NHL Transactions Open Thread
by Hawerchuk on Jul 1, 2010 1:12 AM EDT
88 comments
I'm going to update this throughout the day as...stuff happens...
Deal #1: Kris Versteeg and Bill Sweatt from Chicago to Toronto for Viktor Stalberg, Chris DiDomenico and Philippe Paradis.
Verdict: Versteeg @ $3M seems like a realistic valuation for him; at best he's worth $4M. The big pieces going back the other way are Stalberg, whose career and scoring profile vaguely resembles Mason Raymond's before he got good and Paradis, who has already been traded twice this season and doesn't exactly project as a big scorer. Chicago got salary relief and a few lottery tickets - Toronto got one of its better forwards. Seems like a fair deal in both directions.
Deal #2: Guillaume Latendresse re-signs with Minnesota for $5.1M over two years. That's an RFA contract, so he's being valued at $4M a season. For a third line guy (2nd line PP) without big defensive skills? Seems like an overpay.
Deal #3: Martin Biron to the Rangers, two years, $1.75M total. That's good value - better than Leighton, half the cash.
Deal #4: Sergei Gonchar to the Sens for three years, $16.5M. He's 36 with an injury history. This could turn out very badly. I'd have much rather they spent that money on Volchenkov. Ugh, NTC for Gonch.
Deal #5: Alex Tanguay to the Flames for 1 year, $1.7M. That's a great risk to take. Seriously, would you rather have Leighton, who you already know is bad? Or Tanguay, who might be great?
Deal #6: Andrei Meszaros to PHI for a 2nd round draft pick in 2012. Because a 7th round pick would have been too obvious?
Deal #7: Zybnek Michalek to PIT, 5 years, $20M. Great move by the Pens. Michalek has been a shutdown for two seasons now and succeeded despite dragging Jovo around the ice. No injury history, only 27. This is what you want in a free agent signing.
Deal #8: Alex Auld to Montreal for $1M. Slight overpay, but exactly what MTL should have done to begin with. Price is a real goalie, and you don't go after the #1 value free agent goalie when you've got that in the bag.
Deal #9: Antero Niittymaki to Sharks for 2 years @ $2M per. If you accept that his 2006-07 campaign was bad luck on a brutal team, then this is a good value deal. I am going to say "I told you so" on this one. Sharks are smart - they were never going to mid-30s goalies with overvalued league-average talent like Nabokov or Turco.
Deal #10: Manny Malhotra to the Canucks for 3 years, $2.5M per. Malhotra is a seriously underrated player - would much rather have him at $2.5M than Colby Armstrong at $3M.
Deal #11: Jody Shelley to PHI for 3 years, $1.1M. Ridiculously bad deal, but Shelley always wanted to be the richest man from Thompson, MB.
Deal #12: Dan Ellis to Tampa, 2 years, $1.5M per. When Ellis said he'd come cheap, he meant it. Absolutely ridiculous that Leighton is getting the same $$$.
Deal #13: I don't think I'd have the nerve to sign Paul Martin to a 5-year deal at $5M per. But you don't win the cup without filling holes with great players.
Deal #14: 4 years, $6.6M for Derek Boogaard to the Rangers? Are you kidding me? $6.6M for a guy who takes one 25-second shift a game?
Deal #15: Toni Lydman signs with Anaheim, 3 years, $3M per. Lydman and Tallinder did all the hard work in Buffalo for years, but the development of Tyler Myers made Lydman superfluous. I'd take this deal.
Deal #16: Ray Whitney signs for 2 years, $3M in Phoenix. The only question is what return they'll get for him at the deadline when their crappy team is 20 points out of the playoffs.
Deal #17: Henrik Tallinder, 4 years, $13.5M to New Jersey. Great pickup by the Devils. Tallinder is a great shutdown D-man.
Deal #18: Kurtis Foster to the Oil for 2 years, $1.8M per. Ouch. Why wouldn't he go to a team that might actually get a PP?
Deal #19: Hamhuis, 6 years, $4.5M to Vancouver. Definitely a good deal for yet another shutdown guy.
Deal #20: Anton Volchenkov, 6 years, $4.25M per to NJD. Part of a rash of reasonable deals for strong defensive defensemen - Hamhuis, Tallinder, Lydman, Michalek.
