Elliotte Friedman has his always interesting "30 thoughts" piece up today. As always, because I'm a know-it-all, there's a couple of points I'd like to contend:
The other was Darryl Sutter. No one had any issue with giving Matt Stajan four years, but let’s just say they were less impressed with the $14 million. “That’s going to make everyone else’s job a lot harder,” one said.
This is flat out nonsense. Off-season UFA prices are almost wholly moderated by supply and demand. With that in mind, consider that this is the upcoming field of UFA centers:
Marleau
Jokinen
Modano
S.Koivu
Cullen
Madden
Plekanec
Weight
Halpern
Lombardi
Things get thin real quick once you get past Marleau, Jokinen and Plekanec. Anyone claiming that Stajan's (who has back-to-back 50+ point seasons) 3.6M/year salary is grossly out-of-line is probably full of shit. Conduct this thought experiment, if you will - if Sutter had signed Stajan to the very same contract on July 2nd, would anyone be saying anything?
So let's say you're the MTL GM trying to re-sign Plekanec. Probably the only thing the Stajan contract has done is remove another piece from the UFA pool and slightly up league-wide demand for your player come July 1. What Stajan signed for in terms of cap dollars is probably moot. Let's put it another way - if Stajan had been inked to some bargain basement amount ($1M/year), would that make Plekanec somehow easier or cheaper to sign this summer? I seriously doubt it. Let's extend our reasoning and pretend that Marleau, Jokinen, Cullen and Lombardi suddenly sign cheap contracts. Do Plekanec's contract demands 1.) decrease because of the "comparables" or 2.) increase because of the lack of alternatives?
I know which one I'd guess.
Peter Chiarelli can’t say it, but here’s the truth: the reason the Bruins did not add offence is because they are not good enough to win the Stanley Cup. He really, really tried to get a scorer – Wojtek Wolski, for one – but it makes no sense to part with high-end players/picks unless that’s the final piece. The Bruins have some serious soul-searching to do. The work ethic is missing.
Sigh. The Bruins record was a mirage last year. They didn't suddenly decide to be a bunch of lay-abouts and slackers in the space of a season. Forget that they've battled significant injury and player attrition issues this season, the real cause of their struggles is "regression". Their SH and SV% percentages, which were sky-high last year, were bound to come back to Earth eventually. As for not working hard enough? Their overall corsi rating is actually superior this year.
Appropriately enough, I took on a similar issue last year when the Bruins record began to droop in the latter portion of the season. My conclusions from that post apply here, I think.
