[Signing] Landeskog signed to 7 year extension 5.57AAV

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Jake

Thats actually what I am talking about. Saying "17 point season" just to support your point seems a bit misleading. His "17 point season" was actually 17 points in 36 games, which prorates to 20 goals and 39 points over a full season. Not to mention he was one of the most physical players on the team. He did this on the worst team in the league, as a 19 year old, while missing his usual centreman for most of the season (O'Reilly) and after a head injury.

He missed 11 games at the beginning of the season due to a concussion and didn't miss another game because of it for the rest of the season. Doesn't seem like a big deal.

Keep in mind he just came off a season in which he played all 82 games, nearly led the team in points, and won rookie of the year... and to top it all off he was selected as team captain the following off season. He was also the only Aves forward that played regularly that was a plus... and +20 at that.

Seems like a keeper.

You can't really jump on people for saying he had a 17 point season because it wasn't a full season and then claim he was healthy for the rest of the season.

He played 36 games, he put up 17 points. Not a huge difference than say Cervenka. No matter how you slice it, it wasn't a great sophomore year for him. Lockout hurt, injury hurt, bad team hurt, but he still got a 40M contract. It's an easily criticized contract. It's extremely risky, not only does he have to improve greatly for it to be worth it, he now has concussion history. That's never good.

However, he's also only 20 and has shown signs of brilliance in his rookie season. He should improve on that season as he's 2 years older and will hopefully not be forced to play with offensively inept Cody McLeod like last season. A good year this year and Hall's contract starts to look even more comparable in contract negotiations. Signing him now instead of the end of the year could have saved the Avs a couple million down the road so the risk isn't without some possible reward.

[Murph]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

arguable.... Colorado had 3 of 4 last year.... sort of following the Edmonton example of looking good while sucking.

Kane and Toews joined Chicago and Chicago went from 71 pts to 88..as a team.. that was in year 1 ( Duchense and Landeskog and o'Reilly are entering year 3 as a group). Chicago has not had a high draft pick since.

Erik Johnson (or Shattenkirk/Chris Stewart) AND Paul Stasny were as good as Keith and Sharp who were the best players when Toews and kane showed up.

when do Duschene and O'Rielly and Landeskog actually turn the Av's into a winner? They are all getting paid like Kane and Toews were AFTER they carried the team to a Stanley cup win.


I sure hope we don't sign Baertschi to a 5.5M 7 year deal if he gets 40 pts this coming season.

Exsqueeze me? Baking powder?

[Jake]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

You can't really jump on people for saying he had a 17 point season because it wasn't a full season and then claim he was healthy for the rest of the season.

He played 36 games, he put up 17 points. Not a huge difference than say Cervenka. No matter how you slice it, it wasn't a great sophomore year for him. Lockout hurt, injury hurt, bad team hurt, but he still got a 40M contract. It's an easily criticized contract. It's extremely risky, not only does he have to improve greatly for it to be worth it, he now has concussion history. That's never good.

However, he's also only 20 and has shown signs of brilliance in his rookie season. He should improve on that season as he's 2 years older and will hopefully not be forced to play with offensively inept Cody McLeod like last season. A good year this year and Hall's contract starts to look even more comparable in contract negotiations. Signing him now instead of the end of the year could have saved the Avs a couple million down the road so the risk isn't without some possible reward.

You and Ricardodw only seem to be looking at his offensive production. At least that is the only explanation I can come up with when you compare Landeskog to Cervenka.

Landeskog was a fantastic player in both his rookie season and sophomore, despite scoring a whopping 5 fewer assists over 36 games than in his rookie season. Your only criticism of Landeskog seems to be that he didn't improve his offensive numbers. As a 19 year old, on the leagues worst team I think it is good that he nearly matched his rookie stats. I don't see the "extreme risk" here. There is always a risk when you sign a player for 7 years, but with Landeskog I consider it a minimal one.

[FAN]

Originally Posted by Jake

Landeskog was a fantastic player in both his rookie season and sophomore, despite scoring a whopping 5 fewer assists over 36 games than in his rookie season. Your only criticism of Landeskog seems to be that he didn't improve his offensive numbers. As a 19 year old, on the leagues worst team I think it is good that he nearly matched his rookie stats. I don't see the "extreme risk" here. There is always a risk when you sign a player for 7 years, but with Landeskog I consider it a minimal one.

Landeskog is the Av's captain. If there's a guy that the team wants to build around it's Landeskog. The problem is that the cap hit is $5.57M a year. That means he's expected to be a 30+ goal 60+ point guy while providing his usual toughness and leadership.

Speaking of toughness, Landeskog plays a power game. This usually means that he is more likely to be prone to injuries. The risk is far from a minimal one. There have been teams that have been quick to identify their core players and lock them up to long term contracts during a player's RFA years when the player has largely been unproven. I don't think it has worked.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Jake

You and Ricardodw only seem to be looking at his offensive production. At least that is the only explanation I can come up with when you compare Landeskog to Cervenka.

Landeskog was a fantastic player in both his rookie season and sophomore, despite scoring a whopping 5 fewer assists over 36 games than in his rookie season. Your only criticism of Landeskog seems to be that he didn't improve his offensive numbers. As a 19 year old, on the leagues worst team I think it is good that he nearly matched his rookie stats. I don't see the "extreme risk" here. There is always a risk when you sign a player for 7 years, but with Landeskog I consider it a minimal one.

^ Not only that, but he is also the team's captain.