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Lets not forget that Latendresse had 25g (only 7 on PP) in 55 games for Minnesota which isn’t too shabby and justifies his contract. He has great size and has the potential to be a solid top six contributor. He was just rushed in Montreal and being French-Canadian was put into a high-pressure situation before he was ready.
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Some of that scoring increase is real – Latendresse got a lot more ice time in Minnesota, but huge increases in shooting percentage are very transient. He should have had 15-17 goals with the Wild, but he had 25. In junior, he shot 14.4% and in the NHL 12.6% – but 18.8% with Minnesota, which would have been in the top ten in the league. Minnesota should not be paying for a career high in shooting percentage – see Lucic, Milan.
Sure, but he is making $2.5M a year. If he can pot 20 or so goals a season and play a physical game he’ll be good value. If he can up that to 25-30 goals, he’ll be a bargain. Lucic is making over $4M which, as you point out, is not a good contract but not comparable to Latendresse’s contract either.
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by HockeyAnalysis on Jul 1, 2010 9:48 AM EDT up reply actions
How often do 23-year-old players see a sudden and permanent increase in their shooting percentage? It’s not like he’s going to start playing with the Sedins.
Gaborik springs to mind.
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by George E. Ays on Jul 1, 2010 10:10 AM EDT up reply actions
It could probably be estimated based on the ice time, no?
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by George E. Ays on Jul 1, 2010 10:44 AM EDT up reply actions
Well, we have the data for all but his rookie season:
2001-02: 11.6 ES, 18.5 PP
2002-03: 10.8 ES, 9.4 PP
2003-04: 9.4 ES, 6.7 PP
2005-06: 14.4 ES, 14.4 PP
2006-07: 11.0 ES, 36.4 PP
2007-08: 15.2 ES, 16.2 PP
And of course 2008-09, he was injured. It’s not clear that he substantially improved his shooting percentage.
Hmm…ok. Just noted that he was around 10% overall, then suddenly jumped to 15% when he was 23.
PP breakdown makes sense…I hadn’t thought of that.
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by George E. Ays on Jul 1, 2010 2:23 PM EDT up reply actions
He doesn’t need too. He had 133 shots in Minnesota in 55 games. That prorates to about 200 over 82 games. If he can manage a 12.5% shooting percentage (and so far in his NHL career he has a 14.2% shooting percentage) that equals 25 goals. Again, at $2.5M he is reasonably priced.
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by HockeyAnalysis on Jul 1, 2010 10:25 AM EDT up reply actions
The Latendresse deal actually seems pretty good to me. Who cares what the UFA contract would have been? Staying out of the UFA market and paying your RFAs decently seems like a smart strategy to me. Latendresse is easily be worth 10-12 goals if you prorate his 55 games in Minnesota, even regressing his shooting %. He’s only 23. Lucic was paid 4M, Latendresse 2.5M; big difference, especially when you consider that Lucic’s underlying numbers were worse than Latendresse’s.
But Minnesota somehow got Mikko Koivu for $3.5M for the same two RFA years. The Wild have a lot of value contracts – here they overpaid for Latendresse’s extra 8-10 goals.
Koivu was coming off a 20g, 54 point season when he signed his 4 year $14M contract. Latendresse is coming off a 27g, 40 point season when and signed is 2 year $5M contract. Factor in the general increase in player salaries and it all seems more than reasonable to me.
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by HockeyAnalysis on Jul 1, 2010 10:31 AM EDT up reply actions
I think there’s more to boxcars in contract negotiations. (Actually, I know there is.) The big issue with Koivu is that when he signed his contract, he had not yet established himself as a dominant defensive player.
My guess is that Minny is doing two things here:
- Betting Latendresse can step up his shot volume per hour. Is that unseen for a 23 years old? I can pretty much attest that, in his year 21 season, he was driving the bus on that Lapierre-Kostopoulos against soft opposition. Not sure he can be accounted for as a third liner anymore. So it’s an overpay, but I think it’s a decent bet.
- The market for quality forwards is rotten. They have to price him out of offer sheets territory. Low-ball him and you may find you with a 2.5m offer sheet anyway.
