Staal Salary Breakdown

OK, I swear that when I decided to start importing this blog as Facebook notes yesterday, I really didn't plan to post four times today (I don't usually post four times in a day, you see). But Staal's contract breakdown was made public, and I figured you'd be interested. The five year deal is for: $3.1m/$3.675m/$3.775m/$3.885m/$5.45m, for an average cap hit of $3.975 million. I like everything about this. Nothing special in terms of an NMC or an NTC.

Let's talk about cap, baby

Okay, now we can talk about where we are with the cap. The answer is: pretty good. Staal came in under what people expected, and with that done and Redden on his way out, we have a little breathing room. Which is good, because we also have a lot of question marks, from Todd White to Derek Stepan without even getting to defense. I'm going to retire the theoretical Wade Redden argument at this point: we'd have to make so many moves to squeeze him in that his only hope for staying on the team is to somehow outplay Rozsival into the minors. I know it's not official yet, but I'm done considering Redden as a legitimate possibility. If he comes out playing like Nicklas Lidstrom, then we'll talk.

Moving on, I've said before that I think there are 12 forwards we can comfortably expect on the roster (Gaborik, Drury, Frolov, Callahan, Prospal, Avery, Dubinsky, Boogaard, Christensen, Anisimov, Prust, Boyle), and their total cap hit comes to $30,434,167. I'm backing down from certainty on defensemen, whether it be named Gilroy or Eminger, but I think it's safe to say that Rozsival, Staal, Girardi, and Del Zotto will make the cut (totaling $13,387,500). The goalie situation remains clear: Lundqvist and Biron for a total hit of $7.75 million. This brings us to $51,571,667 for 12 forwards, 4 defensemen, and 2 goalies.

With a salary cap of $59.4 million, we are left with $7,828,333 of space. With this, we need to sign at least 2 defensemen and can then sign up to 3 more skaters. The defensemen we're considering would include Gilroy ($1.75m), McDonagh ($1.3m), Eminger ($1.125m), Semenov (UFA), and Exelby (UFA). I envision us ending up with Eminger, one of Gilroy or McDonagh, and one of Semenov or Exelby.

This would leave us something in the 3-4 million dollar range for adding an eighth defenseman (not likely if I remember how John Tortorella works) or some extra forwards. Todd White would take a healthy $2.375 million of that, and Mats Zuccarello would take $1.75m. Under that, we can consider Derek Stepan ($820,833), Evgeny Grachev ($816,667), Tim Kennedy ($550,000), or Ruslan Fedotenko (UFA).

So we find ourselves in a position with which we're not terribly familiar: we can actually pick our roster based on how people perform at our training camp. Go fucking figure! We've got a core of people we can assume are making the cut, and thanks to a totally reasonable (and a good million or more lower than many people expected) contract for Staal and the assumed departure of Wade "Estar Dando Bye Bye" Redden, we have the money left to see who plays well at camp and give out roster spots based on that.

Oh my god, are we going to have a roster I'm actually excited about this season?

Finally!

And at a reasonable price, too! We've signed Staal for a nice, long five years, at $3.975 million per year. Hell yes to that! Good length, good price, and in time for training camp. Glory, glory.

Funny additions to training camp

So, I haven't posted a training camp roster yet, for three reasons in equal parts: some kids from prospect camp and Traverse City have yet to be added, Staal has yet to be signed, and it's probably not all that interesting anyway. However, there are three people of note who I haven't yet told you will be at training camp. All three will be invited to tryouts at training camp, none have been given contracts.

First up: Ruslan Fedotenko. Fedotenko is a 31 year old, mediocre winger (what else is new?). Most recently, he was a member of the Cup-winning Penguins, but before that, he actually played for Torts in Tampa. He's another middle-of-his-career, middle-of-the-road, middle-line winger that we'll give a shot in training camp, and a contract if he earns one. No harm done (yet). Fedotenko is most famous in my mind for being the subject of the worst sign I've ever seen at a hockey game: I was at a Rangers game here in Pittsburgh last season and some girl had a sign that read "Fedotenko does not stenko!"

Oof.

Next, we have Jordan Parise, a goalie trying to earn a spot with Hartford. Parise is notable only for being Zach's older brother. There's not much else to say there: he's 28, he's definitely not going to end up a Ranger, and he's not nearly as talented as his 26-year-old brother. I say we sign him on the contingency that he convinces Zach to come to New York. Devils can't afford him next season anyway, thanks to the most important hockey contract ever.

