Should Flyers Pursue Other Teams' Restricted Free Agents This Summer?
The Philadelphia Flyers sent shockwaves through the NHL last summer when they signed restricted free agent Nashville Predators defenseman Shea Weber to an offer sheet. The 14-year contract, worth $110 million in full, carried $26 million worth of signing bonuses due within the first 11 months after its take-effect date. The structure was intended as a financial poison pill for the Predators.
If Nashville matched, the owners would be on the hook for each of the first two $13 million signing bonus installments. Unlike base salary, the signing bonus money was fully guaranteed and could not be reduced by an NHL lockout during the 2012-13 season. Additionally, the $26 million worth of signing bonuses had to be paid before Weber was eligible to be traded (due to the NHL's rules prohibiting the offer sheet matching team from trading the player to any team for one year).
The Flyers intent, of course, was to create an offer sheet that was so financially egregious to the Predators' ownership group that they would decide it made more sense not to match. However, for reasons of owners' personal pride, hockey necessity and public relations, Nashville decided to match the offer anyway.
There were a lot of teams around the NHL who applauded the Predators -- either privately or publicly -- for doing what was necessary to match the offer sheet. They hoped it would discourage similar future attempts to "poach" top RFAs.
Personally, I disagree with the use of the term poaching in this context. Restricted free agency isn't truly a type of free agency at all if the potential for signing with another team isn't a viable option. A "gentleman's agreement" not to sign other teams' RFAs is a polite way of saying there is collusion, which is an illegal business practice (as Major League Baseball owners painfully learned in the late 1980s). An example of true player-poaching would be signing a player who is already under contract for the upcoming season to a team in Europe without paying compensation to the team.
That's not to say that I'm automatically in favor of big-budget, deep pockets teams using Weberesque offer sheets as a threat to force the smaller-budget teams either to risk spending themselves into oblivion or to accept a maximum of five first-round picks as compensation. My main reservation with offer sheets is they rarely bear fruit for the team attempting to use them as a means of acquiring desired players. All it does is drive up costs.
If the Flyers wanted to acquire Weber so badly as to be willing to pony up $110 million and forfeit a half-decade's worth of first round picks, they theoretically should also have wanted him badly enough to work out a trade acceptable to both sides. It could have been done as a post-offer sheet incentive to Nashville for not matching, with the Predators returning some first-round picks back to Philly in exchange for roster players ala the Flyers' no-match arrangement with Tampa Bay for restricted free agent Chris Gratton in 1997. Instead, the Flyers basically played a game of chicken with the Predators, daring them to match the offer sheet.
Ever since the Weber offer sheet, there has been some trepidation among NHL teams that the Flyers would do the same thing this offseason to another restricted free agent defenseman (which CBC's Elliotte Friedman alluded to in tongue-in-cheek fashion in his latest 30 Thoughts column). In his end-of-season press conference, Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren refused to rule out the possibility of another offer sheet as a means to improve the roster for next season.
The natural assumption is the Flyers would take aim at one of St. Louis' two prominent RFA defensemen, Alex Pietrangelo or Kevin Shattenkirk. An alternative target would be Winnipeg's Zach Bogosian.
I don't think there's an offer sheet that could possibly be created to make the St. Louis Blues decline to match on Pietrangelo, whom they consider their franchise player. Similar to Nashville, there is a new ownership group in place in St. Louis. They are not about to see Pietrangelo leave, even if means they spend a lot more than the desired "bridge" contract at the expiration of his entry-level deal. There probably IS a price point where the Blues wouldn't match on Shattenkirk, who is a fine young offensive-minded defenseman in his own right, but NOT a franchise player. That price point would be mighty high.
Here's the thing, though: it wouldn't make hockey or financial sense for the Flyers to sign Shattenkirk to a remotely Weber-esque offer sheet.
Financially, the timing is bad. With the salary cap dropping next season, the Flyers are already looking at doing some salary shedding just to comply. They also need to negotiate a long-term contract extension with Claude Giroux by next summer, as well as having several prominent potential RFAs (Brayden Schenn and Sean Couturier) and UFAs (Matt Read) elsewhere in their forward corps.
