Chicago Paying Dearly, New Jersey Goes Insane
The first month of the offseason has come and gone, and not surprisingly, the Columbus Blue Jackets were not major players in the free agent market.
The few signings that have happened involved mostly depth players and minor-leaguers – guys we might see this year if (God forbid) the Blue Jackets see a parade of injuries. Largely, all has been quiet in the front office.
There was some noise when the big question mark arose around Anton Stralman, and whether he and Scott Howson could agree to something and avoid arbitration. But a one-year deal quieted that down. The Jackets remained perfect at avoiding arbitration with its players, with the signings of Stralman and Jared Boll. Yes, it’s a trivial statistic, but it’s perfection at something, right? Now the quiet is restored once again in Columbus.
"The Jackets remained perfect at avoiding arbitration with the signings of Stralman and Jared Boll. Yes, it’s a trivial statistic, but it’s perfection at something."
I guess that’s a good thing. After all, we were told to expect a quiet offseason. The main noise was the hiring of a new coach and a new coaching staff and philosophy for the upcoming season. However, is this the team that is going to get back into the Playoffs, with mostly the same components as last year’s 14th-in-the-West team? Can Scott Arniel really pull this off?
I said before when the Blue Jackets hired him, I’m buying. I hope the players do, too. That may be the only thing that gets anyone other than the die-hards buying again.
Meanwhile, around the rest of the NHL, there is all kinds of noise… much of it being the hype machine around Ilya Kovalchuk and his meetings with teams and silly salary demands that ultimately led up to the moronic 17-year deal with the New Jersey Devils, before the league mercifully stepped in and rejected the contract. I’ll get to that a little later, though.
The crazy amount of attention on Kovy has somewhat obscured fans’ view of some of the other significant free agency happenings around the league. For instance, Philadelphia kept the goaltender that pulled off their amazing second-round comeback in the Debacle in Boston, and led them all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals before falling to the Chicago Blackhawks. Former Blue Jackets captain Ray Whitney’s back in the West with the resurgent Phoenix Coyotes, and former Jackets Jody Shelley (Philly) and Manny Malhotra (Vancouver) found new homes. San Jose said goodbye to Evgeni Nabokov for Salary Cap constraints, and brought in Antero Niittymaki to replace him (ummm, okay… good luck with that one).
"I honestly never thought I’d see the day when guys like Paul Kariya, Bill Guerin and Miro Satan are looking for work."
Meanwhile, the infusion of youth in the NHL has a lot of veterans still waiting to hear from teams. I honestly never thought I’d see the day when guys like Paul Kariya, Bill Guerin and Miro Satan are looking for work. Mike Modano waited until this week before finally signing with Detroit. That bums me out because I sincerely like(d) him as a player. He was the face of that North Stars/Stars franchise. Oh well, it’s Dallas’ fault for dumping him.
St. Louis managed to sign Montreal’s playoff hero Jaroslav Halak – which really shocked me at the time, before I remembered that Montreal hasn’t been able to solidify their goaltending since the Patrick Roy trade in the mid-90s. Halak’s entrance into the Western Conference put the Central Division in the position of having good, young threats in goal on each team, top to bottom – Jimmy Howard in Detroit, Pekka Rinne in Nashville, Steve Mason in Columbus, Halak in St. Louis and Antti Niemi in Chicago.
Oops… not so fast, Chicago. The decision came down Monday that Chicago would walk away from the $2.75 million arbitration award to Niemi, making him a free agent. Let that sink in a second… the goaltender who helped lead the Blackhawks to the Stanley Cup was kicked out of Chicago? Now, you hear it a lot that the only thing harder than winning the Stanley Cup is keeping it. Why Chicago would make it even more difficult is beyond me. Then again, they’re up against the Salary Cap, too, thanks to the bloated contract they signed with Marian Hossa last year. Their new guy, Marty Turco will try to control the bleeding with a one-year deal.
And yet, the Blackhawks’ parting ways with Niemi is only the second-dumbest move of the offseason this year.
The goaltender who helped lead the Blackhawks to the Stanley Cup was kicked out of Chicago. Yet, that's is only the second-dumbest move of the offseason this year.
Oh, yes… that Grand Champion crown goes to the New Jersey Devils… no contest. Not even close. Why? Because they apparently haven’t been paying attention to the respective plights of Chicago and San Jose.
Now we come to the LeBron-style hype around Kovalchuk – or at least the largest amount of hype one can generate for a sports league without a relevant national television partner.
Don’t get me wrong… Versus and NBC’s coverage of Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin is top-notch. Anything outside of Pittsburgh and Washington… well, do I even have to say it?
The NHL and the Players Association have determined the arbitrator who will try to make sense of the ridiculously-front-loaded, 17-year deal New Jersey signed with Ilya Kovalchuk. The cap hit for the $102 million deal is only $6 million – even though Kovy will make much more than that during the first 10 years of the deal – which is why the NHL has accused New Jersey of circumventing the cap rules set in the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Is Kovalchuk worth that kind of money? We don’t know, because he hasn’t played a full season with a good team yet. He is among the NHL’s leading scorers since he entered the league, but really… he played in Atlanta. Who else generated offense there?
"Kovalchuk’s 17-year deal is the dumbest thing to come out of New Jersey since MTV launched 'Jersey Shore.'"
But here’s the other problem… 17 years? Sure, the remaining few years pay him next to nothing, which means the team doesn’t hurt too badly when Kovy gets too old and they buy him out after 10 years or so. Let’s be real, though… Kovalchuk’s 17-year deal is the dumbest thing to come out of New Jersey since MTV launched Jersey Shore.
And here’s why: Will New Jersey win a Cup while he’s there for 17 years?
Reality check: They only have two or three years to find out, because after Martin Brodeur retires, the Devils are screwed.
Now, to be fair, they haven’t really needed a backup plan for Brodeur, but they do soon. Brodeur appears to have lost his Playoff touch. New Jersey got lucky when Scott Clemmensen filled in more than admirably for him when he was out with an elbow injury a couple years ago. Then they let him go. Is their 2010 free-agent signee Johan Hedberg their goaltender of the future? Hell, he may not even be there when Brodeur retires.
The Devils may want to take a lesson from Chicago. The Blackhawks spent a ton of money to lock up their young guys like Kane and Toews, plus the Hossa deal before the 2009-10 season. However, they put themselves so close to the Salary Cap, they couldn’t afford to keep the goaltender whose brilliance helped get them the Cup, and that’s after they already got rid of a handful of key role-players from that amazing Cup run.
If the contract gets nullified, it may very well save New Jersey from itself, and force Lou Lamoriello to get his head checked or something. However, the battle between the league and players union over this contract probably won’t help the negotiations for the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, which I recently realized expires after this season.
I won’t kid you… after that last lockout, I’m a little scared. But that’s a discussion for another day.
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