Question: how come the Wild are never mentioned in these trade fantasies that hockey columnists come up with this time of year?Sundin, Forsberg, and Hossa have been suggested as a "good fit" on just about every playoff team or contender. The Wings have been identified as a possibility (though it seems to me that one more quality defender is what they need, need being an obviously relative concept). The Ducks are correctly pinpointed as a team in This Year country. Flames, Avs, Canucks, Stars, etc. etc... yet I never read about Minnesota as an obvious or even possible destination for a high-end rental.
Demitra, Rolston, and half their D-corps are UFA at the end of the season. They're clearly a good team; their fans and their GM have to think that with the right addition, they're the 2nd-best team in the conference heading into the playoffs. Don't they?
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Also, TSN reported last night that a contract for Phaneuf is just about worked out. Bob McKenzie's guess in the intermission was that the annual value would be $6.5M or more.
I'm going to make a prediction now that will probably make me look foolish very shortly, and guess that the AAV is $1M/yr less than that. When Sutter is questioned about it, he'll explain that Phaneuf is still a young player with some things to learn and improvements to make, and that he has to prove that he can be a consistent difference-maker on a winning team. I'll guess a 5-year, $27.5M deal with the actual salary escalating over the course of the deal (4, 5, 5.5, 6, 7, or the like).
Matt, I don't think you will look foolish ... when I heard MacKenzie say an average salary of 6.5 mm I thought no way Sutter gives a 4th year player that. If I'd had to guess, I would have guessed something very close to your guess.
ReplyDeleteBut then, I'm no Bob MacKenzie, so what do I know.
Yeah, remember when Sutter signed Kipper, he was going on about how many of the contract years were in his prime, and how the contract was structured to reflect that.
ReplyDeleteYou have to take it with a grain of salt -- the player has a bottom line, regardless of what Sutter would *like* to pay him -- but I doubt he would have brought it up if he wasn't being somewhat sincere.
Off topic, but can anyone explain to me what was with the ice last night? the puck was bouncing around horribly all night. I mean, it's fucking cold out, shouldn't the ice be *better* than normal?
ReplyDeleteI'm going to make a prediction now that will probably make me look foolish very shortly, and guess that the AAV is $1M/yr less than that
ReplyDelete1/2 Fenwick!
For what it's worth...that's a fuck of a lot of money to pay for young Phaneuf.