The rest of the list can go away though. At least all but Stajans contract will be gone after next year.
Hmmm.. interesting. For some reason I thought Engelland and Smid is in their last season. Engelland actually seems to answer the bell whenever he plays more. Smid I think hasn't been playing well at all. He seems to be out of position a lot in the past few games. I knew that Raymond's signing was a bad news and we are stick with him for another season. Hopefully the Flames will buy him out.
I was furious at the Stajan contract when we signed it, then Burke gave me a different perspective on it.
He said that you need veteran centers to shelter the minutes for the younger guys. He said you'll ruin a young center by feeding them to dominant centers too early in their career. So in order to develop a guy like Monahan, you need Stajans and Backlunds to face off against Kopitar, Getzlaf, Thornton.
The problem is that Stajan was given 1 year too many. The good thing is that Monahan developed faster than expected.
I think it may be 2 years too many. Would've been fine with 1 or 2 years but I wasn't thrilled right when I found out it was going to be 4 more years.
That contract by Burke was a real head scratcher. Too much money and too much term to a guy who was a 3rd/4th liner and possibly trending down.
It may be a bit of a problem going forward as I don't think you can pay Backlund and Stajan 7 million to centre your bottom two lines.
Yep. I don't think Stajan will have any value to other teams at this point unfortunately either. He's well past his best before date. He doesn't even seem to be the same player he was last year, nevermind the player he was in his later years with the Leafs.
I think the only ways the Flames can get rid of him from the organization is either through some form of bad contract for bad contract trade, which probably won't be useful for this team, or by using a buyout.
Yep. I don't think Stajan will have any value to other teams at this point unfortunately either. He's well past his best before date. He doesn't even seem to be the same player he was last year, nevermind the player he was in his later years with the Leafs.
I think the only ways the Flames can get rid of him from the organization is either through some form of bad contract for bad contract trade, which probably won't be useful for this team, or by using a buyout.
It's sucks, players are never as good as when they played for the Leafs.
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I think Stajan is still a serviceable bottom 6 player, yeah he's over paid and likely post apex but you need depth down the middle. It's not a good contract and we can likely replace him internally before his contracts out, but it's not the worst contract the flames have.
Fans need to be patient, the Flames are still a long ways from contention. We might have to run out the clock on some of these contracts for another couple years but then we will have some flexibility to fill some holes with UFA signings.
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Stajan is overpaid for what he brings on the ice but he was given the contract to set an example on what it means to be a professional. He's a respected veteran and good in the community. You can't just run with a bunch of teenagers who have no idea what it means to be an NHL player.
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Yes he's overpaid. But Stajan is not the problem on this team. He's a good vet and if he was making $1.5M nobody would complain.
Maybe we should be focusing on our two goalies that are making like $8.5M and the worst tandem in the league? They are in large part why this isn't a playoff team.
Around Christmas when the Flames came back and beat the Oilers they interviewed Gaudreau after the second and he said something like "look at Stajan, he's working his bag off out there!"
That speaks to dressing room, and roles.
Stajan is glue. You need glue guys. Through losing his son, and his role in the dressing room and his attitude, he keeps pride in the team so they don't go tank mode. That's important.
He makes 3M sure, and that seems like a lot, but by what? 1M per season? That's not a problem in the grand scheme of things.
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Stajan - very bad contract
