HUGE NEWS OUT OF PHILLY

[repenttokyo]

lanky522 wrote:

I\'d just like to add that after a quick look at the salaries around the league, I\'ve discovered that Hartnell will be the 37th highest paid forward in the LEAGUE. For those of you who think that he\'s worth it, I\'ll say this: there were 149 forwards who had more points than him at the end of last season..

This is a meaningless statistic. how many of those 149 players are available right now, as UFA\'s, at the price they paid for Hartnell? That would be a relevant fact.

[lanky522]

As soon as I get a chance I\'ll update this post with that answer. It\'s no where near the difference though I assure you of that. Maybe 25% of the guys ahead of him on that list are up for free agency...

I could list all of the people who scored more points, but really the fact that Randy Robataille and Owen Nolan scored more points than him speaks for itself...

I\'ll update this post though tonight when i get a chance.

[repenttokyo]

lanky522 wrote:

As soon as I get a chance I\'ll update this post with that answer. It\'s no where near the difference though I assure you of that. Maybe 25% of the guys ahead of him on that list are up for free agency...

I could list all of the people who scored more points, but really the fact that Randy Robataille and Owen Nolan scored more points than him speaks for itself...

I\'ll update this post though tonight when i get a chance.

Nolan had 1 more point and played 12 more games...Robitaille scored 1 more point than Hartnell and played 14 more games.

The key would be to find someone who played 64 games or less, like Hartnell, and had more than 39 points...then it becomes statistically meaningful. 25 percent of 139 is \"about\" 35 players. What are the chances that of those 35, there is a similar player with similar numbers who would have cost them less?

[lanky522]

Hey I didn\'t say anything about the fact that Hartnell played less games than some other forwards in the league this year... It\'s not my fault that he\'s somewhat injury prone...

But since you opened that box... let\'s ask this question... who out there would pay 4.2 million a year for a somewhat injury prone depth (2nd or 3rd liner) player, who\'s somewhat injury prone, and is coming off of a 39 point season? Anyone? I sure as heck wouldn\'t give that guy a six year 25+ million dollar contract, but maybe that\'s just me...

[87Flyer]

Obviously no one is planning the parade in Philly for next year lol. As for the money and term of the contracts for sure the length is 2 prolly 3 years to long but unfortunately were talking about spoiled people who get payed more money that they\'re worth so of course you have to continously throw large dollars at them to get them to come and let\'s face it, would you go to the last place team for what your market value is, not likely, your gonna sign with the team that you think is closest to winning and i think that might have something to do with the insane amounts of money.

Here\'s another question lanky, you talk about not being able to win without stars. How many people picked Anaheim or for that matter Carolina to win the cup(not to get a swelled head but i did and won our playoff pool because of it). Sure Anaheim signed niedermeyer, didn\'t win a cup. Then they traded for pronger and still no one thought them a serious threat, sure there were some but not many. Go down that line-up and tell me how many stars there are. Niedermeyer is great, but older, Pronger is great but also somewhat injury prone and a bad attitude, Selanne is great but older and then it\'s a bunch of who, Getzlaf was nothing special until the playoffs, Macdonald was nothing better than Selannes set up man and the rest you prolly could name before the cup was hoisted. And if it was just a matter of having stars and then you win the cup what happened to Pitts, lots of stars there but no cup. What about Ottawa, lots of stars their, 5 games and gone. Winning a cup is more about the team playing as a team, believing in themselves and pouring every ounce of themselves into winning the battle that each series is. Tell me how many times that we\'ve seen a \"cinderella\" team make it to the finals, sometimes they win sometimes they don\'t. The fact is that ANY team at ANYTIME can go the distance if the players come together.

With this deal and the other previous deals they strengthened their weak points. They\'ve given hope and belief to the other players and the fans that they\'re noy going to be one of those teams that every year says were \"rebuilding\"(check Chicago, Florida, Columbus etc etc). I\'d rather have them slide into 8th place and at least try for a cup run then sit on the wayside and try to convince everyone around you that your \"rebuilding\" still. Who know\'s, maybe the team clicks at the right time and you go on the magnificent ride. If you don\'t try though then sitting around and counting as the years go by waiting for the rebuilding to be done is just plain silly. No one has the magic formula for rebuilding believe me, we waited 5 yrs last time for the rebuilding to be done, it got us 1 appearance in the cup and then we were swept. Much rather see this than the other scenario that chicago, florida, columbas etc etc go thru each year.

[repenttokyo]

when it all comes down to it, they are still general managers with years of hockey experience and we are just dudes talking about hockey on the internet.

