Apparently, hiring all of the hockey analytics people west of Toronto wasn’t enough to save the Oilers from signing Group II free agent Justin Schultz to the single most illogical contract of the summer and, by extension, to save every other NHL front office from Edmonton.
But what else is new from this dysfunctional operation that for year upon year has whined, whined and whined some more about the collective bargaining agreement, but apparently doesn’t have the barest insight as how to apply the NHL’s governing document?
The Oilers sign unrestricted free agents to contracts that appear cockamamie (Benoit Pouliot, five years for $20 million; Nikita Nikitin, two years for $9 million) because they have to pay players more in order to entice them to move to Edmonton. They’re not the only team in that situation, cough, cough, Charles Wang’s Islanders. Fair enough.
But for no discernible reason whatsoever, the Oilers under Kevin Lowe’s watch have doled out a flurry of questionable second contracts to players straight out of Entry Level lacking any leverage, including the twin seven-year, $42 million deals with Taylor Hall and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.
No contract, however — and this is an offseason during which the Blue Jackets, Blues, Predators and Bruins have been and still are enmeshed in stalemates with Group II free agents Ryan Johansen, Jaden Schwartz, Ryan Ellis, Reilly Smith and Torey Krug — has been more absurd than the one-year, $3.625 million deal the Oilers awarded favorite son Schultz this summer.
Understand: Schultz originally chose to sign a two-year Entry Level deal with Edmonton as a free agent out of college in July 2012 even while pursued by essentially every team in the NHL. The 24-year-old defenseman obviously didn’t need to be bribed to become or remain an Oiler. He did not have arbitration rights coming off the contract under which he earned a base of $925,000 per (plus bonuses). He was not subject to an offer sheet.
The Oilers, for no good reason, essentially quadrupled Schultz’s salary and means. Equally absurd — no, more absurd, actually — Edmonton’s old guard, that includes Lowe as president and Craig MacTavish as general manager, allowed Schultz to sign for one year, meaning Schultz will have arbitration rights coming off a $3.625 million contract that is and will be a comparable available for all Group IIs in negotiations/arbitration hearings. This means the Oilers got nothing — nothing — out of the leverage they owned at this juncture of Schultz’s career, which will be the only time they ever own leverage with this player. They gave it away in a summer when GMs across the league are enmeshed in stalemates with Group II’s in the exact same category — who likely out-performed Schultz, at that.
With decision-making like this in northern Alberta, it’s hard to fathom how these guys have missed the playoffs eight straight years, isn’t it?
Regardless of whether agent Kurt Overhardt has over-reached on a two-year bridge deal for Johansen, the Blue Jackets 22-year-old first-line center, club president John Davidson’s decision to reveal the club’s contract offers while in the midst of a wildly entertaining tirade (Oh Baby!) was counterproductive to — oh, good grief, this term has now become a staple in my vocabulary — the process.
In a vacuum — or, for that matter, in Edmonton — Johansen might get the $6 million per he had been seeking. A well-placed source, meanwhile, told Slap Shots that Overhardt submitted a revised two-year proposal at less than $5 million per to Columbus on Thursday. But with Davidson publicly adamant the team would not move off its two-year offer of $3 million per, the team’s ability to compromise and negotiate is in itself compromised.
Again, Johansen has no market value because no market exists for him outside of Columbus. No team with the necessary cap space available would even consider extending an offer sheet to him, not when compensation would include forfeiture of a 2015 first-rounder that could turn into Connor McDavid.
Ryan O’Reilly, whom you probably would trade for Johansen, got to $5 million per coming out of Entry Level because of an offer sheet. A better comparable is Derek Stepan, though not to Johansen’s advantage.
Stepan signed a no-leverage, two-year bridge contract worth $3.075 million per after recording 140 points (56-84) in 212 games during his first three seasons with the Rangers. Johansen has recorded 96 points (47-49) in 189 games. His 63-point, 2013-14 is considered a “breakout year.” Stepan had 57 points in what was considered a step-back 2013-14.
Is there a middle ground for Johansen and the Jackets? Sure there is, only it became a bit harder to find with Davidson’s emotional — and calculated — outburst that followed a public hardline established by GM Jarmo Kekalainen.
Elections have consequences, and at least $1.1 million of the cap squeeze in Boston that is the reason for the stalemates with Smith and Krug is the direct result of the NHLPA membership vote in June to set the cap at $69 million rather than $70.1 million. It’s the reason John Moore was hard-balled by the Rangers into taking an $850,500 qualifier.
So Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs, defending his team’s tactics in the talks with Krug and Smith, said a couple of days ago, “We’ve never had more money to spend than we have right now.” The chairman of the NHL’s Board of Governors must have meant except for two years ago, when the cap was $70.2 million before Owners’ Lockout III.
Then there was MLSE president Tim Leiweke, who the other day crowed over the Maple Leafs having hired Darryl Metcalfe, the fellow responsible for the essential website, extraskater.com. The website was immediately taken down as part of the agreement.
“We don’t want anyone else seeing it,” Leiweke said. “It’s called a monopoly. It’s good.”
Just like the monopoly the NHL has unaccountably granted the Maple Leafs in Toronto. And it’s bad.
I believe Craig Wolanin has just been invited to Devils’ camp on a tryout.