Dose of Reality #63

He’s back, before we even had time to rearrange the furniture.  The Tampa Bay Lightning are being sold, pending NHL approval, to a group that has none other than Doug MacLean in it.  And Doug has already announced that he will be Chairman and CEO, according to TSN.  How about that!  Now Jim Clarke will have a place to go.  The local car dealers must be crying about this one, hoping that Doug would be here when the 2008 models are released.

Seriously, I do have a few comments.  First, I think Doug will do better this time around.  He surely has learned from the mistakes he made in Columbus and will be smarter.  Another thing is that he gets to run an existing team, not starting from scratch like he did with the Blue Jackets.  As much as this hurts, I think he will win the Cup before Columbus does.

The other side is this:  According to the local press, MacLean says his likes current Bolts coach John Tortorella.  Torts is a screamer and ass-kicker, so it will be interesting to see if Doug enjoys watching a clone of himself behind the bench, but a clone that has won the Cup.  And how do you think Marc Denis is feeling now?  MacLean has taken a lot of shots at Marc and now he gets to sign his paychecks, which are now much larger than they were in Columbus.  Will Denis find Post-It notes on his checks?

Finally, can you imagine how much fun the NHL meetings are going to be for the CBJ management now that they have to sit down next to Dougie again?

Look for a real estate transaction in the Arena District now with J. Douglass MacLean’s name on it.

Truth Serum

A roster spot opens

Aaron Portzline reports in today’s Dispatch that the Blue Jackets will not be extending a qualifying offer to defenseman/winger Aaron Johnson.  The 24-year old Johnson is a restricted free agent.

“It was a tough decision,” Howson said. “But (Johnson) was going to get a one-way contract in an arbitration hearing, and we just weren’t comfortable with that decision.”

Hockey for Dummies Alert: As Portzline explains, a one-way contract would enable Johnson to make NHL money even if he was playing in the minor leagues.  Many players who are on the NHL bubble (frequently shuttle back and forth between the NHL and minor league hockey) are issued two-way contracts that have different salary levels depending on which team (major or minor) owns the contract at the time.  One-way contracts are frequently awarded to established players who are not expected to spend time in the minors. 

Drew’s Analysis: Though Johnson did see time in 61 games, anyone who has watched him play would have a tough time arguing that he was an established NHL’er.  With the Jackets looking to get better and the salaries of Fedorov and Foote cramping the cap a bit, it’s no surprise that Howson and Co. are making changes.  By all accounts Aaron was a likeable guy and a hard working player, but that only gets you so far.  His talent level hasn’t risen to the point where he’s worthy of guaranteed money, and in this day and age with a salary cap in place, that’s enough to be shown the door.  It’s not any big loss for the club, especially with Mark Methot playing good minutes as he did at the end of the season.

In other news: Other restricted free agents in the Jackets organization that were tendered qualifying offers: centers Alexander Svitov and Andrew Murray, left wingers Curtis Glencross and Joakim Lindstrom, right winger Steven Goertzen, and defenseman Ole-Kristian Tollefsen.  Also, RFA right winger Jaroslav Balastik was not extended an offer.

Coming up: Here at the End of the Bench, I’ll be wrapping up the season-ending Spotlight Series in the next few weeks (hopefully very soon).  The contract of Sergei Fedorov is a figurative noose around the team’s neck right now.  I’ll be interested to see if there will be a buy-out in the near future.  Based on the lack of noise on this topic in the last week, I’m guessing it won’t happen.  And if it does happen, I’d suspect it would be in the next two days before the free agency signing period begins on July 1st.

Thanks for stopping by the End of the Bench.  Come back soon.

Waking from hibernation

For the last few days, I’ve been lamenting the fact that I have not been updating regularly during the off-season. So many others are doing well at keeping up on the current events, but I just couldn’t find the topic that encouraged my brain to write something that all three of you would care to read. Now, I’ve got it. Before we get to the main course, here are the appetizers that have been simmering for days.