[87Flyer]

LMAO, hmmm overpaid players, lets see....Federov, Aucoin, Lang, R.Blake, Horcoff, K.Johnsson, Jovanovski, Naslund, W.Mitchell and on and on and on. They\'re everywhere. They get their money then disappear. I will say this tho, how well was Upshall doing in Nashville, bunk. How well did he do when he came to philly, sure that might not work all year long but if it does, sweeeet. Now what happens if Hartnell has the same effect. How many times has a player gone from one team as a bum to a new environment and became dam good, lots, just ask Leclair, how many 50 goal seasons after being what a 20 goal man. You just never know. Personally i wouldn\'t have had the balls to sign them for that much for that long either but.....

[lanky522]

87Flyer.

Ok, I somewhat understand the \"Carolina won without stars comment,\" but Anaheim? Seriously?

In regards to Carolina, Eric Staal had 100+ points the season carolina won, and Brind\'Amour was a star in every respect of the game (leadership, game winning goals, faceoff wins, defense). That\'s two stars right there.

But Anaheim? Can you really say they won without stars? Selanne who\'s going to the hall of fame, Scott Niedermayer (4 time Norris trophy winner and 06-07 defensive points leader), and Chris Pronger (Norris trophy winner, member of a Stanley cup finals team 2 years running). You are honestly trying to tell me that these guys aren\'t stars? HAHAHAHA

All I\'m saying, is that if you look at ANY TEAM that has won the cup in the last 10-20 years, you can pick out at least 2 guys that were the reason they got there. No Team has won on a group effort alone.

Phili doesn\'t have a star. They don\'t. Period. They can try and buy a star, but they might be fairly tight on money after committing 10+ million a season to Timmonen and Hartnell (while still having 5+ million committed to Hatcher and Gauthier).

Show me a phili player that has the star power of any of the other guys in this post and I\'ll admit they might have a chance to win a cup in the next 3 years. Otherwise. No.

[lanky522]

87Flyer wrote:

LMAO, hmmm overpaid players, lets see....Federov, Aucoin, Lang, R.Blake, Horcoff, K.Johnsson, Jovanovski, Naslund, W.Mitchell and on and on and on. They\'re everywhere. They get their money then disappear.

I disagree with you on Mitchell and Lang. Mitchell is arguably one of the best shut down defenders in the game, and Lang only made 3.8 million last season, but had 52 points (pretty good ratio), and is still an incredibly viable 2nd line center.

It is true that all of the other guys are overpaid a bit, but luckily they weren\'t signed for more than a few years each. Six years is a long time to be signed unless you\'re completely sure that the player will produce for at least 4 of those years.

[lanky522]

Ok RepentTokyo,

The following are all UFAs this summer:

Tony Amonte
Jeff Friesen
Pierre Turgeon
Tyler Arnason
Petr Sykora
Petr Nedved
Todd White
Wes Walz
Jan Bulis
Trevor Linden
Bryan Smolinski
Teemu Selanne
Eric Lindros
Patrik Stefan
Ladislav Nagy
Jeremy Roenick
Owen Nolan
Bill Guerin
Michal Handzus
Jeff Hamilton
Todd Bertuzzi
Robert Lang
Kyle Calder
Paul Kariya
Peter Forsberg
Danny Briere
Chris Drury
Dainius Zubrus
Mike Comrie
Michael Peca
Jeff O\'Neill
Scott Gomez
Jason Blake
Ryan Smyth
Victor Kozlov
Richard Zednik
Randy Robitaille
Brendan Shanahan
Mike York
Nils Ekman
Gary Roberts
Mark Recchi
Slava Kozlov
Keith Tkachuk
Eric Belanger
Scott Walker
Anson Carter
Josef Vasicek
Jozef Stumpel
Martin Gelinas

Of these guys, I doubt that any of them (with the exception of Shanahan, Blake, Smyth, Gomez, Comrie, Drury, Briere, Kariya, Nagy, and Selanne) would go for more than 4 million a season. Granted some of them aren\'t as good to have as Hartnell (some are older or not as good), but there are PLENTY of other good options there that you could get for less than 4 million to play on the second line. You could proabably even get 2 or 3 of these guys for 4 million dollars.

They could definitely get Stumpel, Walker, Belanger, Ekman, Roberts, Recchi, Bertuzzi, Lang, Guerin, Stefan, Lindros, Arnason, Turgeon and Amonte for less than 4 million and all of these guys (dispite some being older) could contribute just as well or better than Hartnell until the younger guys are ready to go.
Arnason would be a much cheaper young high risk, high reward, high potential substitute for Hartnell.

I would\'ve imagined that Jason Blake would go for around the 4.2 million that Hartnell went for, but now I\'m sure that he\'ll go for closer to 5.5 million. Even so, I think they would\'ve been better off with Blake at 5+ million over 3 or 4 years than they are with Hartnell at 4.2 million for 6.

