[Signing] Habs sign Jeff Petry to 6 year deal ($5.5 mil AAV)

[GioforPM]

It seems at first like a lot. But RH shot, solid middle pairing D are scarce. And he's a UFA. It seems like you can point out the difference between UFA contracts and RFAs until you're blue in the face but some posters don't get it. It happened on this site with Stajan, Wideman, Raymond, Engelland, etc.

ELCs and RFAs are where the value is in the NHL IMO, and where elite teams make hay - they can pay a few elite players very well, and have a bunch of very solid RFAs and ELCs making up the difference.

[Fire of the Phoenix]

If Russell signs with us before he hits the market, I think he signs a reasonable deal for 5 or less years with a cap hit that starts with 4. If he hits the open market I would bet money he signs a deal similar to Petry. They are very comparable players.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

The nature of the exercise is that you overpay.
You have to overpay, otherwise someone would bid higher.
It's simple economic/auction theory - you pay too much to win the bid.
Then everyone wails that the price it too high.
And then the process repeats itself, again and again.

I think this goes to show why typically the best UFA signings are the ones that don't happen in the first few days or week. The ones that are under the radar where there's less teams interested and less money put on the table.

Also a lot of GM's when they make these offers aren't necessarily worried about the long term ramifications as they know if the team doesn't have success in the coming seasons they won't likely be around to deal with the cleanup. This is why we haven't really seen reasonable free agent signings many originally thought the salary cap would bring. The LA Kings, Wild, Bruins, Hawks, etc are either currently feeling the pain or are going to be in a world of pain in coming seasons. It's the price to pay for success and trying to win today.

[heep223]

Russell and Brodie are different situations because one is a UFA and one was an RFA. That being said I still don't think Russell's contract with the Flames will end up being a higher AAV than Brodie's.

[Fire of the Phoenix]

I wonder what Brodie would've hypothetically got if he was 2 years older and a pending UFA this summer? Say those 2 extra years were similar to this last year. I would bet $6.5m x 6 or 7 years. What a great contract BT signed him to.

[BACKCHECK!!!]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

What is your definition overpaid?

How does a competitive marketplace overpay for these players? Infact with all the restrictions on this being a truly free labour market many (most?) players are likely underpaid.

I've seen some pretty good evaluations of the economics of the NHL labour market.

As with most unionized fields, in terms of their contributions to winning, the best players are underpaid, and the lowest players are overpaid.

We saw this before the cap, when Joe Sakic and Nick Lidstrom were making something like $13m each, and 4th liners were in the $250k range.

The cap circumvention contracts also bore this out, with (for example) Nashville being willing to give up 4 first rounders for the privilege of paying Shea Weber $14m. And we see it today with the contracts given to guys like Toews, Kane, Subban, etc.

Crosby could be making $20m+ if he went UFA today on an open market, while there are a lot of NHLers who wouldn't be making the league minimum if it weren't for the CBA.

[Fire of the Phoenix]

In hindsight, with the D they currently have in place, Nashville would've been better served to let Weber go to Philadelphia and take all those picks. 8 first round picks over 4 years would be a great way to build a team, Weber or not.

[HartAttack]

I'm not totally up to snuff on the Habs current salary cap issues, but this is the only Jeff Petry I choose to remember. This must = bad signing.

[OzSome]

Petry is the case of rags to riches. In 3 months time he left the crappiest team then signed a great contract with Montreal.