CBA have you not got around to reading yet?
The Calgary Flames tried to offer sheet Ryan O'Reilly last week. You may have read about how that turned out.
But while we now know how close the Flames came to disaster, there's an aspect to this that most of us aren't familiar with: how an offer sheet gets made in the first place. Given the millions of dollars involved, you might assume that it's extremely complicated. It's not. The GM in question just has to complete a simple form to get the process started.
Luckily, DGB spies were able to obtain a copy of the very same form that Jay Feaster and the Flames recently had to fill out.
Dear general manager,
Thank you for your interest in signing an NHL player to an offer sheet. To help us process your request as quickly as possible, please fill out the form below.
Your name: ____________________
Your team: ____________________
Name of player: ____________________
Name of player's team who will immediately match this offer, making this whole thing a huge waste of time: ____________________
Amount of money that player is worth: ____________________
Amount of money you are offering that player (or just draw an arrow to the number written above, then write "times three"): ____________________
Offer sheets have rarely been successful in the NHL. Please indicate why you feel this is a good year to sign an RFA.
( ) This year's condensed schedule may make teams less likely to match a front-loaded offer.
( ) Next year's tight cap could make it harder for teams to find the space to match aggressive offers.
( ) Brian Burke is not currently an NHL GM, so I probably won't have to fight anybody in a barn.
( ) Can really focus on player transactions this year, since thanks to the Blackhawks this isn't one of those annoying seasons that's plagued by all sorts of distractions and uncertainty over who's going to win the Stanley Cup.
If you are signing a player to a contract with an average annual value greater than $3.3 million, your compensation to the other team will include a first round draft pick. Why are you willing to give up such a high pick?
( ) Feel the first round pick will have little or no value, relative to the superstar player we would be acquiring.
( ) Feel the first round pick will have little or no value, since we expect to pick at the end of the round.
( ) Feel the first round pick will have little or no value, because we are the Calgary Flames and for the past decade our entire amateur scouting department has been made up of one guy watching a borrowed VHS tape of Youngblood on a permanent loop.
( ) Don't even actually have a first round pick this year, but am assuming nobody will notice that crucial detail until it's too late since that seems to be how things are done in this league these days.
While offer sheets are historically rare, they do happen occasionally. Have you learned anything from the various offer sheets throughout league history?
( ) Thomas Vanek, 2007 - learned that the Edmonton Oilers are pretty good at figuring out which players will develop into superstars someday.
( ) Dustin Penner, 2007 - learned that we were wrong about the whole Thomas Vanek thing.
( ) Shea Weber, 2012 - learned that some cruel person must have told the Flyers that Shea Weber was a goalie.
( ) Brendan Shanahan, 1991 - learned that there's apparently something about signing an offer sheet two decades ago that makes you unable to properly view videotape of Patrick Kaleta.
Some GMs are reluctant to sign offer sheets because they're concerned about retaliation from other teams. Please indicate any future consequences that you may be concerned about.
( ) Other teams targeting my restricted free agents this offseason.
( ) Other teams targeting my unrestricted free agents this offseason.
( ) Other team refusing to trade with me this offseason.
( ) Ha, joke's on them, thanks to this offer sheet I won't even be the GM of an NHL team anymore by this offseason!
Clearly, any team willing to attempt an offer sheet must believe the player involved holds high value. What are you primarily basing your evaluation of this particular player on?
( ) Fairly reliable traditional metrics, such as goals and +/-.
( ) More reliable advanced metrics, such as Corsi and zone starts.
( ) 100% reliable metrics, such as asking Mike Milbury what he thinks and then just doing the complete opposite.
( ) To be totally honest, are pretty much basing this one entirely on eyebrow awesomeness.
Just checking, but before you signed this deal you did look into Article 13.23 of the new CBA, right?
( ) Yes, and still feel comfortable going forward.
( ) No, but will totally lie and say we did after somebody else mentions it.
( ) That's the one about banning triple low-fives, right?
( ) Wait, we signed a new CBA? Crap, I should probably get to work on adding some good players to my roster before the season starts!
Finally, and we're just throwing this one out there because we're curious, but you do remember that secret meeting a few years ago where all the GMs agreed never to actually use offer sheets, right?
( ) What?
( ) Oh, right.
( ) Sorry about that.
( ) Oh well, no harm no foul, so I guess we can OH GOD WHY IS GARY BETTMAN STANDING RIGHT BEHIND ME WITH PIANO WIRE?
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Great work. The Shanahan line, the triple low-five joke, the Youngblood line all made me laugh outloud in the doctor's waiting room.
ReplyDeleteThe Burke - fighting in a barn one had me in tears. Well done!
ReplyDeleteWhy is my team's management so completely inept? Feaster deserves to lose his job for this.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, our draft scouts can be turfed as well. I can't honestly remember the last time we drafted someone legitimately good.
Baertschi's decent, at least.
DeleteThank you for making fun of Hockey Matt Millen, how Milbury has a job is beyond me.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I watch an NHL on NBC broadcast, I wonder how it is that Mike Milbury still has a job.
DeleteThen I realize that they'd have to replace him with one guy who says obvious things, a second guy who says idiotic things, a third guy who is always wrong, a fourth guy who makes Keith Jones sound like freaking Aristotle, and a fifth guy who just says "Bruins" a lot.
So, um, good job, Mike. Way to multitask.
That is the most accurate summation of Mike Milbury ever.
DeleteGreat work, but the Shanahan RFA debacle was in 1991. 1994 was the Petr Nedved debacle.
ReplyDeleteRight you are... thanks.
DeleteIs that why you said Shanahan 91 in the post
Deletethat's why he changed it to 91 in the post.
Delete"( ) Shea Weber, 2012 - learned that some cruel person must have told the Flyers that Shea Weber was a goalie."
ReplyDeleteThat was side-splittingly brillliant!