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Flyers sign Weber to offer sheet


ghdi

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Who cares? It's really hard to put together a great team without guys on entry level contracts. They're a young team but their young players are going to get paid a lot. It's not a huge deal - 1st round picks miss a lot where the Flyers would be drafting from - but it would hamper the team down the road.

Which is why they will most likely work out a trade this week. The Flyers have WAY too many defensemen under contract right now. They will work out a trade to save face on both sides.

From what I read the Preds will not match and then trade some of the picks back to the Flyers for current roster players.

If they don't match and don't work out a trade the Flyers will then probably move a defensemen somewhere to a team for some high picks.

Guys like Weber come along once every so many years so I can't blame Holmgren for going after him especially after watching the Suter/Parise sweepstakes that happened this summer. This way they get Weber long before an open market bidding war starts.

Edited by Eztarget
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Which is why they will most likely work out a trade this week. The Flyers have WAY too many defensemen under contract right now. They will work out a trade to save face on both sides.

From what I read the Preds will not match and then trade some of the picks back to the Flyers for current roster players.

If they don't match and don't work out a trade the Flyers will then probably move a defensemen somewhere to a team for some high picks.

Guys like Weber come along once every so many years so I can't blame Holmgren for going after him especially after watching the Suter/Parise sweepstakes that happened this summer. This way they get Weber long before an open market bidding war starts.

Why would Nashville want to help the Flyers out after this? I'd let the Flyers rot and use their picks elsewhere.

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This talk of Philly frontloading the contract with gigantic bonuses makes this offer pretty obvious "spirit of the cap" circumvention. I mean, if the whole point of a cap was to keep the financial haves and have-nots on a level playing field when it comes to attracting/keeping talent, then this gratuitous use of salary bonuses to price out a team that doesn't have big-market bucks on hand most definitely pisses all over the cap's spirit.

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Good contract? They have to give Weber $41 million over two calendar years.

Each insane contract like this only makes me more determined to make this joke of a league pry the first rounder out of Lou's cold, dead hands.

I'm now expecting Lou to refuse to give up the pick. Then, when the final year to give up the pick comes, he walks to the stage when the Devils were supposed to be picking, brushes whatever GM is there out of the way, and makes a selection while Bettman stares in bewilderment.

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This talk of Philly frontloading the contract with gigantic bonuses makes this offer pretty obvious "spirit of the cap" circumvention. I mean, if the whole point of a cap was to keep the financial haves and have-nots on a level playing field when it comes to attracting/keeping talent, then this gratuitous use of salary bonuses to price out a team that doesn't have big-market bucks on hand most definitely pisses all over the cap's spirit.

It doesn't violate the spirit because the spirit is now well defined, before the Kovy contract the spirit was vaguely defined, which led to the NHL and NHLPA arguing over what the spirit was. Now we know what violates the spirit and the NHL and NHLPA agree that this doesn't. The contract is obviously silly and is made in such a way as to benefit/harm with the cap, but it does so within the defined spirit.

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This talk of Philly frontloading the contract with gigantic bonuses makes this offer pretty obvious "spirit of the cap" circumvention. I mean, if the whole point of a cap was to keep the financial haves and have-nots on a level playing field when it comes to attracting/keeping talent, then this gratuitous use of salary bonuses to price out a team that doesn't have big-market bucks on hand most definitely pisses all over the cap's spirit.

Exactly that! I don't give a rats ass about that joke of an amendment. If Owners/GMs can still do these insane signing bonuses, than your amendment isnt working.

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Nashville still needs players from 'somewhere', hell they still need to spend money one way or the other to get to the floor.

Right, so they take their 4 1st rounders and use them elsewhere. They need to spend 13m to hit floor, RFA's Kostitsyn and Wilson will take up almost half that and then they either sign a few FA's to overpriced 1 year deals, or use the picks with a different team.

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This contract takes Weber until he is 40 and in his last 3 years pays him 1m each. Kovy's original contract took him until he was 44 and paid him 3.5m over the last 6 years. One is cap circumvention, the other is not.

Don't forget, this year we are paying Kovalchuk 11m (and the next 4 years get worse) for a cap hit for 6.6m... and this is the contract that the league accepted.

