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Butterfly Effects Come Cheap

January 3, 2018, 7:56 AM ET [13 Comments]
Guest Writer
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By Peter Woods

The Tampa Bay Lightning has one of the league’s most charismatic coaches in Jon Cooper. A successful lawyer who followed his dream and put it all on the line to become a hockey coach with the Texarkana Bandits back in 2003. Ten years later – he became the head coach of an NHL team.

There’s no doubt that Cooper is a remarkable person. He probably worked his ass of to become a lawyer and then started from scratch again to become a hockey coach. He had early success, winning the Robertson Cup, the Clark Cup and the Calder cup as well as many individual trophies in the early years of his coaching career. Now he finds himself coaching a team that looks to be one of the head contenders to take home the Stanley Cup.

It's hard to argue with Coach Coopers resume – but there are some decisions that makes for a good debate. While coaching at the junior level, Cooper also acted as a General Manager and I think he has a lot to do with some of the moves in Tampa’s front office. Therefore, let’s take a look at Tampa’s currently most anonymous pro-skater and how he got here.

The questionable contract of Erik Condra

After spending five seasons with the Ottawa Senators (322GP-36G-60A – 96P) between 2010-2015, Condra signed a 3-year, $3,75 million contract with the Bolts in the summer of 2015. After a disappointing sixth game deficit to the Hawks in the Stanley Cup final, this wasn’t a move that joyed many fans in the Bay. Condra was a bonafide bottom six winger who brought hustle and around 20 points a season. The problem was, this was the last thing Tampa needed. A lot of young cost-controlled players had been coming up during the season and had been making a name for themselves in the playoffs. Paquette, Namestikov, Kucherov, Marchessault, Palat, Killorn, Johnson, Brown where all second or third year pros who where fighting for ice time in the bottom and middle six.

It’s hard to evaluate and bank future success on players that early in their careers, but there’s a lot of talent in that group. All players above who was projected to contribute in the top6, are doing it now 3 years later. Most are even capable of playing first line minutes .
To commit to a player of Condra’s caliber for 3 years and spending 50% more to the cap than you would on an entry level deal seemed like a bad idea. And it was.

Condra’s first year was spent between the press box and the bottom six, resulting in 54 games played and 11 points (6g 5a) with an 10:42 average TOI. He was outscored by Marchessault (45gp 7g 11a), Brown (78gp 8g 14a) as well as all of the triplets and Killorn. He tied with Paquette who had 2 more games played.
Then injury struck against the Islanders in the first Eastern Conference Semifinal and Condra was out for the season. He never really came back, spending most of his time with the Syracuse Crunch the following year and have had injuries limited him to only 2 games this current season.

Now, does this seem like a Yzerman move to you? The only long-term UFA contracts Steve has handed out has been to Carle, Filppula, Callahan and Stralman. These where signings that the club saw as immediate help in the top6 or top4. Players like Boyle, Morrow, Girardi and Kunitz did all get 1 or 2-year deals and on very team-friendly cap hits. How can then a player like Condra get 3 years at a cap hit of $1.25m?

This is where Coach Cooper comes in. There’s no secret that Cooper and Condra had a personal relationship. Condra played for him in Texarkana and was also a best man at his wedding. It’s so obvious that it almost should count as nepotism. The Hockey media in Tampa isn’t exactly bloodthirsty, but the absence of criticism for a terrible move like this is counterproductive. This contract should never have been offered and the front office deserves heat for it.
Especially since the year after Condra was brought in, Jonathan Marchessault left the organization for the Panthers. Jonathan wanted to stay, but the Panthers could offer something that Tampa seemed unwilling to do – a 2-year $1,5 million contract. Obviously, it was impossible to foresee the development of Marchessault as he is now on pace for 80+ points with Vegas, but he scored 51 points last season in Florida and I think he looked great already in Lightnings system. Those 51 points probably would have gotten Tampa to the playoffs last year and the depth we would have this year would have been even better with him signed to pennies on the dollar.

After taking the organization two wins away from their second Stanley Cup in history, Yzerman seemed to have just a little bit too much confidence in the young coach to trust him with this deal. From an outside perspective, it looked bad from day one. Looking back at it now and accounting for the aftermath, it might even be worse than Matt Carle’s six-year deal and take the title as Yzerman’s worst move in the Bay.
Not bad for a 3.75 million dollar contract.
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