Signing your team captain to a long term contract is never really a bad move. Even if there is some risk that he will not turn into a superstar player, the message is that the Avs believe in this kid and that they value the role he already plays with the team.

[Macho0978]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Kane and Toews had a Stanley Cup at that point so, you know, there's that

Yep and the deserved that at the time which was a much bigger contract than 5.5 under 64.3 cap

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by Murph

Exsqueeze me? Baking powder?

Paul Stastny was a ppg player the 3 years before Duchene / ROR / and Landeskog showed up.

Sharp was the top Chicago forward with 23 pts in 50 games and 35 in 80 the 2 years before Kane and Toews showed up.

Erik Johnson had a 33 and 39 pt seasons (playing in St.L) before getting to play with Landeskog/Duschene and RoR ... Kieth had 21 and 31 pt seasons before Kane and Toews.

I am pretty sure that no one will favourably compare Landeskog (or Duschene or ROR) to Kane and Toews..... the only thing is that they are getting paid pretty much the same Kane and Toews at the same point in their careers (as 20 year olds).

Toews and Kane have carried the Hawks and made a lot of player look a lot better. They were doing this from the first game they played.

[SuperMatt18]

I give him a pass due to the concussion.

Think it takes some players longer to get over the concussion, especially younger guys who maybe aren't as sure about their game and become more hesitant to go into the dirty areas because of the concussion.

Plus his two-way game is top notch so it's not like he only brings offense to the table.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Jake

You and Ricardodw only seem to be looking at his offensive production. At least that is the only explanation I can come up with when you compare Landeskog to Cervenka.

Landeskog was a fantastic player in both his rookie season and sophomore, despite scoring a whopping 5 fewer assists over 36 games than in his rookie season. Your only criticism of Landeskog seems to be that he didn't improve his offensive numbers. As a 19 year old, on the leagues worst team I think it is good that he nearly matched his rookie stats. I don't see the "extreme risk" here. There is always a risk when you sign a player for 7 years, but with Landeskog I consider it a minimal one.

I'm not, but when you get that type of contract you need to be putting up points. And it wasn't just his offensive production to suffer this year, in my opinion. Sophomore slumps happen but I didn't see one area of major improvement in his game this year. Last year he was amazing defensively, hitting anything that moved and taking pucks away left and right. This year his hits seemed to connect less and he didn't seem to get the puck away from the opponents as often. At least in the games I watched of him.

I've never argued that he was a bad player, just that I think the contract can be criticized. There's a reason that not every 18-20 year old player (Landeskog was technically 20 for his entire sophomore season) with 1, maybe 1.25, good seasons get a 7 year contract.

Think of someone like Mueller who was being hyped up significantly after putting up some nice points as a rookie on a team without much firepower in Phoenix. He even entered Calder consideration in a year that featured Kane, Toews and Backstrom making their debuts. Being labelled a future star, the following season he's on pace for about the same offensive output while improving some holes in his game until he hits his head January and suffers a minor concussion (sounds familiar...) and the rest of the season he didn't quite get his game back. But he's only 20 years old, had shown his talent as a rookie and just had a little bit of a disappointing season after coming back from a minor concussion, not a big deal. Yet 5 years later he's unsigned and looking for a team to take a chance on him.

Sure, you can't base decisions on worst case scenarios so I understand Sakic'sSherman's reasoning but I don't think it would have been a completely stupid decision to sign him next off-season either.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

Paul Stastny was a ppg player the 3 years before Duchene / ROR / and Landeskog showed up.

Sharp was the top Chicago forward with 23 pts in 50 games and 35 in 80 the 2 years before Kane and Toews showed up.

I'll be very interested to see how this season plays out for Stastny. With his pending UFA status next summer there are going to be a lot of trade rumours revolving around him (like there wasn't already...). It is very easy to speculate a trade for help on the backend to help progress the rebuild.

However, maybe he would be the Avs' version of Sharp. He could sign a new contract to be a secondary player on the team, maybe in the ~3.5-4M range (with a NTC for the discount) and try to help the Avs be a contender.

Thing is, with Mackinnon, ROR and Duchene in the depth chart, Stastny is completely expendable now. It seems a waste to convert any of those guys to the wing.

[Ark2]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

Paul Stastny was a ppg player the 3 years before Duchene / ROR / and Landeskog showed up.

Sharp was the top Chicago forward with 23 pts in 50 games and 35 in 80 the 2 years before Kane and Toews showed up.

Erik Johnson had a 33 and 39 pt seasons (playing in St.L) before getting to play with Landeskog/Duschene and RoR ... Kieth had 21 and 31 pt seasons before Kane and Toews.

I am pretty sure that no one will favourably compare Landeskog (or Duschene or ROR) to Kane and Toews..... the only thing is that they are getting paid pretty much the same Kane and Toews at the same point in their careers (as 20 year olds).

Toews and Kane have carried the Hawks and made a lot of player look a lot better. They were doing this from the first game they played.

I don't know why you are so stuck on Toews and Kane. From the top to the bottom, the Hawks had a better team in 2008 than the Avs had last year. It's not so much that Kane and Toews "carried" the team then, just that they performed well on a well balanced team that had turned the corner. The Avs see similar potential in Landeskog and so they are paying for that potential.

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by Ark2

I don't know why you are so stuck on Toews and Kane. From the top to the bottom, the Hawks had a better team in 2008 than the Avs had last year. It's not so much that Kane and Toews "carried" the team then, just that they performed well on a well balanced team that had turned the corner. The Avs see similar potential in Landeskog and so they are paying for that potential.

exactly.... the Avs are paying for potential.