Mike Chen's Hockey Blog
Entries with the tag: Free+Agency
Bidding War? No Thanks
by Mike Chen on 06/29/09 at 01:09 PM ET
Comments (3)
Now that we’re a few years into the salary cap, the notion of long-term (5+ years) contracts is the big thing with free agents, yet so many of these teams are hit with buyer’s remorse even one year in the deal.
Scott Gomez. Brian Campbell. Wade Redden. Ryan Smyth. All name players of varying quality, but the anchor of a team? Nope, not by far, but they received contracts like such and have failed to live up to expectations.
(A short aside—if we look at the past decade, including pre-lockout moves, how many of these headache contracts from the desk of Glen Sather? Just sayin’.)
Will this year’s group be any different? A quick review of the available free agents shows a crop of good players but no true elite players. The best players available are great supporting pieces but they’re not the stars of the show, yet you know some impulsive GM will overspend to get their rights. If I could play NHL GM for a day, I’d have a hard time getting into a bidding war with any of the top-tier free agents. In fact, I’m betting that you’re going to get a lot of buyer’s remorse in the near future because each of the top guys comes with at least one significant question mark.
Filed in: NHL | Mike Chen's Hockey Blog | Permalink
Tags: Daniel+Sedin, Free+Agency, Glen+Sather, Henrik+Sedin, Jay+Bouwmeester, Marian+Gaborik,
