The Puck Stops Here
The Hjalmarsson Offer Sheet
by PuckStopsHere on 07/10/10 at 08:40 AM ET
Comments (1)
The act of signing restricted free agents to offer sheets is getting more common under the current CBA. Before the lockout, it was pointless. You would sign a player and in almost all cases, his original team would match the salary and all you managed to do was run up NHL salaries and create a higher salaried comparable player for those on your team. Now that limited salary cap space makes it more likely that other teams cannot match offer sheets (particularly if they are used on teams nearing the salary cap for next season), there is a better chance of actually obtaining the player you sign to the offer sheet and even if you do not get him, you have even further reduced the salary cap flexibility of a rival. I do not believe that there really was a “gentleman’s agreement” to not sign players to offer sheets. It is an idea born out of the media failing to explain the lack of offer sheets before the lockout and upon Brian Burke’s bluster when Anaheim was hit with the Dustin Penner offer sheet.
With that in mind, the San Jose Sharks have signed Niklas Hjalmarsson to a four year offer sheet that will pay $14 million.
If Chicago does not match the offer, Hjalmarsson is a Shark and the Blackhawks get the Sharks first and third round picks in 2011. San Jose expects that these picks will come late in their respective draft rounds, as the Sharks project to being a good team.
Chicago is the defending Stanley Cup champions and is in salary cap trouble. In order to make the salary cap next year, the team has already traded Kris Versteeg to Toronto and Dustin Byfuglien, Brent Sopel and Ben Eager to Atlanta. They have not seriously attempted to re-sign unrestricted free agent John Madden, they let Adam Burish and Colin Fraser leave via free agency and they might send goaltender Cristobal Huet to the minors to get relief from his salary. In short, they have allowed their depth to be plundered by the other teams in the league. This is forced by the gamble the team made to win the Stanley Cup last year. They were forced to defer about $4 million in bonuses from last year onto this season. That along with normal pay increases for roster players on a successful team has not allowed them to keep their roster together.
Chicago may be a Stanley Cup winner, but they are not a historically elite team and with their forced roster moves they will be worse next year. Their reign as Stanley Cup champion is likely limited to one season. Maybe this was a successful gamble necessary to win the Stanley Cup today, but it has cost them a piece of their future. We may see this type of gamble more frequently in the upcoming season. How will it be looked upon when a team gambles their future to win the Stanley Cup and fails?
Seeing Chicago as vulnerable to such an attack and seeing them as a serious rival (last year San Jose and Chicago were the top two teams in the West Conference), San Jose decided to proceed with an offer sheet.
Now San Jose has not survived unscathed by the salary cap this summer. They have lost their number one goalie in Evgeni Nabokov and are going to attempt to enter next season with Antero Niittymaki and Thomas Greiss as their goaltenders. That is a rather weak tandem and one has to think that the San Jose game plan is to acquire another goaltender before playoff time (perhaps the trade deadline might be a time to do this). However, San Jose has maintained enough flexibility in their salary structure to attempt this move.
Chicago essentially has two options. They can let Hjalmarsson, a 23 year old defenceman who played significant minutes in their Stanley Cup run, go to the Sharks in exchange for draft picks or they can match the offer and be forced to cut elsewhere. One place that is suggested for a cut is goaltending. Antti Niemi, their Stanley Cup winning goalie, is going to salary arbitration with the Hawks. It is unclear exactly what his salary will be going forward, but if it is large enough, Chicago may be forced to walk away from it and make him a free agent. The benefit by matching the Hjalmarsson offer, aside from keeping Hjalmarsson, is that Chicago gets to pick where they cut salaries, as opposed to rival San Jose picking it.
Chicago has seven days from yesterday’s offer sheet to announce whether or not they will match the offer. I am sure they are going to look at several different scenarios in the meantime before picking the right plan of action. It is clear that Chicago will not be as good a team next year due to salary cap constraints. San Jose has placed another salary cap constraint on the Hawks to make the process more severe. In the process, the Hawks could lose a talented young defenceman.
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Tags: Chicago+Blackhawks, Niklas+Hjalmarsson, San+Jose+Sharks,
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This is an interesting strategy .. basically is it better to draft and develop your own talent or give up the draft picks for a surer thing? In this instance, San Jose has given up late first and third round picks for a player that can help them right now (i.e., speeds up the development process significantly). Hjalmarsson is easily worth what the Sharks are giving up because the risk assumed between the draft and a player being NHL-ready is eliminated, at a very reasonable cost. As the price rises, however, sticker shock kicks in with multiple first round picks and likely “buyer’s remorse” (Brian Burke and Leaf fans are secretly harbouring those thoughts). It really comes down to Doug Wilson and the Shark’s pro scouts recognizing a bargain at a price point, having their own cap space and recognition that your opponent will be stretched to match. Woe be to those that mismanage their cap space, pay no heed to signing deadlines and whose best defence to the offer sheet is smoke and mirrors!
Posted by Matty55 on 07/10/10 at 12:29 PM ET