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Its amazing to me that many still think that Elias's 6M is costly when looking at the salaries played to marquis forwards today (Hossa, Vanek, Drury, etc.)

It's silly to look at the contracts of Vanek and Drury as representative of the market. Those two contracts are incredibly bad as it stands today.

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It's silly to look at the contracts of Vanek and Drury as representative of the market. Those two contracts are incredibly bad as it stands today.

then what would be representative? the briere deal? the gomez deal? brad richards?

the point is that the devils haven't gotten great value from patrik elias, nor has the deal been a bust. going forward the contract looks absolutely fine.

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then what would be representative? the briere deal? the gomez deal? brad richards?

the point is that the devils haven't gotten great value from patrik elias, nor has the deal been a bust. going forward the contract looks absolutely fine.

You're just picking really really bad deals. That would be like me saying that since Parise makes 3.2 mil, all 45-49-94 guys should make around 3.2 mil. You can't take the best or the worst contracts to evaluate a player's worth; you have to pick somewhere in the middle. I think you have to take into account both the bad and good deals to get a solid and reliable read on the value of a player. Only with an accurate read on a player's value can you then decide if you are getting good value for the player.

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You're just picking really really bad deals. That would be like me saying that since Parise makes 3.2 mil, all 45-49-94 guys should make around 3.2 mil. You can't take the best or the worst contracts to evaluate a player's worth; you have to pick somewhere in the middle. I think you have to take into account both the bad and good deals to get a solid and reliable read on the value of a player. Only with an accurate read on a player's value can you then decide if you are getting good value for the player.

Not necessarily. Zach's contract was signed when he was an RFA. The contracts Tri mentioned were signed by UFAs who were the biggest names on the market at the time. Throw in Brian Campbell, and I think we've covered pretty much all of the biggest UFAs of the past few years except Hossa (who was offered a ridiculous amount of money by Vancouver). Plus, consider that Patty turned down bigger offers from other teams so he could stay in Jersey and his contract looks even better.

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Not necessarily. Zach's contract was signed when he was an RFA. The contracts Tri mentioned were signed by UFAs who were the biggest names on the market at the time. Throw in Brian Campbell, and I think we've covered pretty much all of the biggest UFAs of the past few years except Hossa (who was offered a ridiculous amount of money by Vancouver). Plus, consider that Patty turned down bigger offers from other teams so he could stay in Jersey and his contract looks even better.

I see what you're saying, but the deals signed by players when they were RFA's are obviously still on the book, so GM's and players can use them as benchmarks when negotiating new deals. Just as a player may say that Brad Richards makes 7.8 mil as a strategy to get more money, a GM could counter by saying that Zach Parise makes 3.2 mil to drive the contract back down. That's why I think you have to take both the good and bad contracts to get a middle value that best represents the market.

For example, a player like Mats Sundin has an 8.6 mil cap hit, and his contract seems fairly foolish. On the other hand, a guy like Sidney Crosby, who was even signed as an RFA, has a cap hit of 8.7 mil; a deal that he is certainly living up to if not exceeding. So, what type of guy this coming offseason will sign an ~8.6-8.7 mil contract? Take a bad contract like that of Sundin and a good one, like Crosby's, and it would be reasonable to say that a guy betweeen Sundin's and Crosby's skill level will sign a deal for ~8.6-8.7 m/y. Holding a player with that deal to Crosby's standard is unfair to the player, and holding him to Sundin's standard is not telling of anything, so measure a guy to a standard that is lower than Crosby's but greater than Sundin's.

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RFA and UFA contracts should never be compared. It's a completely different market and circumstances.

But the fact is that both types of deals take up space on the same cap, so they have to be compared somehow.

Edited by devils26
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But the fact is that both types of deals take up space on the same cap, so they have to be compared somehow.

There is way too much a difference in the two to just compare values. Age, length, compensation, and competition for signing are all factors that loom as large or larger than the yearly amount. When you compare rfa to rfa and ufa to ufa you eliminate or lessen the gaps in many of those things.

Competition for signing is a huge difference and makes it not proper to compare a rfa contract to an ufa contract.

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There is way too much a difference in the two to just compare values. Age, length, compensation, and competition for signing are all factors that loom as large or larger than the yearly amount. When you compare rfa to rfa and ufa to ufa you eliminate or lessen the gaps in many of those things.

Competition for signing is a huge difference and makes it not proper to compare a rfa contract to an ufa contract.

I agree that there are many things to look at besides just the value of a contract, but a GM has to be able to compare an RFA contract to a UFA contract to decide which will better benefit his team. While making that type of comparison may not be as straightforward as a UFA-UFA or RFA-RFA comparison, the comparison has to be made when a GM makes decisions. Perhaps it comes down to just the GM's gut feeling, but he has to be able to compare the two contracts in order to make the best decisions for his team, even if is less accurate and more convoluted.

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I don't think GMs worry about comparing contracts. GMs try to find any good value contract that helps his team.