And finally, a name that may or may not ring some bells for you: Alexei Semenov. If not, let me help. Semenov was at training camp last season. Torts liked his not-flashy, stand-up-at-the-blue-line, stay-at-home play. In fact, the 6'6", 235 lb. veteran made the cut, and the Rangers offered him a modest one-year, $600,000 deal. Then things got weird. Sounding familiar yet? He's the one who, according to all reports, really wanted to accept the contract, until his wife said no.

Apparently he left Sather's office in tears, forced to reject a contract he, his agent, and the Rangers all approved of, but that his wife was unhappy with. The word was that she didn't want to move to New York, and she wanted him to continue playing in Russia. But you have to wonder what she thought he was doing in New York all that time, if not trying out for a hockey team. I believe Semenov then went off and signed a 2-year, $1.5 million deal with Dynamo Moscow, which he is now halfway through. And here he comes again.

Sather claims to have spoken to Semenov's agent many times, and says that if he makes the cut again, a contract has already been agreed upon and no such issues will arise. So, I guess we'll see? I'd certainly like a cheap, stay-at-home, giant veteran on our blue line somewhere, so I'm hoping that he plays in this camp as well as or better than he did last and that we can work something out. If not, I'm not so unhappy with our blue line as it is (assuming Staal and Redden get sent their appropriate ways).

Ruslan "Does-Not-Stenko" Fedotenko, Jordan "The Wrong" Parise, and Alexei "Only If My Wife Lets Me" Semenov: only 2 days until training camp begins!

An unsigned defenseman and an unlikely defense

So, rumors are finally a-buzz that Marc Staal and the Rangers should reach an agreement soon. Word is that it should be wrapped up by Friday, which is awesome, because that is when training camp starts. The main sticking point of these negotiations, so you understand, is length. Staal is currently 23 and has been on NHL contracts for 3 years so far, which means he will reach unrestricted free agency in 4 years (age 27 or 7 years of contracts, whichever comes first). Until that time, he is under restricted free agency to the Rangers. Starting next season, and for the remaining whole of that restricted free agency, Staal will be eligible for salary arbitration.

The Rangers want to lock Staal up for a number of years, into his unrestricted free agency, when salary arbitration will no longer be a factor. They and Staal both feel that arbitration would give him a huge salary boost, rightly so. So, we can probably expect Staal's salary to end up somewhat higher than those of comparable players (people point at Bobby Ryan for being in a similar offseason situation earlier, as well as comparable defensemen like Ryan Suter and Shea Weber). Sather went on record just yesterday as saying, "we have made Staal a pretty lucrative offer, and I don't think we're very far apart." So, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we see Staal on a 4+ year contract at $5 million per. And apparently, I wouldn't be surprised if that happens in the next two days.

In other news, the NHL has officially decided to fine the Devils for attempting this Kovalchuk contract. Look: I hate the Devils as much as the next guy. That's not even true. I hate the Devils like a zabillion times more than the next guy, unless the next guy is Dennis the Fireman who sits in section 423. But this is stupid. The CBA, agreed upon by both the NHL and NHLPA, allows for a contract like this. The contract was rejected by reasonable means, and then another one was put forth. The whole thing points out that there are flaws in the CBA, but it resolved largely as it should have.

So where the fuck does the NHL get off fining the Devils for this?!? They're being charged $3 million, a third-round pick next draft, and a first-round pick sometime in the next four drafts (to be determined by the Devils). And this is all retribution for what, exactly? Signing a player to a perfectly legal contract under the admittedly terrible CBA and getting that contract voided? I've said here that I agree with Richard Bloch's ruling in the arbitration, and I do - the Kovalchuk contract absolutely violated the spirit of the CBA. But you're gonna tell me that the Devils, in even attempting to submit a contract like this, were somehow breaking some sort of rule? What, exactly, do the Devils deserve punishment for here?

I'll tell you: it's for making the NHL look foolish. The insane oligarchy of the NHL doesn't like looking like it made any mistake, whether that mistake is employing awful officials or signing an agreement with loopholes. Bettman et al, as is their wont, took this whole Kovalchuk thing personally, and they decided to strike back personally. I'm not saying there's not some part of me that's excited about the goddamn Devils losing a first-round pick, but it's really not just. The NHL wanted to flex its muscles one more time after reaching a balanced agreement didn't leave them feeling powerful enough, and they enacted this penalty because they could.