– Pascal Leclaire is signed by CBJ to two-year deal. EOB brief reaction: The team has put up the money, now it’s up to Pazzy to put up the numbers.

– Jason Chimera and the Blue Jackets avoided arbitration and agreed to a two-year term. EOB brief reaction: The third line gets to keep its offense.

– Nikolai Zherdev and the Blue Jackets are having difficulty coming to terms on contract length. As an “insurance measure,” Zherdev has signed with a Russian hockey club in case a deal cannot be worked out prior to the season starting. EOB brief reaction: The team needs to get this deal done. We have no replacements available to fit on one of the top two lines at this time. Bite the bullet, and give the Puck Wizherd his three years. The team cannot afford to lose any offense.

– The Islanders are battling for the title of “Worst Run Franchise in the New York City Metropolitan Area (and thus all of sports).” Just a month past hiring Neil Smith to be his GM and Pat Lafontaine to be a high level advisor, owner Charles Wang fired Smith and hired backup goalie Garth Snow to be the new GM (Jaw-Dropping Personnel Move of the Year nominee), which prompted Lafontaine to come to the realization that maybe this wasn’t the place for him. Islanders fans and new coach Ted Nolan have to be crying themselves to sleep at night. EOB brief reaction: I’m utterly fascinated to see how Wang’s “business model” works out. Also, as bad as MacLean may be, I’m glad I don’t pull for the Islanders.

And now the issue that woke me up from my more-than-week-long slumber. Forward Daniel Briere was awarded a one year contract worth $5 million in arbitration. The EOB offices have run the complete range of opinions on this one.

The first reaction was disbelief. EOB staffers do not follow the Eastern Conference as much as they should (lack of NHL’s Center Ice package, hint hint Mrs. EOB!). I saw him perform admirably in this year’s playoffs, but haven’t heard much on Briere outside of that. For him to be making $5M seemed a little outrageous to me.

Curiosity followed disbelief. I remember reading a while back that Martin Havlat’s $6M deal with Chicago was going to be a benchmark for some other contracts this summer. So I decided to do a little research. It’s been reported that the contracts signed by Havlat, Marion Gaborik, and Alex Tanguay were used as benchmarks for Briere’s arbitration case. I crunched some basic numbers, and the arbitration award made a little more sense.

All four players have comparable career point per game numbers (AT-0.89, MH-0.79, MG-0.76, DB-0.70) and three of the four outpaced their career point per game averages in the 2005-06 season (Havlat did as well, but only played 18 games for a fairly insignificant sample size). Translated into GM speak, this means that all four are due a healthy raise. Since GM’s continue to pay for past performance instead of future expectations, Havlat, Tanguay, and Gaborik were all able to secure nice contracts.

The funny thing about the UFA/RFA market is that many GM’s trip over their own feet to give huge sums of money to players. Yet when one of their own players (whom they would be aggressively pursuing on the UFA market) is eligible for arbitration, they will sit on the other side of the fence and come up with any and every reason why they should not give that player their market value (a market value which they likely helped create by overpaying for other talent).

I’m likely to believe that most cases that go to arbitration involve players who probably won’t be on their original team when the next season starts. I wonder if I have the energy and time to track this (or if anyone knows anything more than anecdotal evidence)? If I were a GM and I really wanted to make sure I continued a healthy relationship with my players, I’d probably secure contracts prior to arbitration. But that’s just me. These cases will be messy for at least one, if not both sides.

In conclusion, I think Briere got a fair deal considering what had already transpired with the benchmark cases. I think the most likely scenario involves a sign and trade type deal, with Briere being shipped out of the division. I wonder if the Red Wings could take Briere and Biron, and what they’d have to give up? Any thoughts from the A2Y corner?

Who knows if I’m back to writing on a more regular basis. I’ve been toying with the idea of incorporating more statistical analysis into my posts, but I’m having a hard time figuring out exactly what I want to examine. In any event, thanks for stopping by. See you soon at the End of the Bench.