How to fix the NHL's broken offer sheet system

We’re closing in on the July 1 opening of the NHL free agent market, and while much of the attention is focused on big-name UFAs like John Tavares, Ilya Kovalchuk and John Carlson, there’s also the usual batch of excellent young players hitting RFA status. And that means it’s time for our annual round of “Will this be the year that somebody signs an offer sheet?”

We already know the answer. No, it probably won’t.

It should be. There are plenty of players who could be eligible that any team would love to add, including names like William Karlsson, Mark Stone, Jacob Trouba and William Nylander. In a league in which players (especially forwards) hit their prime in their early 20s, offer sheets remain one of the only ways to acquire a young star who can instantly slot into the top of your lineup. For most teams, short of winning the draft lottery in a year with a sure-thing franchise player or two available, it’s just about the only way.

And yet we never see them. The NHL hasn’t had an offer sheet signed in over five years, going back to Ryan O’Reilly’s two-year deal with the Flames back in 2013. There have been only eight in the salary cap era, five of which had already come by 2008. And only three cap-era offer sheets have been signed by players who could be considered stars at the time – O’Reilly, Shea Weber in 2012 and Thomas Vanek in 2007.

It’s not like there’s a shortage of impact players in the RFA pool for teams to target. In 2015, a GM could have made a play for Vladimir Tarasenko. In 2016, there was a chance to sign Nathan MacKinnon, Mark Scheifele, Johnny Gaudreau or Nikita Kucherov. Last year, the target could have been David Pastrnak, Evgeny Kuznetsov or Leon Draisaitl. These are franchise-altering players, many just entering their most productive years, all of them available to any team that was willing to extend an offer. And yet, nothing.

From a distance, none of this makes any sense. Every GM in the league has a tool in their toolbox that can be used to acquire a superstar in his prime, and virtually none of them ever bother to use it.

When hockey fans complain about the lack of offer sheets, they often settle on one culprit: the GMs. If they actually put winning first, the thinking goes, we’d see offer sheets every year. But if their priority was to stay chummy with their colleagues, and to make sure their status in the hockey management old boys club remained in good standing, then they’d think twice. Wouldn’t want to get uninvited from a round of golf at the next GM meetings.

There’s probably some truth to that. But there’s a bigger issue: offer sheets are broken.

Put differently, the problem here isn’t just the 31 men who don’t seem to want to use the system. It’s the system itself. Given the way the rules are currently set up, a lot of the GMs who keep passing on superstar talent are actually acting rationally.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Beyond Steven-for-Shanahan: Five more forced RFA compensation trades

Last week, we looked back on the league’s long history of arbitrators having to sort out messy cases. One of the biggest was the 1991 case that saw Scott Stevens awarded to the Devils as compensation for the signing of Brendan Shanahan. It was part of the league’s old RFA system, under which some players who signed with a new team weren’t subject to a right to match or draft pick compensation, but rather to a forced trade in which each team submitted what they felt was a fair offer and an arbitrator picked one.

It was, to put it bluntly, a fantastic system. Oh, the players hated it, and so did most of the teams. But for fans, it was a great source of entertainment. It was all sorts of fun to debate the teams’ offers, come up with ones of your own, and speculate over which side the arbitrator would ultimately land on. The system lasted until 1995, when Gary Bettman’s first lockout ended with a new CBA that ushered in new RFA rules. This excellent blog post contains a detailed history of the old system; it’s fair to say we’re unlikely to ever see it return in the NHL.

So today, let’s look back on five more cases where RFA signings resulted in an arbitrator forcing a trade as compensation. None were quite as big as the Stevens-for-Shanahan blockbuster, but each had its own impact on hockey history.

The battle of the enforcers

Despite having just two seasons and 69 games under his belt, Troy Crowder was one of the league’s most feared enforcers in 1991. That was almost entirely due to a single fight, one that came on opening night of the 1990-91 season. Crowder’s Devils were hosting the Red Wings, and midway through the game Crowder found himself squaring off with the league’s undisputed heavyweight champion, Bob Probert. The legendary Wings’ tough guy had a nearly spotless record over the years, but Crowder won the fight handily, a shocking result from a virtually unknown contender. When the two split a pair of January rematches, Crowder cemented his status as one of the league’s best.

