Well I wasn't really going to post on weekends for the summer, with a lack of content, but a couple of signings yesterday are really bothering me, and I have the venue so I am going to vent.
Free Agency opened on Wednesday, and for the most part the signings were relatively sane. Sure, Andrej Sekera got a little more term and salary that I would have paid him, but such is life as the Edmonton Oilers, so that is understandable. GMs seemed to be showing restraint at a time when they usually haven't.
Then in a period of about 5 minutes, 2 signings were announced that have the potential to blow up the salary structure of the league all over again.
Ryan O'Reilly - 7 years @ $7.5M per season, in a buyout proof contract that sees him earn $1M per season in salary and the remaining $45.5M in signing bonuses over the course of the deal.
Am I missing something? O'Reilly is a fine player, but he has always seemed to have an inflated opinion of his worth, and with offer sheets and such he has always gotten what he wanted. He still has 1 year left on his current contract that will see him earn a paltry $6.2M. His new contract will put him close to the top 20 highest paid players in the league.
And really, he is a good #2 center. Put O'Reilly's numbers up against those of Kyle Turris and there isn't much to distinguish between the two. O'Reilly is obviously a bit better in his own end, but he hasn't been a + player since his rookie season. Even on a team that won the division in 2013-14, he was -1.
Like I said, fine player but not one who is in that elite stratosphere. It makes Turris look like an absolute bargain at $3.5M, but what is his asking price going to be when his negotiations start in 3 years?
Brandon Saad - 6 years @ $6M per season.
I guess that is what winning gets you. And I know there was the threat of an offer sheet and the Blue Jackets wanted to get him locked up, and maybe that is the going rate. But this is a 22 year old kid who was still years away from unrestricted free agency. This is a player who has 1 20-goal, 50 point season, and it came while playing on the wing with two of the best players in the game on a Championship team. Yes, he was a part of that Championship squad and a contributor, but maybe the Blue Jackets should have waited a year or so to dish out that kind of coin to see what they have. Because they really don't know, because Saad was insulated by so much elite talent on the Blackhawks.
Was the threat of an offer sheet really enough leverage to get $36M for an RFA? Apparently so.
Again, to make a Senators comparison, Mark Stone and his $3.5M cap hit is a bargain considering he had a better year in his rookie season than Saad has ever had, and they are essentially the same age, with Stone being drafted a year earlier and Saad having a late birthday.
These two signings are already affecting the negotiations for guys like Derek Stepan and the Rangers for this season, so imagine the snowball effect they will have in 3 years time when the contracts of both Turris and Stone are up and the Senators need to re-sign them. All it takes is a couple of ill-advised contracts to get that ball rolling again, and in my opinion that might have happened in the span of about 10 minutes on Friday afternoon.
And for those of you that are complaining the Senators aren't using all their cap space and are "cheap", that is the reason why you keep some in your pocket. You can't use up all your cap space on long term deals, because although the Senators have it now, those two players could eat up as much as $7 or $8M in additional cap space themselves, if they keep on their current trends. And given the fact that the Cap didn't rise as much this season as many had anticipated and planned for, who really knows where the number is going to go from here? If the Senators had over-committed on a questionable long-term contract this summer, it could have meant tougher times down the road.