Players and agents compare contracts to make sure they aren't being underpaid. Agents really push the "absolute comparison" idea, I would imagine, while GMs look more at what makes sense to their team at what price.

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Everything is relative and should be taken in context. RFAs have no bargaining power and will obviously be making less than UFAs, so it is silly to compare Parise's contract to Elias'. That's almost like saying you should strictly take a players points into account when evaluating him while discounting things like age, NHL experience, ice time, linemates, injuries, etc.

The Crosby example is also an outlier considering he would have received offer sheets from 29 other teams had he hit restricted free agency. This obviously drove up his price.

Agents, GMs, etc, don't generally compare players who received contracts as RFAs to UFAs and vice versa when negotiating contracts.

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My point was merely that some here still think you can get a top marquis offensive player for under 6M...

Which is what Elias was (or advertised, whether actually true or not) at the time of the contract.

Watch how much Havlat, Hossa, and Gaborik make this offseason regardless of the cap and economy.

Edited by DevilinLA
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I don't think GMs worry about comparing contracts. GMs try to find any good value contract that helps his team.

Players and agents compare contracts to make sure they aren't being underpaid. Agents really push the "absolute comparison" idea, I would imagine, while GMs look more at what makes sense to their team at what price.

I agree with what you're saying, but how can a GM decide if a contract has a good or bad value for his team? In my opinion, that's where the comparisons come into play.

Everything is relative and should be taken in context. RFAs have no bargaining power and will obviously be making less than UFAs, so it is silly to compare Parise's contract to Elias'. That's almost like saying you should strictly take a players points into account when evaluating him while discounting things like age, NHL experience, ice time, linemates, injuries, etc.

The Crosby example is also an outlier considering he would have received offer sheets from 29 other teams had he hit restricted free agency. This obviously drove up his price.

Agents, GMs, etc, don't generally compare players who received contracts as RFAs to UFAs and vice versa when negotiating contracts.

There's no doubt that RFA and UFA contracts are negotiated under completely different circumstances. But in my opinion, since they both take up the room on the same cap, they must be compared, even if the comparisons are flawed because of that. It's what makes a GM decide if he should sign his RFA to a new deal or let the RFA walk and sign a UFA; some comparison has to be made in that situation.

My point was merely that some here still think you can get a top marquis offensive player for under 6M...

Which is what Elias was (or advertised, whether actually true or not) at the time of the contract.

Watch how much Havlat, Hossa, and Gaborik make this offseason regardless of the cap and economy.

I definitely agree with you on this statement. I also don't see the guys you listed signing for less than 6M; there are too many players of comparable skill making over 6 mil.

Edited by devils26
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GMs decide if a contract is a good value by looking at expected contribution to his team versus salary cap, not contract amount versus other people's contract amounts.

If a RFA and an UFA are both an option for a team to sign for the same contract then odds are extremely good the RFA is a much better player than the UFA is. So the GM would sign the RFA because he helps his team more relative to his cap, that decision is made regardless of other contracts.

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My point was merely that some here still think you can get a top marquis offensive player for under 6M...

Which is what Elias was (or advertised, whether actually true or not) at the time of the contract.

Watch how much Havlat, Hossa, and Gaborik make this offseason regardless of the cap and economy.

These guys will be interesting. Havlat and Gaborik are injury prone and Hossa has already shown he's willing to sign for less money if the team looks to have a Cup in its immediate future.

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These guys will be interesting. Havlat and Gaborik are injury prone and Hossa has already shown he's willing to sign for less money if the team looks to have a Cup in its immediate future.

If he wins the cup this year, will winning the cup again matter to Hossa?

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If he wins the cup this year, will winning the cup again matter to Hossa?

Good question. It almost seemed as if signing the one-year deal was like saying, "I'll win it all this year and then get all the money next year."

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Good question. It almost seemed as if signing the one-year deal was like saying, "I'll win it all this year and then get all the money next year."

that's precisely what hossa was thinking. winning the stanley cup is an enormous boost to a player's salary and desirability.

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I would love to add hossa but I think he'll comand way to much money.

Yeah your right about Hossa even though Lou tried real hard to get Hossa at the TDL last season before he chose Pittsburgh. Probably the same will be for Havlat, Gaborik and the Sedin twins. It would be nice to see Lou go out and get one of these players to improve the scoring lines. Won't happen though unfortunately.

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marian hossa is the last thing this team needs. the devils got 125 goals out of their top 4 wingers. everyone else had 133 combined.

Devils could use another top scorer and it for sure wouldn't hurt. The main concern is to go out and get a veteran defenseman or a #1 type defenseman like Niedermayer, Beauchemin, Bouwmeester etc.

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marian hossa is the last thing this team needs. the devils got 125 goals out of their top 4 wingers. everyone else had 133 combined.

But if Elias switches to center ......

It doesn't matter anyway. Hossa would handcuff us when Martin and Parise need to get paid.

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