Or does anyone believe there would have been a fine if the team in question were the model franchise Penguins, or my beloved Coyotes, instead?

Conclusions

So Ilya Kovalchuk is a Devil, with a 15-year contract that pays him $11-11.8 million a year for ages 29-33 and will count as a cap hit of $6.67 million throughout. The NHL approved this and agreed to not investigate existing contracts (which is basically an agreement to not go back on something they already previously agreed to, the big-money adult equivalent of saying "but this time I REALLY MEAN it!!"). As part of the accord, the NHLPA agreed to two minor amendments to the CBA, to apply only to contracts signed from here through the end of the CBA (any contract signed prior to September 4, 2010 is exempt from the new amendments).

The amendments are fairly minor and a little complicated. I'll try to give the quick summary, but largely you don't have to worry about it. There are two of them. The first applies only to contracts that last for 5 or more years and that include or go beyond a player's 41st birthday. For these contracts, those years that include ages 41+ are not averaged in when the overall cap hit is calculated. The cap hit in these years is simply the player salary. So, for example, say you are signed to a 5-year contract at $8m/$7m/$6m/$3m/$1m. If you do not turn 41 until this contract ends, its hit will be $5m/year, as normal. If you turn 41 in year 4 of this contract, the cap hit will be $7m/year for the first three years, then $3m for the 4th year and $1m for the fifth year.

The second amendment only applies to contracts that last for 5 or more years and that include or go beyond a player's 36th birthday, and whose 3 most expensive years average $5.75 million or more. For these contracts, those years that include ages 36+ and that are still included in the average cap hit calculation (ie that do not include ages 41+) have a minimum cap hit of $1 million. The player may be paid a salary of less than $1 million for these years, but it will count as $1 million in the average cap hit calculation. So, for example, say you are signed to a 5-year contract at $6m/$6m/$6m/$0.5m/$0.5m. If you do not turn 36 until after this contract ends, its hit will be $3.8m/year, as normal. If you turn 36 in year 2 of this contract, the cap hit will be $4m/year instead.

All said and done, don't worry too much about these: they will only affect those few big, front-loaded contracts, and even then, they won't affect them much, except in very specific cases. But just for fun, I went back and looked at the Kovalchuk contract, to see what these new amendments (the ones that the NHL so magnanimously allowed the contract to be exempt from) would do to it. Turns out that with no salary under $1 million, amendment two doesn't affect the contract at all. Amendment one only kicks in for the last two years of the contract, in which Kovalchuk will be making $3 million and then $4 million. So for the first 13 years of this 15-year deal, under the new amendments, Kovalchuk's cap hit would be $7.15 million.

Brand new Kovalchuk contract's cap hit under the CBA as it stood before this whole debacle: $6.67 million. Same exact contract's cap hit under the CBA with the new amendments laboriously drawn up, tentatively debated over most of the off-season, and notably exempting Kovalchuk's deal in an act of apparent compromise: $7.15 million.

$487,179. This whole thing produces a cap hit difference for which you cannot legally sign an NHL player. So what the fuck have we been talking about this whole time?!?

Ah, well. At least this nonsense is over, and we can go back to our regularly scheduled nonsense. First up: by way of Puck Daddy, making fun of backup goalie Dan Ellis! Ellis finished his $3.5m, 2yr deal with the Predators and signed a $3m, 2yr deal with the Lightning. Then he made the mistake of having a Twitter account and no perspective. He commented on a chain of comments about a possible NFL labor lockout next season using both of these.

Ellis tweeted, "if you lost 18% of your income would you be happy? I can honestly say that I am more stressed about money now then [sic] when I was in college." Then (spread over 3 tweets), he continued with the following justification:

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If you don't make a lot of money I don't expect u to understand in the same way I could never understand what it is like to risk my life daily as a fire fighter or police officer...especially not a soldier. There r pros and cons to every profession. U r kidding yourself if u think money makes things any easier.
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BOOM! Twitter exploded with a lack of sympathy, which Puck Daddy does a pretty nice job of summarizing. Of note: these tweets happened on Labor Day.

