Stupid Stupid Stupid

Larry Brooks reports that the Dubinsky negotiations have gotten somewhat closer. Ooooh. The report claims that Dubi is now seeking a one-year, $1.1 million deal or a two-year, $2.15 million deal. The Rangers, meanwhile, are sticking to their one-year, $700,000 offer or their two-year, $1.85 million deal. Okay, great, a little bit of progress.

Hang on a second here. I'm getting a phone call.

Hello? Yes, this is he. Oh, Math? Hey, Math, it's good to hear from you! Man, it's been so long, we used to be so tight! You what? You want to guest-write the next segment of my wildly popular Rangers blog, Play Petr Prucha? Why, sure, Math! Go right ahead!

Hello children, this is Math. For today's lesson, we're going to cover arithmetic. I don't wanna bore you with addition or multiplication: that's kid stuff, children! Ho, ho, ho! No, today, we'll be covering division and subtraction. Let's start with division. Good to get the hard stuff out of the way first, right? Ho, ho, ho!

Now, let's say a hockey player asks for a contract of $2.15 million for two years. How much would we say he wants to make per year? We can find out using division! Simply divide 2.15 million by two and you've got your answer: $1.075 million per year!

Let's practice that. Say a hockey team has offered a contract of $1.85 million for two years. Can anyone apply the same logic to tell us how much they're offering per year?

Um...if we divide 1.85 million by two...we get...$0.925 million per year?

Ho, ho, ho! Excellent work, children!

Thanks, Math!

Shut up, I'm talking! Now, it's time for the final lesson. Let's use our division results to learn some subtraction. If a hockey player, who claims he is very dedicated to his team and who has no other NHL outlet, asks for $1.075 million a year, and the hockey team, which desperately needs a player of his caliber at his position, offers $0.925 million per year, how much money are they really disagreeing over? To answer this, we use subtraction! Simply subtract 0.925 from 1.075 and you get...0.15. $150,000 a year! Ho, ho, ho! That's hardly any money at all! Why, it's less than a third of the minimum NHL salary! But that's a lesson for another day: fractions. Until then, have a great day, children, and remember: without Math, nothing adds up! Ho, ho, ho!

Wow, thanks for stopping by, Math! Golly, that was helpful. Without Math, we never would have learned that this contract debate has actually come down to a completely trivial $150,000 a year for two years! Imagine: we might not have been able to put into such stark perspective how completely moronic this whole thing is!

Look: there are five preseason games left. By about 32 hours from now (Saturday evening: do agents even work on weekends?), there will be three preseason games left, training camp will be over a week old, and the season will be less than two weeks (13 days) from starting. No one at all, who understands hockey, anywhere, could possibly think that the $150,000 a year for two years (or even, in the case of the one-year deals, the $400,000 total) is anywhere near as valuable to either Dubinsky or to the Rangers as the training time Dubinsky is losing. If Dubi is going to be a Ranger, then holding out right now is strictly worse for both parties than signing any contract anywhere between their two offers would be. As my old friend Math taught us, this is fucking stupid. Sign a 2-year, $2 million contract, everyone eat $75,000 a year worth of pride, and get to fucking work.