Teams turn eye toward restricted free agents
Foxsports.com,
Saturday August 13th, 2005
There has been a widely
held opinion that teams who either couldn't or wouldn't bid for
unrestricted free agent (UFA) talent this year preferred to look
toward next year's market when the available talent would be younger
and more affordable.
This was based on the
fact that, under the new NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA),
the qualification age for UFA status drops to 29 next summer, plus
there's also the stipulation that players who have seven consecutive
seasons of active service would also qualify.
As for affordability,
it's possible that overall league revenues for the 2005-06 season
could be lower than the projected $1.7 billion, and if that occurs,
the salary cap ceiling would drop for the 2006-07 season from the
$39.5 million presently set for this upcoming season.
No one knows at this
point if the cap ceiling will be lower next season, but it's
becoming apparent there may not be as many top young UFA players as
anticipated.
Jarome Iginla and Joe
Thornton were eligible for unrestricted free agent status next
season, but both opted to re-sign with the Calgary Flames and Boston
Bruins, respectively, to long-term deals.
Tampa Bay's Vincent
Lecavalier and Montreal's Jose Theodore are also eligible for UFA
status in 2006, but talks with their respective clubs are believed
to be progressing, which makes it possible that they too will
re-sign shortly.
There will likely still
be some quality UFA talent available next summer, but not as many as
originally believed. Should most of them re-sign long term with
their current clubs before next July, those clubs banking on
scooping up younger stars in 2006 could end up disappointed.
There is, however,
potentially another way around that problem: offer sheets to
restricted free agents (RFAs).
Few RFA players
received offer sheets from other clubs under the previous CBA.
Bidding for RFAs could cost a team up to five first round draft
picks for a successful signing, but it was the fact that offer
sheets were quickly matched that served as a deterrent.
Under the new CBA,
however, it may become easier for a team to pluck away another
club's top RFA players.
With all teams now
under a salary cap, there are some presently attempting to re-sign
their respective RFA players but have limited cap space available
with which to do so. One example of this is the Detroit Red Wings,
who are at present in negotiations with young RFA forwards Pavel
Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg.
Under the old CBA, they
wouldn't have to worry about rival clubs attempting to poach these
two away with offers sheets because they weren't limited by a salary
cap and could easily match any offer.
But under this new CBA,
Wings GM Ken Holland has little wiggle room available to re-sign
Datsyuk and Zetterberg, which is causing negotiations between those
players and Holland to drag.
Holland would face a
tough decision if a rival club with more salary cap space sent an
offer sheet to either player for an amount more than the Red Wings
were willing to pay. He would have 72 hours to either match the
offer or allow that player to be signed away and accept a
pre-determined number of compensatory draft picks from the rival
club.
Holland could match the
offer, but it could push the Red Wings over the salary cap. They
would then have until the start of the season to dump enough salary
to put them under the cap.
Should Datsyuk or
Zetterberg stage a holdout early in the season and subsequently
receive an offer sheet, the Wings would face the same stark choice.
If either player held
out, the Red Wings would have until December 1 to re-sign them,
otherwise they'd be ineligible to play in the NHL for the remainder
of the season, including playoffs.
A rival club could wait
until three days prior to December 1 to send them an offer sheet,
which would ramp up the pressure on Wings management to match that
offer.
Don't expect the loss
of draft picks to dissuade a team either hungry enough or greedy
enough to pursue a top RFA player under this new CBA.
Some NHL teams have
draft records that in recent years left much to be desired. To them,
casting aside a few draft picks that probably wouldn't pan out for a
sure thing that can improve your club and sell more tickets today is
a fair trade-off.
Some clubs might also
look at potential available talent in next year's UFA market and
decide it would be best to pry away an RFA player from one team,
rather that attempt to win a bidding war against several teams in
the UFA market.
Don't expect there to
be a "gentleman's agreement" between the team owners not to raid
each other's rosters with offer sheets. At some point there is bound
to be a team willing to take the chance to not only test the new
CBA's limits but also the payroll limits of a rival
club.