In hockey terms, Shattenkirk may be a suitable long-term replacement plan for Kimmo Timonen after his retirement. However, he's not likely to take the jump from a young defenseman with All-Star caliber ability to the rarefied air breathed only by the perennial Norris Trophy contenders -- which is the type of offer it would take for St. Louis to decline a match on Shattenkirk.
By the way, it is NOT allowed for the Flyers to give offer sheets to multiple RFAs. The reason is simple: A team has to have the necessary Draft pick compensation to provide in the event an offer sheet is not matched.The Flyers could not put up the same first-round picks as "offer sheet collateral" for both Pietrangelo and Shattenkirk. Likewise, they also could not hedge their bets with offer sheets to Shattenkirk and Bogosian.
Bogosian's situation with Winnipeg is an interesting one. He has yet to become the franchise-caliber offensive defenseman he was touted to be prior to being selected third overall in the 2008 NHL Draft. He's had his share of growing pains and injuries (including wrist surgery and a concussion this season) in his still-young NHL career. However, the soon-to-be 23 year-old HAS developed sufficiently to have become a key member of the Winnipeg defense corps. He eats up a lot of minutes, plays in all manpower situations and is still very much a player on the rise. The Thrashers/Jets put a lot of resources into his long-term development, and they are now starting to reap the rewards of their patience.
Despite his still-young age, Bogosian now has five years of NHL experience under his belt. He signed a two-year "bridge" contract upon the expiration of his entry-level day, which carried a $2.5 million cap hit and $3 million real-dollar salary in the 2012-13 season. Now that the bridge contract is expired and he is two seasons away from unrestricted free agent eligibility, the Jets need to decide whether to commit a multi-year deal that will likely more than double his current cap hit in exchange for giving up potential UFA seasons.
From most accounts, getting a long-term deal done with Bogosian is Winnipeg's number one priority this offseason. He could also use the threat (or reality) of signing an offer sheet
to force the Jets' hand on a long-term extension rather than a one-year or two-year deal followed by another re-negotiation for a UFA preemption deal.
However, when all is said and done, I don't think Bogosian is going anywhere. I also question whether it would be wise to consider signing him to the type of offer sheet that would give Winnipeg any sort of pause about whether to match. As he hits his prime, Bogosian
could still take the jump from being a solid NHL defenseman to the perennial All-Star or even Norris Trophy level but doling out a contract of that nature would be a significant risk right now.
That said, if the Flyers were to threaten an offer sheet to Bogosian, it would not be surprising if the Jets proactively signed Bogosian to an extension in the same neighborhood as the one they gave Tobias Enström to pre-empt his unrestricted free agency ($5.75 million cap hit on a five-year contract, with yearly $1.15 up front money as signing bonus installments and a full no-movement clause).
With the Enström extension kicking in next year, the need to re-sign Bogosian, the rapid early development of defense prospect Jacob Trouba (the Jets' first-round pick from the 2012 Draft) and the need to upgrade its forward corps, it is possible that the Jets will shop Dustin Byfuglien in trade this offseason.
Byfuglien is NOT a player whom I would like to see the Flyers acquire at the sort of premium trading cost Kevin Cheveldayoff will demand. I don't see Byfuglien as being consistent enough on the ice or reliable enough off the ice to be an ideal trade target. However, a trade for someone like Byfuglien or Keith Yandle could potentially be an offseason avenue for the Flyers that is more likely to actually land a player the team wants than by going down the offer sheet route.
The Flyers took a mighty swing with their offer sheet to Shea Weber but all they managed to do was fly out to the warning track in dead center field. It made a loud noise at the crack of the bat, drew oohs and ahhs from the home fans, threw a bad scare into the opposition but ultimately was fruitless.
Why try to repeat failure? Presumably, the idea of actually
acquiring a player is a more productive off-season strategy than doling out offer sheets that are either a) unlikely to work or b) involve the significant risk of hindering the team's bigger-picture goal of building a championship-caliber roster within the salary cap.
