If you had a busy weekend or missed the blog that I posted really late Saturday night on the Canes prospects camp and the interview that Canes coach Bill Peters did there, you can find that blog
HERE.
In catching up today, I will offer my thoughts on the Canes re-signing of Brett Bellemore on a 2-way deal with a $600k NHL rate after nearly a month of Bellemore and his agent looking for greener pastures but apparently not finding any.
At face value, this is a good signing. Brett Bellemore had a very good 2013-14 campaign for the Canes. We can debate whether he was overslotted in the top 4 (I think he was), but that aside he came in with very little NHL experience and played at that level for much of the season and held his own doing so. He clearly outplayed the collection of similar big, physical defensemen in Gleason, Harrison and Komisarek in training camp and never looked back. So re-signing him for a meager $600k with in a 2-way deal that has a "send him to Charlotte and cut the salary" out is a steal and a good signing by Canes GM Ron Francis. Even if he proves just to be depth for the #7 slot, he is priced right for that role. And as a 26 year old coming off his first real season in the NHL (he played just 8 games in the NHL in 2012-13) there is a chance that he takes yet another step forward this season. Even if he does not, he is a prototypical big, physical 3rd pairing defenseman.
So that is all good...
But I think the stories that go a layer or two deeper are by far the more interesting stories here.
First, Brett Bellemore should fire his agent. I have to believe that before free agency started, he could have garnered a 2-year 1-way deal in the neighborhood of $700k-$1M per season from the Canes. He played a solid role in 2013-14 and at least offered another potential partner for Hainsey if nothing else worked out. In this new age, where agents can talk to teams before free agency officially opens up, his agent should have had a better idea of if there was a real market for Bellemore across the league. If not, he should have bluffed with the Canes, said that Brett really wanted to stay there and then accepted whatever lowball 1-way offer the Canes put forward for a year or 2.
But then I think the stories even one layer deeper are even more interesting.
I think the Brett Bellemore situation says a lot, more than I care to hear, about the state of the Canes roster right now. He was the best that the team had to fill out the top 4 for most of last season. And with 30 teams having a chance to bid on him, not 1 was even willing to offer up $1M on a 1-way deal. That more or less says that he was not good enough to slot in a 3rd pairing role on most teams. It is not quite that simple because some teams prefer to go with youth, some might already have too many D on the roster, etc. But the story is still the same. The Canes #4 defenseman from 2013-14 could not fetch better than a 2-way $600k contract on the open market. This same defense has added no one of significance thus far in free agency or via trade as of yet.
I think the deal is also a very interesting data point early in the tenure of Ron Francis as GM. Whereas Rutherford erred on the side of way too much in terms of handing out 1-way deals, we have an early indication that Francis will not. Rutherford gave Justin Peters a 1-way deal (and the Canes payed him mostly to play in the AHL with NHL salary last year) and also did similar in other cases including Drayson Bowman. The worst case was Jeremy Welsh. As a free agent coming out of college and coming off a decent college season, Welsh's agent worked Rutherford over to the tune of a 1-way 2nd year of that contract. Perhaps Bellemore should look that direction for his next agent. So while I have to believe that Ron Francis would have been willing to sign Bellemore in June, he obviously had a price for it and held firm at some point letting Bellemore walk. This is an encouraging sign and departure from Rutherford. Rutherford did have a knack for shrewd under the radar deals, but when he really wanted something, he seemingly always overpaid whether it was in trade or in re-signings. Especially in a world where salary cap and internal budgets matter, it is not about whether a GM wants to keep a player, it is about at what price it makes sense to keep him versus pursuing other options. The Bellemore situation is a lone data point but maybe the first to suggest that Ron Francis gets this.
Another interesting angle to this deal is the motivation factor for Bellemore. Bellemore enters the season with a contract that could see him regress all the way back to the AHL on an AHL salary if things do not go his way. As a 26-year old who has worked a long time to get to the very edge but not quite there this summer in terms of earning at least a single good NHL contract, you have to figure that he will be real motivated this season to build on 2013-14 and then take another crack at getting a better deal next summer.
Finally, if Ron Francis secretly feels like I do that ideal would be to add another purer top 4 defenseman via trade, this signing could actually be part of that. There are a couple teams pushing up against the cap who might want to clear some space. If they need a depth defenseman back in the deal but in a way that still cuts salary cap, Bellmore definitely fits the job description at $600k. If a team has a little more room and prefers a veteran, Gleason could enter the mix at $1.2M. I mentioned Braydon Coburn earlier this summer. I still think that he is an interesting possibility though the Flyers are now positioned to get under the salary cap when Pronger officially goes on LTIR, so nothing has to happen. The other option is Chicago. Johnny Oduya is one of a couple options who could go on the trading block to get the Hawks under the cap. Could a deal of Brett Bellemore plus futures be enough to land him?
What say you Canes fans? Do you like the Bellemore deal? Do you agree that he should fire his agent? What does the fact that none of the other 30 teams seemed willing to give him a 1-way deal say about the state of the Canes blue line?
Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63
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