obviously the guy moves the puck forward, noone is arguing that, but additionally he ran a bit hot this year on good territorial team. so if the player moves to calgary, i.e. a bad territorial and not particularly deep team, what do you expect his production to be? even if if he still runs a bit hot, i would expect his stats to step back and he probably would not carry the flames by himself, the way iginla did. they need quite a bit more to rebuild.

you are right, he'll probably get more PP time, but i'd expect him to be on the ice even more on the PK than he did in pittsburg.

he might shoot a bit colder, but he is supposed to be still improving. i think the pens will once again be territorially good and run hot shooting-wise and if he is playing for them pens, his value will probably continue to rise. what that means is that it will be that much more expensive to keep him the following summer. his value is offset by the cost.

if he averages a point-per-game over november/december, do you think it will be easy for shero to re-sign him? no, the task becomes harder, and who knows he might get a parise-sized offer on July 1, 2013. in which case it's almost impossible for them to keep him and the only play you is to trade away his negotiating rights for a third-round pick. or you could package him with a mid pick and a nice prospect now, and get iginla for 3 years at a reasonable price.

Im going to send you a letter Brian Burke wrote me a few years back on this exact topic. I feel like its a bit of a form letter, but he personalized a few paragraphs at the start and finish so I'll get it to you nonetheless.

plz post it here?

Awesome, awesome post Gamblor.

Aye

Cool stuff 'blor

Sens are starting talks with Erik Karlsson for a new contract. What do you think is his number?

Hoping he slots in somewhere in the $5-$6 million range. I'm sure his agents will push for $7 million average like Doughty.

+eleventy billion, great stuff

yeah i've often wondered about the coaches with that kind of rep, if they really only have 1 gear rather than tailoring their approach and message to each player. it's really shocking to me that coaches don't do this. unless maybe he just leaves the good cop routine to one of his assistants. still i don't see how this is at all a good way to build relationships with your players (maybe he doesn't care about that), and i guess i see why some guys just never last more than 3-5 years in the same place. even if you were a guy who responded to his tactics and didn't mind it too much, it'd get so old after a while. and the guys who HATE it? yeah you lose them right away, and they resent you the whole time.

mind-bottling that there are still guys like that, imo

Thanks for the post, Gamblor. A+ as always.

Makes me feel even better about Feaster being the right guy for the job.

cool post.

Feaster is still a douche.

Staal has always been a fairly good even strength producer despite playing against top lines while flanked by third liners. Just look up his even strength production over the past several years - it's quite impressive the company he is in. Considering that and his lack of opportunity on the powerplay in Pittsburgh, I think it's a safe bet to say that Staal is good for 60 + points a year, 55 on the low end of that scale, and that of course comes with terrific defensive ability.

Iginla isn't going to fetch a young superstar that is going to carry the Flames to the promised land, so we can curb those delusions right now, as I'm sure many Flames fans have already done.

I mean really, what are you arguing? That Staal isn't good enough to fetch a near 35 year old Jarome Iginla? Or maybe that they should hold out for a better offer, or take the gamble of a trade involving picks / prospects?


Staal could very well improve and have his value decrease if it doesn't translate on the scoresheet. With a reduced role, that seems to be somewhat likely.

If Staal runs super hot to start the year I don't think Shero is going to panic and re-sign him fearing that he might turn into a 100 point scorer. He'll wait it out, and when Staal regresses by the end of the year to a more reasonable production level, he'll likely re-sign him to an affordable contract in the $5.5-6m per range.

Having said that, if you really believe Staal is going to have a monster season and that the Penguins should trade him before he plays himself out of their price range, then why don't you think the Flames should pull the trigger on a Staal / Iginla deal? You can't have it both ways. I also laugh at the notion that we would have to add a good prospect and a pick to even it out. I wouldn't do Iginla for Staal straight up.

wow awesome post gamblor, I liked the mayor of canada anecdote

It's on a backup drive at home. i'll dig it up and redact personal info. I don't want anyone looking me up and sending me a severed foot or some weird ****

Shame. He was a scary soviet, but a fat slowpoke over here. Vlad the Inhaler.

The kind of people that become hockey coaches aren't exactly the most emotionally sensitive people. They're type A to the core, even the more cerebral ones like Babcock. The set a plan, and when they set it, they are 100% sure that the plan will lead to a Cup or championship or whatever. Any failure is a direct result of not getting complete and total buyin from everyone single player.

if a player doesn't buy in, they're in the dog house, even if they're scoring. And if a player shows complete buyin and commitment, the coach will love them, even if they're not scoring.

That's an NHL coach. It's professional hockey.

junior coaches can be much more sensitive to players' needs because they understand that their role is to teach, even though winning is obviously important.

