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The Pittsburgh Penguins and Nick Spaling have done what every other team has done with their arbitration eligible players, strike a deal before an arbitrator gets involved.
The agreement is for two years and 4.4M. The 2.2M AAV is coincidently right in the middle of the two prices thrown out by team (1.65M) and player (2.85M) the other day.
With Spaling signed the Penguins have 4.2M left in cap space. Brandon Sutter remains unsigned.
This is the first overpayment for the Rutherford regime, every other signing to this point has come with very good value.
The positive of the deal is that it is short term. If it doesn't work out, it won't take forever to run its course.
There is a however decent chance that the Penguins will be paying close to 6M for the services of both Sutter and Spaling when it is all said and done, that isn't good value. I do think it is important to not overpay on average players when the last guy in charge already left the team with a huge cap anchor in Scuderi. The wiggle room to overspend on players shrinks when you have Scuderi type deals on the books. The wiggle room almost vanishes when you start overpaying for bottom 6 help.
I'm not the only one with this viewpoint.
There is an argument to be made that 2.2M is the going rate for a player who scored 30 points, but I don't view it through that scope. Were there available options for the Penguins who are better and would have come cheaper? The answer to that question is yes, that is the only thing that matters.
I totally understand the desire to be optimistic about a new player on the team, but to ignore Spaling's past is irresponsible. Spaling saw top 6 forward minutes as well as time on the power play in Nashville last year. He is not going to be afforded the same offensive opportunity he saw while he scored his career high 13 goals last year.
Nick Spaling could prove his past numbers wrong, it can happen, it has happened with other players in the past. Advanced metrics don't bat 1.000 with projections, however they do get you above the .500 line and for that reason it seems like a good idea to trust them more times than not.
Now that Spaling is in the fold the team needs to make the most of the situation. His contract on its own is not going to kill the Penguins.
Moving forward overpaying for a guy like Brandon Sutter is the last thing they should do now.
It isn't always the huge uppercut that knocks you out, sometimes it is all the smaller unnoticed body blows that bring you to the mat. The Penguins need to be aware that they are running out of body blows.
Thanks for reading!
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