And now back to reality: still no word on Staal. Training camp starts in 10 days. Is this starting to feel eerily familiar to anyone?

Finally, the Traverse City Tournament (hosted annually by the Red Wings, in which a few teams' prospects go compete against each other - the Rangers participate every year) starts on Saturday. Who's driving me to Michigan?

There's no hockey to talk about but I want to talk about hockey

So here's a bunch of little crap that isn't really worth talking about, except that I want to. That's the beautiful thing about the editing cycle of the blogosphere: there isn't one!

First of all, someone explain this to me: On the one hand, you've got the Rangers, right? All summer, we're talking about our lack of meaningful depth at center. We've got, basically, Dubinsky, Anisimov, Christensen, and a King's ransom of "utility" wing/centers. So what do we do? First, we maintain a very fluid borderline between "wing" and "center." Then, we offload Brashear and take on Todd White for $2.375 million. Finally, a week ago, we sign this Tim Kennedy winger with the intention of trying him in the middle.

Then, today, a few days into fucking September, the Pittsburgh Goddamnit Penguins sign Mike Comrie for $500,000. And they're probably going to play him as a wing! What the shits, people? Do we just live in a different economy of players than they do? Fuck the heck?!? I hate being jealous of the Penguins.





OK. I feel better now.

In other news, the league is going down in flames around us. For those of you who have been hiding behind a protective shield of willful disbelief, the CliffsNotes tell us that Richard Bloch agreed with the NHL that the Devils' offer to Kovalchuk was designed to circumvent the CBA and should be voided. The contract was therefore considered void, in accordance with the CBA (which itself defines the contract as valid, but allows for either the NHL or the NHLPA to file grievances and for independent arbitrators like Bloch to make decisions on those grievances that could potentially go against something that is otherwise completely valid according to the written terms of the CBA - basically think of him like the American courts in this case).

So, the Devils drafted a new contract that still abuses the terms of the CBA to its advantage (like other contracts in the NHL already do), but less so (although it still pays Kovalchuk $90 million over its first 10 years and then only $10 million over its final five). That one has not yet been accepted or rejected by the NHL. It was supposed to be decided by the league by 5:00 Wednesday, at which time they extended their own deadline to 5:00 today. Then, that night, our own beat writer Larry Brooks printed an article claiming that the NHL had delivered an ultimatum to the NHLPA.

The ultimatum, according to Brooks, contains a pair of "band-aid" rules modifying cap calculations on future contracts: one that cap calculations will only count contract years prior to the player turning 40, and one that cap calculations on contracts longer than five years will use some unspecified formula that gives more weight to the more expensive years. The idea is if that the NHLPA agrees to these amendments by the end of the week, the NHL will approve Kovalchuk's new contract and accept other currently-standing contracts with would retroactively violate the new rules. However, if the NHLPA rejects the amendments, the NHL would reject the Kovalchuk deal, as well as moving to void Roberto Luongo's contract and investigate Marian Hossa's.

Since then, it has become less clear whether or not the NHL gave an "ultimatum" per se, as well as what the specific rules are. Brooks's latest report claims that a deal that crosses age 40 would be treated as two separate contracts with two separate averages, while a deal for 5 years or more that goes past age 35 would treat all salaries under $1 million as a full $1 million for cap purposes. However, what's clear is that it seems like the approval of the Kovalchuk deal is somehow tied to the NHLPA's acceptance of some sort of CBA modification. And it certainly sounds like that acceptance also affects whether or not the league goes on to investigate other currently existing contracts, which obviously they have already approved. Which, to me, is the really, really shady part.

Meanwhile, the NHLPA, you may have heard, has no leader right now. Donald Fehr (often called "the man who ruined baseball" by people who give a shit about baseball, of which I am notably not one and therefore can't comment intelligently on the subject) is currently the most likely in line for this position, and he accepted it given a list of conditions, including a salary demand and the right to continue living in New York despite hockey operations going on in Toronto. The NHLPA board, of course, didn't seem that thrilled by his conditions (particularly, it is suspected, the one where he gets to hire his brother as an outside special counsel), because they didn't bother to vote to approve him Wednesday night, even though they had originally been thought to. So, Fehr is acting director for now, but the NHLPA doesn't actually have a director.