What a terrible deal for the Senators. How Gonchar sees a raise as a 36 year old injury-prone offense-man is beyond me.
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Gonchar...
I don’t think the Gonchar deal is horrible. He is still one of the premier offensive defenseman in the NHL and his vision and passing skills will not deteriorate with age. Ottawa might be overpaying, but I think there’s a very small probability the contract busts.
But the Sens badly needed a guy like him as their #1 area of need.
If he plays the 3 years and doesn’t decay too much, he’s a fantastic fit.
for 5.5 tho? i’d be downright terrified.
by Passive Voice on Jul 1, 2010 2:42 PM EDT up reply actions
I think it...
Depends on the skillset. I can’t envision a scenario, outside of serious injury, where Gonchar loses his skill as a PP QB. He might become a liability at ES, but with sheltered minutes and ample PP time I think Gonchar will still be effective.
Hey Nick, if you want to respond to a particular comment, hitting the reply button makes it a lot easier to follow your comments.
He might become a liability at ES, but with sheltered minutes
He’s already a liability at ES, and there’s no way OTT just unloaded almost $6M/year so Gonchar can play sheltered minutes. And yes, Gonchar’s main asset is his ability to QB a pp, but there’s no way that’s worth what OTT just paid.
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I certainly don’t expect Gonchar to play sheltered minutes at first. However, if his game does regress then they can surely adjust the way they utilize him.
I can’t commen on Gonchar’s defensive play last season since I didn’t watch many Pittsburgh games, however GAON/60 has a tendency to shift a lot season to season. His 07-08 and 08-09 combined GAON/60/QUALCOMP was pretty good.
He had the worst adjusted +/- and GAON/60 of any Penguins’ d-man this year. And the all of the QoC stats indicate that he wasn’t facing the stiffest competition. He’s very bad at defense.
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I know what his GAON/60 numbers were this season. Fact is GAON/60 numbers can swing wildly from year to year on luck alone since the yearly goals against sample is not that large.
From 08 onward, Gonchar’s GAON/60 have been 2.08, 2.66, and 3.26. I’m not sure he’s heading in the right direction.
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Anyone using GAON/60 to support their case should be wary of how volatile the numbers can be from year to year. There might be a trend there, there might not. You’d probably need five straight years of a decline before definitively declaring that Gonchar’s play was the determining factor in the descent.
His 08-09 was also only 25 games.
All of his stats point to the same conclusion: he’s not good defensively. GAON/60 is just one piece of the puzzle.
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Let’s put it this way:
How many games does he needs to give the sens for his contract to remain decent? 200?
Regardless of the number of games he has to give the Sens, I can’t see Gonchar maintaining a level of play for 3 years that justifies $5.5M/year.
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Clarkson
What’s the assessment here? 3yr/$2.66M per, staggered at 2, 3, 3, the last two years being bought out UFA.
Im pretty happy with the Tanguay signing, even though he fell off a cliff last year. Hopefully whatever the cause was transient.
Of these players, the ones I can see out performing their contracts are Tanguay, Biron and possibly Michalek. Auld and Niitymaki might in the short-term, but it would probably be luck (as would the opposite). Malhotra might, although at 2.5M I wouldn’t say he’s underrated anymore. Meszaros is a stupid move. Gonchar may actually have been worth 5.5M this year, but he isn’t getting any younger.
Ellis at 1.5 M? Really? Yzerman impresses. Ellis needs a new agent.
Guess he wanted to be a starter because the Habs could’ve paid him that.
jeeeeeeeeeeez. and in tampa. they don’t strike me as an obvious take-less-to-win option.
by Passive Voice on Jul 1, 2010 2:41 PM EDT up reply actions
Ellis on Tsn
“tampa has a boatload of superstars”
“good friend of mine mike smith”
“direction of organization…team that’s gonna take off to the next level”
“smitty’s a good friend…between the two of us we can do well [paraphrasing]”
“montreal opportunity looked good, couldn’t come to agreement on numbers in contract”
by Passive Voice on Jul 1, 2010 2:45 PM EDT up reply actions
oh FUCK OFF TSN. they just called Chicago “victims”, wrt the salary cap. Guys: Brian. Fucking. Campbell.
