Quote:
Originally Posted by The Cobra
They were within the rules that were established by the NHL at the time they were signed.
it's hard to find fault when the owners are that much smarter than the NHL who drew up the initial rules.
|
Sorry? I'm not faulting the owners or general managers for doing so. When Sutter signed Kiprusoff like that, I thought he was a genius and of course it created an 'arms race'.
But we're talking about what Eichel, and his peers, are getting paid.
Just because some other teams were able to exploit a loophole to lower the cap-hit of a player, does not mean they are somehow making less in terms of money. Actual cold hard cash, not some imaginary number that means nothing to a players bank account. I mean, imagine if your company had put in your contract that you got $100,000 a year in company-super-fun-time bucks but it equates to $20,000 CAD a year in salary. I'm sure you wouldn't give a #### up about the first number when you tell them to pound sand. Why would a player care about some other imaginary number then? So when fans talk about cap-hits of these players who signed retirement contracts that circumvented the cap, it needs to be put in context.
Simply put, Parise averages 9.4M until he's 38 when he'll likely retire (more if he retires before then)- and even if he doesn't, it was expected at the time the contract was signed. That's the number a player's agent is looking at. The actual cash, when fighting for a player's salary. Teams have shown for the better part of the decade that they are willing to pay ~10M a year for a star player in his prime years, at least as a UFA.
With inflation and the fact that Eichel's progression and pedigree put him above just a simple star level player going forward, this contract is pretty much what should have been expected even with half of it being RFA.
Buffalo could have waited a year to see if he at least keeps it up, but really at 20, he should be expected to get better and that's where Buffalo could be afraid of him breaking out and requiring Ovechkin type cap-percentage (19%, 14M), so it's not like it didn't make sense for both players. Draistail's contract, as much as like to make fun of the Oilers and blame them for everything wrong in the world, had less to do with this contract than the myriad of actual comparable 10M (salary, not cap) contracts signed since 2008.