And so that's where we are. More and more people are starting to speak out and call for an NHL commissioner with the best interests of the game, not of the league making money, in mind, the NHLPA still has no one in charge, and Bettman and friends continue to make the NHL the laughing stock of professional sports. The next chapter of this embarrassing drama should come in in about two hours, when some other bullshit excuse pushes this deadline back even farther, and the end result continues to be "everything is still up in the air."

Training camp starts in two weeks, by the way.

To go out on a lighter note, we turn to Michael Del Zotto, who appears to be auditioning for the part of our generation's Yogi Berra, reportedly saying, "There's no days off, whether it's practices or games, or even if it's a day off getting rest."

I gave up on August

Look, people. I keep telling you: start paying me to maintain this shitty blog, and I won't have to take hiatuses (hiati?) when my real job which pays me real money requires me to do real work that impedes my freedom to sit around blogging all day. The jerks.

Oh, and also, basically nothing has happened.

Well, I guess we did sign this one guy. His name is Tim Kennedy (no relation), and he's a 24-year-old, 5'10", 173 lb. left wing. Apparently he had been on a million dollar contract with the Sabres, was eligible for arbitration, and was awarded $1.2 million, from which the Sabres then walked? Or something? It doesn't matter. What matters is that he's another 24-year-old forward with potential to be decent (10-16 last year, in his first real season) but not great, whom we'll try out at center despite him being a natural wing, to see if it can work out.

Oh my god, how fucking familiar does that sound?

It's a one-year, $550,000 deal, so: no harm, no foul, I guess? We'll have one more young guy trying out for a roster spot? I don't really see the reasoning, but it's hard to get too worked up about it, or really to care at all. Tim Kennedy: another name you'll see on preseason rosters.

As for important news, Staal remains completely unsigned, there is no word whatsoever on talks moving in any direction, and training camp starts in 16 days. So, I guess that's "important," but it's not actually "news."

Goddamn it somebody give me some hockey already.

Goddamn it that is some funny shit

So, today I completely unjustifiably clicked on a link to a Brasilian Rangers blog, despite the fact that I don't speak Portuguese (I know enough Spanish to get by, like so many modern Americans, but that's really it). So I click on the link, and the following is the very first thing on the blog:

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Wade Redden e seu salario de US$ 6.5 milhões pode estar dando bye bye para o New York Rangers. GRAÇAS A DEUS!!
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Amazing.

Playing with rosters

Larry Brooks poses a funny little question in yesterday's Post: "What if Wade Redden plays really well?" The idea is basically that if Redden realizes his entire career is on the line and actually has a fantastic training camp, if he's the best defenseman at camp, the Rangers basically have no contingency plan for that. This seems largely pedantic - personally, I can't imagine Wade Redden turning around and having a really good camp - but it's pretty funny to think about. Redden could screw us again by actually playing very well and forcing us to make a decision around that.

However, the really interesting part of this article comes much later, when Brooks is listing through our forwards. He claims that, much like with Redden, the team could be going into camp preemptively assuming that Sean Avery will be cut out of the picture. The theory is contingent on Todd White making a good case for himself at camp, which I think is a completely reasonable possibility. If it happens, Brooks argues, that will make Christensen, Anisimov, and White our top three centers, which will push other "centers" out to the wing. Brooks lists Frolov, Prospal, and Dubinsky as a possible top three left wings, and Gaborik, Callahan, and Drury as top three right. If this pans out, that pushes Avery down to the fourth line at best.

I think this is mostly pre-training-camp-panic-because-we-have-nothing-else-to-talk-about: no one's to say that White will make the team at all, or that Drury will be a top three winger, or anything else: we're going to be doing a lot of reconstruction at training camp, and this speculation is largely unfounded. But it's interesting to think about, anyway: we don't really know whether or not Avery and Torts (both are responsible) have figured out how to use Avery best. Let's hope they have. Meanwhile, I'm sure much more unfounded speculation is to come before this season gets underway.

Finally, from the hilarious Maple Leafs blog Down Goes Brown comes a list of this off-season's winners and losers: which teams did particularly well for themselves, and which did particularly poorly. The whole thing (as with everything this guy posts) is worth reading, but I mention it because the Rangers sit atop the winners list. The justification? "Their annual 'free agent signing which everyone agrees was the most outrageously over-priced mistake of the summer' ended up being a lot cheaper than usual this year." I'm gonna go ahead and agree and call that good news.