It's part of why there is so much coaching circulation in the NHL - its just a different personality type that's needed. Think about how intimidating it is for a coach to be coaching his first NHL team, even if hes a former player. You need a guy that's going to be unintimidated by his own team, so its very rare that a new guy steps in.

thanks everyone...

are you M4MVP? Lost your name in the great 2p2 hack of '12?

Yea man. Old email address thats shut down. Maybe ill try to reclaim it sometime

why not? he's not going fetch many established arb/rfa players, but someone who is just about to hit the UFA market and can't stay on his old team is precisely what he can get. who do you think Iginla can fetch?

staal's value isn't decreasing. personally, i don't think a straight swap necessarily makes the flames better. their main issue isn't top talent, but depth.

this is a clear case of both sides want more in return than what they are going to get. yes, you can have it both ways, because the two teams are almost diametrically opposed situations. it's obvious that staal's value is different, depending if he plays for a good or a bad team.

5.5-6 is way too low. he can beat that in free agency, as long as it's a non-injury year, and certainly if he runs hot. if shero can extend staal now at that price, he should snap-call.

Staal is more likely to have a monster season for pittsburg than for calgary. i don't know if i could express the difference in expected points, but it would be significant.

ultimately, i think JStaal is an asset they are most likely going to lose, so trading him for something wouldn't be bad at all. whether you want to keep staal as a cup run piece for one year, that's really the question. however, from that point of view, i don't see how getting iginla hurts them. if a trade is being discussed at all, iginla has to like the penguins, and would sign an extension in order to win.

you seem to be overvaluing mid-picks and prospects. for a deep team like the pens, those things are less valuable. the flames need depth, so those assets are MORE valuable to them. if staal is likely to leave for more money, or captaincy, or a bigger role, they are not even really overpaying at all.

david jones gets 4 years $16 mill. semin's going to get $8 million from some floor team.

wow

hope he can keep up that career 16.3% shooting...

yeah like i said earlier, it's good to be UFA. really shocking that more guys sign to give that up, anyone half decent can prob get like $8m from like 20 diff teams, lol

Like, Brad Richards? I'm pretty sure Geddy saw right through that charade.

but Jones himself didn't go UFA. The Devils have let a lot of their guys go UFA for a day or two before re-signing them, a lot of them say they don't really enjoy the experience. I mean, you're picking where you're going to live and play for the next few years, and you have a few hours with which to do it.

you know what i mean, he got paid bc he was set to be UFA in a few weeks

seems like a lot of guys take less and lock themselves up way before the point where they can scare their team into ponying up a good UFA-ish number (though someone surely would have given him more than that on July 1st)

it's not like you can't think about it beforehand or anything. talk it over with the family, agent, etc and put together a list of places you might like to land, that have cap room and are good fits and all that.

but a lot of guys are just loyal, are comfortable staying where they are, and so on, i get that.

I don't know quite what Iginla's value is on paper, but asking for a kings ransom in return for an aging star who is about to hit free agency just isn't realistic. I think the best case scenario for Calgary is to get a player like Staal in a near straight up trade. I just hope Shero is smarter than that.

Does a straight swap make the Flames better right now? Debatable. Does it put their franchise in a much better position for the next 5-10 years? Absolutely. The Flames aren't going to compete for a Cup any time soon and everybody knows it. Getting a player who can be among the cornerstones of their franchise for the forseeable future is about the best they can hope for.

The Flames issue is both depth and top end talent. More importantly, neither is going to be solved in any reasonable return for Iginla.

Way too low? Have you seen Shero's body of work over the past few years? He has done an incredible job at getting players to sign below market value. You're mistaking what Staal could get from another team if he reaches free agency and what he will get if the Penguins re-sign him (presumably before reaching free agency).

Staal's value has increased since last year to be sure, but a $7m player he is not. If Staal re-signs before the season I'm willing to be a lot of money that it's for $6m or less.

That is contingent on Staal being given a top 6 role flanked by one of Crosby or Malkin and getting more time on the first powerplay unit. I have no idea what Bylsma's plans are moving forward, which means you sure as hell don't either.

If Staal is dead set on moving on to another team for a larger role or wants a contract in the $6.5-7.5m range, the clear play is to trade him. In that case a deal for Iginla might be reasonable. But what if, *gasp,* he likes it in Pittsburgh? And perhaps he doesn't have the monster season you're secretly wishing he has?

I have a feeling you're going to be really disappointed with how this Staal situation plays out.

I'm aware of how the value of picks and prospects differs from team to team. I'm just struggling to find any reason at all why we would have to add to get a deal done. It's very reasonable to think that, from this point forward, Staal could be the better player for the duration of Iginla's career. He's also 12 years younger. So why are we adding? To pay reparations to the tortured Flames fanbase for what they've endured over the last decade?