To Pay, or Not to Pay, That is the Question

To pay, or not to pay, that is the question…

Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times reported earlier today that the agent for Ryan Callahan indicated that Steve Yzerman and the Lightning made a “good case… for said player to stay in Florida.

Agent for Ryan Callahan says #TBLightning made a "good case" for him to stay - "everything was positive" - but still "temptation" of July 1

— Joe Smith (@TBTimes_JSmith) May 14, 2014

You’ll note that Smith’s tweet (copied above) also says that the “temptation… of free agency is looming large for Callahan’s camp. That shouldn’t come as any surprise, as a player of his caliber and with his pedigree will certainly command a pretty penny when the market opens. It begs the question: just what is Callahan worth?

The New York Rangers were reportedly not willing to move higher than $6MM per season over a term of around six years, but is that truly where the market will value Callahan’s services? This blogger doesn’t know for sure. In a shallow market with so many buyers looking to make a splash, just about anything can happen.

Objectively it’s quite easy to make a case that this player isn’t worth anywhere near $6MM per year. The reality is that Callahan is a player who puts up just more than a half point per game. That’s what it all boils down to, and the fact remains that those guys are a dime a dozen.

Paying top dollar for a guy who, as Kyle Alexander put it on Twitter a few weeks back, may never score 60 points in a single season seems like a recipe for disaster. If you don’t believe me, look at Toronto’s situation with David Clarkson. That contract has “WARNING!… written all over it.

Further, Callahan didn’t exactly light things up with the Bolts from a possession point of view either. Despite having the best zone start percentage of any Lightning player who suited up for more than 20 games, Callahan’s Corsi-for percentage relative to his teammates ranks a measly 18th. Some of that can probably be attributed to his competition's quality, but it doesn't exactly inspire overwhelming confidence.

Moving away from the fancy stats, it’s worth nothing that Callahan sort of disappeared once his line-mates, Valtteri Filppula and Ondrej Palat, went down with injuries. As a member of the Bolts, Callahan failed to establish himself as a player who can create offense on his own. That’s not to say that he isn’t that kind of player or that he can’t be that kind of player, but in his limited time with Tampa it’s hard to argue that he was more than a passenger in the offensive production department. I’ll remind you of the Clarkson contract again here, as I think it’s dangerous to pay complementary players big money.

Having read all that, I’m sure many of you are thinking that I don’t want Callahan to re-sign with the Bolts. As strange as this may sound, the opposite is true. Despite the negatives I’ve outlined above, this is a player who fits in nicely with the Lightning. As Jon Cooper and Steve Yzerman have both noted in the past, Callahan brought something uniquely important to the Bolts. Moreover, he fit in well on that second line with Filppula and Palat despite not being the trio’s catalyst. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a fantastic complementary player.

This is where things get tricky. Callahan’s value to the Lightning has been well-documented by Cooper, who emphatically said that he wants the player back on his bench next season. Still, the underlying numbers indicate to me that he’s not worth the contract he so desperately wants. Callahan brings grit. Callahan brings leadership. Callahan brings all those "intangibles" that get so much media attention. At the right price, I'd love to see him back in Tampa. The key words there, though, are "at the right price."

If we’re being honest, I’d be hesitant to offer him a deal north of what Filppula received last offseason; for those of you who need a refresher, that deal was worth $25MM over five years. The trouble for Yzerman and the Lightning is that Callahan would likely walk away from that offer faster than the speed of sound, as both he and his agent know that some team will pay him big dough on the open market. If the dollar value and term demands get out of hand, it might make sense for the Lightning to just walk away.

And so we’re back to the beginning. To pay, or not to pay, that is the question.

As always, thanks for reading.