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Scouting Switzerland
The NHL has always been a copycat league. Whenever there's a hint of success, other teams study it and try to follow suit.
Given the success that sniper Damien Brunner had with the Detroit Red Wings this year and the magnificent run that Team Switzerland had at the 2013 World Championships -- going undefeated throughout the tournament until the gold medal game loss to Sweden, while beating the Swedes in the preliminary round, Canada and the Czech Republic (twice) along the way -- it would not at all be surprising if NHL teams began to take greater interest in signing Swiss players.
Team Switzerland plays a defense-oriented style that, when it clicks, creates transitional chances and allows the team to play at a level above the sum of its individual parts. Their game works well on the big rink -- especially as the quality of domestic talent has increased -- but there has always been question marks about the ability of Swiss forwards to adapt to the North American game. There have been Swiss defensemen (Mark Streit, Raphael Diaz, Luca Sbisa, fast-rising Predators blueliner Roman Josi) and goalies (Jonas Hiller, Martin Gerber, David Aebischer) who have had varying degrees of NHL success but, before Brunner, even the best Swiss forwards pretty much collectively flopped in North America. With Brunner doing well in Detroit after leading the import-heavy NLA in scoring in 2011-12, the automatic assumption of the "Swiss miss" forward may finally be dissipating.
Here are four Swiss players -- three wingers and a goalie -- who played in the top domestic league (National League A) this year and who may have some potential to take a crack at North American hockey:
Simon Moser (W): The Flyers recently signed 24-year-old Austrian winger Michael Raffl to a contract after seeing him at the Worlds. Likewise, the Nashville Predators liked what they saw from Moser, a 24-year-old winger who had 10 goals and 21 points in 35 games for Langnau this season, had 18 goals in a healthier 2011-12 campaign and who produced five points (three goals, two assists) in 10 games at the 2013 Worlds. Moser will attend the Predators training camp this fall as a non-roster invitee, potentially earning an NHL contract. The 6-foot-2, 209 pounder does not play the stereotypical finesse-oriented Swiss style. He will muck and grind down low and might actually be better suited to the small rink game than the international rink, although he would likely be a bottom-six forward if he makes it over here.
Denis Hollenstein (W): As a teenager, Hollenstein came to North America to play junior hockey with the OHL's Guelph Storm in order to improve his chances at playing in the NHL. He did not have much success with Guelph and returned home after two mediocre OHL seasons. Now 23, he's been a late-bloomer in his home league. There wasn't much North American interest in him during the 2012-13 season, despite a strong season for the Kloten Flyers (12 goals, 37 points, plus-15, 89 penalty minutes in 48 regular season games, followed by five points in five relegation-round games). However, he turned some heads at the Worlds, tallying four goals, eight points and posting a plus-four rating in 10 games. He did not look out of place even against current or former NHL players, albeit on the larger rink under international rules. Hollenstein has average size (6-foot, 195 pounds) but is a good skater who sees the ice well and has demonstrated above-average hockey sense.
Reto Suri (W): One of the top young offensive talents in Switzerland, the 24-year-old Suri is coming off a strong NLA season for EV Zug (14 goals, 24 points in the regular season, 14 points in 14 playoffs games) and an excellent World Championship (five goals, eight points) for the Swiss national team. He has a quick shot release that gave goalies trouble at the World Championships. The 6-foot, 185-pound forward is a good skater and puckhandler as well.
Benjamin Conz (G): The 21-year-old Conz was not a member of the silver-medal winning team at the Worlds, as veterans Martin Gerber and Reto Berra were tabbed for the national team. However, Conz is no stranger to success in international hockey. He was a standout for the Swiss Under-20 team at the 2011 World Junior Championshps. This past season in NLA, he was a revelation for Gottéron, posting a 2.24 GAA and .929 save percentage. Although he has signed a contract extension with his Swiss club, it would not be a surprise if there was North American interest within the next year or two. I would assume that this one of the players newly hired Flyers European goaltending scout Antero Niitymäki will be tracking closely next season.
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