I can't say I'm surprised over Michael Nylander's choice to play with the Washington Capitals instead of the Edmonton Oilers. For some time I have been wondering what the hell is going on in this former great club, and had I been in Nylander's skates, or anyone else's for that matter, I would have thought long and hard before accepting an offer from Edmonton. This is, of course, unless I was paid $4.25 a year. For that money I guess I would play pretty much anywhere.
Is Dustin Penner worth this much? Of course not! Only a few players in the NHL are worth that much and he certainly isn't one of them. This guy posted 29 goals and 45 points last season, adding 8 points in the Duck's playoff run. I might be wrong here and Penner may very well be a success in Edmonton, but it still can't be worth it financially.
Wouldn't it have been both better and cheaper to keep Ryan Smyth, the heart and soul of the team, than to send him packing over a couple of hundred thousand dollars? The only good thing in this story is both clubs are losers and Smyth and Penner are the only winners.
5 comments:
You're bang on in saying that Penner isn't worth the $4m price tag but I totally support what Lowe did in dishing out offer sheets to a couple of RFAs.
As a GM, Lowe's job is to put a winning team on the ice. If overpaying for players is the only way to lure some players to come to Oil Land then so be it. From Edmonton's perspective, the question is not what a player might be worth but how do we get his signature on the dotted line and in our uniform.
Boston was in the same situation last summer when they forked out $7.5m (!) for Chara. Based on his peformance last year, his value really isn't much more than $3m. But twenty-three teams were bidding for his services last summer so the B's needed to step it up financially and pay extra to bring this giant to Beantown. Just like the Edmonton example, the Bruins had to overpay for Chara because who in their right mind would sign with Boston if they actually would like a championship in the near future?
The truth is I kinda feel sorry for Lowe. Finally this small market team has enough bucks to go around but he can't spend it anywhere because no one will sign with his team. And, YES, in light of the foregoing, maybe they should have resigned Smyth instead of letting him slip away over what seemed to be just a bag of pucks.
Yeah, this doesn't make sense. Why offer Penner $4m and not go the distance with Smyth? I think this is a desperate move by a GM that is trying to cover up his poor decisions. He can't sign a UFA so he tries to grab anybody by throwing a ton of dough at them.
It seems if anyone is to blame over the Oilers demise, I would point the finger at Pronger. It seems the team has smoked a turd sense he asked to be traded because his wife wasn't happy. Doesn't the guy make enough money to have two homes? One in Edmonton and one is California, where his could let his nagging, whining wife live?
Could Edmonton be that worse than St. Louis? Yeah, you may have to get use to cold weather and the feeling of a small (smaller) city, but St. Louis is not exactly striking gold. Anyway, not to upset the St. Louis people, but whe you are comparing the two NHL teams, it's apples to oranges and Pronger could have been part of the Oiler legacy.
Usually when some team over pays a player, it just does not work out (Yashin). So good luck Lowe, can't wait to see how this one turns out for ya...
And we're all going to look like idiots when Dustin Penner, four years from now, has captained the Oilers to their third consecutive Stanley Cup, grabbing the Hart, the Art Ross and the Conn Smythe trophy while doing so.
So I guess the question is, Do you think what Lowe did with Penner was fair, or is it the new NHL terrorism?
Like it was pointed out earlier, Lowe didn't have much of a choice since he had the money but failed to attract any big names. I guess that kind of offer sheets can be annoying to a club like Anaheim, who is given no choice but to let a player like Penner go (since there is no way in hell they would pay him $4m). However, it is within the rules of the free agent market so you can't really say Lowe is out of line. He is just playing a worse hand than most other GMs.
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