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This contract takes Weber until he is 40 and in his last 3 years pays him 1m each. Kovy's original contract took him until he was 44 and paid him 3.5m over the last 6 years. One is cap circumvention, the other is not.

Don't forget, this year we are paying Kovalchuk 11m (and the next 4 years get worse) for a cap hit for 6.6m... and this is the contract that the league accepted.

And neither contract violated any rules. Funny how the spirit of the law only applies to us, and in a big way. Kovy didn't get a dime up front. Thank goodness he was a FA two years ago and not now.

Edited by NJDevs4978
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It doesn't violate the spirit because the spirit is now well defined, before the Kovy contract the spirit was vaguely defined, which led to the NHL and NHLPA arguing over what the spirit was. Now we know what violates the spirit and the NHL and NHLPA agree that this doesn't. The contract is obviously silly and is made in such a way as to benefit/harm with the cap, but it does so within the defined spirit.

The "spirit" is now well-defined in terms of what was violated with the Kovy (and Luongo, Pronger, etc.) contract(s). They closed that loophole and forced GMs to find a new one, and find a new one they did. Just like an amendment needed to be made to address spirit violations with back-end, small-money years, a new amendment is now clearly needed to address front-end, big-bonus years.

Something as vague as "spirit" can't be defined in one shot. Though, in the conspiracy theorist part of my brain, I'm thinking that because this is Philly nothing will happen.

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And neither contract violated any rules. Funny how the spirit of the law only applies to us, and in a big way.

Because the spirit is narrowly defined now, before it was barely defined at all. The league told the GMs those contracts were getting out of hand by opening up the "investigations" into the Hossa and Luongo(I believe) contracts. The Devils gambled and lost, but the league had sent the signals out that they were unhappy with the deals and the Devils made the deal that was the most ridiculous.

Now with the "spirit" defined, the league would lose if it tried to challenge this contract.

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And neither contract violated any rules. Funny how the spirit of the law only applies to us, and in a big way.

There is a rule that says you can't circumvent the cap. Article 26 of the CBA. There is no rule that says you can't screw over a small market team with signing bonuses. Maybe their should be? Idk, I think it's hard to argue the Devils contract wasn't a violation of the rules, I just disagreed with the penalty (they should have just tossed the contract).

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Why would Nashville want to help the Flyers out after this? I'd let the Flyers rot and use their picks elsewhere.

I don't think they want to help them out. The Preds will want to save face and keep their fans interested. The Flyers have front loaded this deal with a lot of signing bonuses and the big thing about them is that they are payable regardless of a work stoppage. Which means if there is another lockout then the Preds would HAVE to pay out that money. The Preds do not have Comcast's checkbook backing them and instead rely on gate receipts to pay their players. That means within one calendar year they will have to pay out a LOT of money to one guy. It is in their best interest to work out a trade and get some players in return to help them meet the CAP floor, keep their team competitive, and keep their fans happy (between NASCAR events).

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The "spirit" is now well-defined in terms of what was violated with the Kovy (and Luongo, Pronger, etc.) contract(s). They closed that loophole and forced GMs to find a new one, and find a new one they did. Just like an amendment needed to be made to address spirit violations with back-end, small-money years, a new amendment is now clearly needed to address front-end, big-bonus years.

Something as vague as "spirit" can't be defined in one shot. Though, in the conspiracy theorist part of my brain, I'm thinking that because this is Philly nothing will happen.

The "spirit" is about artificially lowering the cap hit, which Kovy's contract did enormously. The league set out rules to make sure those contracts couldn't get as crazy out of hand as they did and this contract doesn't violate those rules, so by that "spirit" the contract is fine.

Prior teams have tried to jack up front ends of contracts to make sure RFA contracts aren't matched. Since the league never specifically banned the practice, even after the fact, in the next CBA's then they're obviously ok with them.

There is basically no chance a judge would overturn this deal with the explicit rules now in place.

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This talk of Philly frontloading the contract with gigantic bonuses makes this offer pretty obvious "spirit of the cap" circumvention. I mean, if the whole point of a cap was to keep the financial haves and have-nots on a level playing field when it comes to attracting/keeping talent, then this gratuitous use of salary bonuses to price out a team that doesn't have big-market bucks on hand most definitely pisses all over the cap's spirit.

I agree but Minnesota just did it with Suter/Parise and the fact that the CBA is up do you really think the league is going to go after teams right now?