Post edited by: lanky522, at: 2007/06/18 19:58

[87Flyer]

Lanky
Sure it\'s easy enough to say that Anaheim is filled with stars now that they\'ve won but honestly, did you have them raising Lord Stanley at the beginning of the year. Same scenario for both Tampa and Carolina. Up until their cups neither team was considered a serious player. Vinny and Richards hadn\'t done anything to give that impression, sure Staal had a 100 points and Roddy is one of the best at what he does but a cup, not likely. If i recall Carolina had Gerber as their starting goalie, then some other guy named Ward stepped up to help take them along. Simple fact is star or not, teams win cups not stars. Sure the stars may help and can be pivotal factors but how many teams with stars don\'t win the cup. I think the last time you could say that a star led a team to the promised land was the Magnificent One, maybe Roy as well in \'93. Other then that tho no one star has taken a team thru all 4 rounds and won them a cup(of course my memory aint as good as it once was so i might\'ve missed someone). Mind you i can think of a few teams that had a nice mix of players that shouldn\'t have been in the finals yet they were.

Sure it would be nice to have a bona fide star in Philly but it aint coming out of this group of FA\'s. Not a single one of them is a star in the sense that your talking about imo. Briere and Drury are great players but do they have the capability to lead a team to the cup, didn\'t do to well with both of them on the same team let alone seperately.

We ain\'t cup bound yet but this is definitely a much better situation than what it was yesterday. Still would\'ve been nicer to see 4 yr deals rather than 6. Almost feels like the Hatcher, Rathje situation. Stuck.

On a side note, i read on another site that Homer had 72 hours to do this deal as another team was in line to do the same thing. Wonder how much truth is in that.

[lanky522]

That is true... I\'m sure they had a short amount of time to get the deal done, and I suppose that it\'s a good deal when you consider that.

As for star power, I did consider selanne, pronger, and niedermayer stars at the beginning of the past season. Carolina is a bit different, but they still had Stillman, who won a cup with tampa bay, and brind\'amour as stars at the beginning of the year. Granted they didn\'t have name brand defenders or goalies, but they did have stars.

I also have to say that in terms of recent teams that won cups on the backs of stars... how about messier with the rangers, yzerman with the wings, brodeur with the devils, forsberg & sakic for the avalanche, and modano for the stars? Well that covers the last 13 years...

And really, Lecavalier and Richards could very easily be seen as stars the year Tampa Bay won lecav was drafted 1st overall and had 144 points over the previous two years. Richards had 136 points over the previous two years. Khabibulin had 11 shutouts and an average save percentage of 91.5% in the two years preceeding their cup run.

Post edited by: lanky522, at: 2007/06/18 21:10

[hammer2003]

I like the signings but to give up a first round pick to pay market rates - probably above market rates when you adjust for the 6 year (!) term - for these guys isn\'t what I would call brilliant. Yes I understand economics and no I am not jealous. Philly will be a much better team but for those prices they could have kept the pick. You think if these two thought they could get more they wouldn\'t have waited 2 weeks? IMO Philly gave up a pick for nothing.

[87Flyer]

Ya i was thinking of that one also but aside from the bold prediction he made against Jersey I couldn\'t quite remember if he did throughout the playoffs. I remember hearing Richters name a lot but it\'s been a while lol.

Makes me wonder about this collusion thing. If another team tells Poile we have interest then he goes and tells Homer, hey you better hurry up cause another team is coming for the same thing doesn\'t that kind of defeat the purpose of waiting till July 1st. I guess he could\'ve just said, there might be interest from another team but dam, you trade for a guy(or 2 in this matter) then have him signed in record time. No checking the team out or the city or anything just woohoo i\'m gonna get paid more than i\'m worth so sign me up. Sure makes you wonder if there wasn\'t some behind the scenes stuff. Guess it all depends when the deal was done. If it was done 1st thing this morning i guess it would be enough time, still pretty dam quick tho.

[lanky522]

Angus Wrote:

Timonen is a two-way defender, in fact I\'d say he is just as good defensively as he is offensively. I\'ve watched him play quite a bit and he sits at #5 on my top 10 defensemen list.

I don\'t think he\'s anywhere near a top five defensive defender. He had a minus-27 career plus/minus rating until last season. He has only had 2 seasons in his career with a positive plus/minus rating despite scoring 165 career even strength points. I know that Plus/Minus needs to be put in context, but a defender with a career plus minus of minus-6 cannot be counted as a top five defensive defender in my book...

He is known for his skating ability and offensive ability. He is competant in his own end, but not great. When Timonen has scored as many points even strength as he has, there\'s no reason for that bad a plus/minus except for the fact that he\'s often on the ice when the other teams score (ie. he\'s not that sound defensively).

By contrast, Brian Rafalski has 191 career even strength points, but has a career plus/minus rating of plus-100. He has never ended a season with a minus rating. Now I understand that much of this is because of brodeur and the system that NJ plays, but it does show a slight contrast between the two defenders nontheless.

I don\'t think that timonen can be called upon (as other defenders in the league are) to consistantly shut down opposing teams\' top players.