so many culprits, but yeah, point taken.
by Passive Voice on Jul 1, 2010 2:57 PM EDT up reply actions
i suspect boogaard’s agent laughed and hung up when Sather first told him his offer, thinking it was a hilarious prank.
by Passive Voice on Jul 1, 2010 2:57 PM EDT up reply actions
i love that Sather’s playing hardball with Marc fucking Staal, and simultaneously ponies up for Boogaard.
by Passive Voice on Jul 1, 2010 3:17 PM EDT up reply actions
Nearly twice as much as he just signed Christensen, who he tried to lowball.
200k less than Dubinsky.
500k more than Shelley, who he also presumably lowballed.
He does something so good (Biron) and then just so epically insane, there are no words.
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by George E. Ays on Jul 1, 2010 3:17 PM EDT up reply actions
They were 19-7 in OT/SO. Bryzgalov .920 vs career .914; Labarbera .928 vs career .906. They didn’t develop young guys. Expect big regression to the mean – 20 points is harsh – let’s say 10.
Deal #20: Anton Volchenkov, 6 years, $4.25M per to NJD. Part of a rash of reasonable deals for strong defensive defensemen – Hamhuis, Tallinder, Lydman, Michalek.
I’m glad that the Devils signings aren’t horrible contracts; but I’m still baffled that Martin wasn’t re-signed for that much unless he just wanted to leave (very possible) and the Devils went out and didn’t get anyone who could move the puck well. Unless there’s something about Tallinder and Volchenkov I’ve missed.
Just out of curiosity, Gabe, why are these reasonable deals? Neither Tallinder or Volchenkov had great on-ice/off-ice numbers at evens last season (Volchenkov had a monster 08-09 when it came to SA/60, though). I’m interested in your thoughts.
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Basically you’re looking at five shutdown defensemen who work their way out of the d-zone against #1 lines. Their numbers are heavily influenced by their roles, but once you account for that, they are among the top 30-50 D in the league. Is it possible that some of these contracts represent a slight overpay for UFAs? Maybe $500k per year. But if you could get 2.5 wins from Hamhuis or Volchenkov for $4.5M or you had to pay $7M for it from Kovalchuk, it’s obvious which one you should pick.
Volchenkov plays some of the most difficult ice time in the league – highest Qual Comp and most D-zone faceoffs on his team. His raw numbers are negative but once you account for those factors, he’s in extremely positive territory.
Hamhuis had the same role in 2007-08 but isn’t quite the equal of Suter and Weber. So he’s not worth $7M, but he got a reasonable contract for his skills.
Michalek did the same thing in Phoenix except he had a terrible defensive partner in Jovo this season and still came out ok.
Tallinder and Lydman had the same roles in Buffalo.
This helps explains matters. I’m still not happy that the Devils have at least 4 defensive d-men and will probably hope that Andy Greene can repeat his amazing 09-10 season on offense as of now. Moves have to be made; but at least the deals make more sense on their own. Thanks.
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Gabe, what’s your take on the St. Louis re-signing? I’ve seen it pretty much universally praised, but it’d scare the shit out of me if I were TB.
Agreed, I’d be scared too. Let’s be clear: today, St.Louis is underpaid at 5.5M, but it’s hard to know what he’ll be at age 38, and because of the 35+ clause he can’t retire gracefully with a “gentlemen’s agreement” as many other seem poised to do.
is st louis even particularly underpaid right now? dude gets a tonne of OZ starts with a bunch of other good players.
by Passive Voice on Jul 2, 2010 2:57 AM EDT up reply actions
St. Louis is considerably underpaid for now. OZ starts don’t eliminate your value, they just mean you have to capitalize on it. St. Louis has been the driver of pretty much all Lightning offense for the past 2 years. Over the last 3 years, he’s 2nd in the NHL in ice time among forwards (behind Iginla). He plays Power-vs-Power, or what passes for it in the SouthEast. He’s great on the PP. He draws about 25 penalties a year and takes virtually none. St. Louis is easily a 20-24 goal player, which makes him underpaid at 5.5. But he won’t be this good forever, and definitely won’t at age 39.
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