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This contract takes Weber until he is 40 and in his last 3 years pays him 1m each. Kovy's original contract took him until he was 44 and paid him 3.5m over the last 6 years. One is cap circumvention, the other is not.

Don't forget, this year we are paying Kovalchuk 11m (and the next 4 years get worse) for a cap hit for 6.6m... and this is the contract that the league accepted.

The amendment to the CBA makes any comparison apples and oranges. And the league clearly wasn't going to accept Kovy's deal without the amendment.

Whether the Weber offer sheet goes against the "spirit" of the CBA is irrelevant at this point. Initially, the league argued, the possibility of long-term front loaded was not an intended or contemplated result. Later, however, the league had the opportunity to specifically address that concern and came up with definite boundaries. They'd be hardpressed to argue to an arbitrator "we wuz robbed" a second time, no matter how favorable to the league he might be.

And again, the Flyers are not coming out of this unscathed. The cap is likely going down and they're losing four first round picks in the process. All it takes is an injury plagued season and Bryz to perform like he did in the playoffs, and one of those picks can be in the top ten.

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Because the spirit is narrowly defined now, before it was barely defined at all. The league told the GMs those contracts were getting out of hand by opening up the "investigations" into the Hossa and Luongo(I believe) contracts. The Devils gambled and lost, but the league had sent the signals out that they were unhappy with the deals and the Devils made the deal that was the most ridiculous.

Now with the "spirit" defined, the league would lose if it tried to challenge this contract.

The league was also under pressure by many GMs to punish the Devils. They let Lou off the hook in 2006 with the Mogilny LTIR business and I believe the suspension of Malahkov, which pissed off many. If those don't happen, maybe the penalty isn't as harsh.

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I don't think they want to help them out. The Preds will want to save face and keep their fans interested. The Flyers have front loaded this deal with a lot of signing bonuses and the big thing about them is that they are payable regardless of a work stoppage. Which means if there is another lockout then the Preds would HAVE to pay out that money. The Preds do not have Comcast's checkbook backing them and instead rely on gate receipts to pay their players. That means within one calendar year they will have to pay out a LOT of money to one guy. It is in their best interest to work out a trade and get some players in return to help them meet the CAP floor, keep their team competitive, and keep their fans happy (between NASCAR events).

I understand the argument that the Pred's don't have the disposable income to weather any kind of labor war. I'm not sure I'd risk it but hey assuming that's the case, you have 4 additional 1st round picks and you only need about 6-7m in cap space after you lock up your other RFA's. You can use that trade bait with other teams, or sign FA's to overpriced 1 year deals, or wait to see if the floor is lowered rather then helping out the team that just stole your captain by muscling you out of the market. As you note the Flyers are in cap trouble with all their defense, I'd let them sweat it out and solve their own problem. I think Nashville loses more "face" if they make a deal with Philly.

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The "spirit" is about artificially lowering the cap hit, which Kovy's contract did enormously. The league set out rules to make sure those contracts couldn't get as crazy out of hand as they did and this contract doesn't violate those rules, so by that "spirit" the contract is fine.

Prior teams have tried to jack up front ends of contracts to make sure RFA contracts aren't matched. Since the league never specifically banned the practice, even after the fact, in the next CBA's then they're obviously ok with them.

There is basically no chance a judge would overturn this deal with the explicit rules now in place.

Again, the term "spirit" is way too vague to be limited to one thing. Yes, the Kovy deal didn't violate any written rules at the time, but it violated the "spirit", so they wrote a rule that defined the part of the spirit they violated. In one way, the spirit is violated when teams artificially lower cap hits with back-end, small-money years.

But in a whole new way, the spirit is most definitely also violated when big market teams price small market teams out with gigantic bonuses up front. The point of a cap is to keep all markets on a level playing surface, and just like the artifical cap-lowering violated a previously undefined aspect of the "spirit", so does the use of huge up-front bonuses.

This offer from Philly doesn't violate the currently defined "spirit". I'm not arguing that. But it absolutely violates the very point of a salary cap. All I'm saying is that, just like they had to clearly spell out how the Kovy deal violated the spirit, they now need to clearly spell out how this Weber offer violates the spirit.

The precedent has already been set that just because a contract doesn't violate anything currently written doesn't make it invalid.

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