And so, during the 1991 offseason, the Wings went out and signed him. The logic seemed sound – if this was one of the few guys in the league who could give Probert trouble, the Wings would make sure their big dog wouldn’t have to worry about him. The Wings offered Dave Barr and Randy McKay as compensation. But Lou Lamoriello and the Devils responded with the same strategy they’d used in the Shanahan case: swinging for the fences. They demanded Probert himself as compensation.

This time, the arbitrator wasn’t having it. Just days after they struck gold with the Stevens ruling, the Devils lost the Crowder case, and settled for McKay and Barr. Probert remained in Detroit for four more years, while a back injury limited Crowder to just seven games in Detroit.

Graves consequences

Today, Adam Graves is a Rangers legend. He was a key part of the 1994 championship team and once held the franchise record for goals in a season, and in 2009, the team retired his number.

But back in 1991, Graves was still a highly regarded prospect who hadn’t done much in the NHL. At 23 years old, he’d yet to so much as crack the 10-goal mark in four NHL seasons. So it was a mild surprise when the Rangers targeted him during the offseason, signing him away from Edmonton and opening the door to a compensation ruling.

The Oilers asked for Steven Rice and Loui DeBrusk, while the Rangers offered Troy Mallette. None of those were especially big names, and in some corners of the hockey world the Graves case didn’t get much attention. When the arbitrator sided with New York and sent Mallette to Edmonton, most fans shrugged.

But the ruling turned out to be a crucial one. The Oilers had had their eye on Rice and DeBrusk as part of a far bigger deal, one that would send captain Mark Messier to New York. That trade had been rumored for months, but had taken a backseat during the Graves case. But when Messier announced his intention to hold out in an attempt to force a trade, the Oiler had to make a move. And so, on October 4, 1991, they made a deal with the Rangers. In exchange for Messier, they’d get all-star center Bernie Nicholls and the two players they’d targeted in the Graves case, Rice and DeBrusk.

Would the Messier deal have still happened if the Oilers had already landed Rice and DeBrusk? It’s tough to say. In hindsight, it seems impossible to imagine Messier winding up anywhere other than New York. But he could have, if we’d seen a different decision in an arbitration case over a little-known prospect.

>> Read the full post at The Hockey News

The NHL's official application form for submitting an offer sheet

Jay, just curious, how many pages of the new
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.

Read the rest of this post...

A brief history of NHL offer sheets

"Hmm, in New York I'd probably live in an
apartment, which means no snowblowers..."

With much of the frenzy around unrestricted free agency dying down, attention has turned to the handful of big name restricted free agents. With players like Steven Stamkos and Drew Doughty finding themselves in a position to negotiate a deal with the highest bidder, fans are waiting to see if a team would dare attempt to sign one of the young stars to an offer sheet.

Partly due to an apparent unwritten code among general managers and partly due to economic realities, it's rare to see a player actually sign an offer sheet. But it does happen, and NHL history is filled with examples of star players putting their current teams in a difficult spot thanks to a better offer from another team.

Here's a look at some of the most famous offer sheet attempts in NHL history.

July 26, 2007 – The Oilers sign Dustin Penner to an offer sheet that would cost them their upcoming first round pick as compensation, in a move Ducks' general manager Brian Burke condemns as “gutless” and “desperation” as he's frantically stuffing Penner's possessions into the nearest suitcase.

July 16, 1990 – Scott Stevens agrees to sign an offer sheet with the St. Louis Blues, on the condition that everyone agree that hits to a defenceless opponent's head that cause serious brain injuries will remain totally cool until after he retires.

August 6, 1997 – The New York Rangers nearly succeed in acquiring superstar Joe Sakic with a heavily front-loaded offer in what everyone agrees is a transparent attempt to exploit a loophole that the NHL will no doubt be taking care of immediately.

Read the rest of this post...

The Leafs and RFAs

From today's Lance Hornby column.

The Leafs also can get bold and sign a restricted free agent, as long as it's between $1.3 million and $2.6 million a year, costing only a second-rounder.

Really?

I don't think the Leafs can bid on any RFAs in this range, because:

• Teams must use their own draft picks for RFA compensation, and the picks have to be in the following year's draft
  
• The Leafs don't own a second-round pick next year thanks to the Schenn trade
  

Please tell me I've got this wrong, because the alternative is that random bloggers like me know the CBA better than one of Toronto's top hockey writers.