OFFICIAL: 2011 HFNHL Free Agent Results - *** COMPLETE ***

[Dr.Sens(e)]

whoa. can we all take it down a notch. seriously

Yeah, but you should see him go 'postal' in person! In T.O., at one of our GM conferences, it took three cops, some mace and a high dose of electricity to get him into the back of the cop car. And all because I had made one too many offers for Backstrom. Felt bad about that one.

I can just see Matt in a dark room in Hollywood after this post, muttering to himself and swinging his hockey stick as random objects in his palatial pad. So dramatic down there, no wonder he's thriving.

 

[MatthewFlames]

Yeah, but you should see him go 'postal' in person! In T.O., at one of our GM conferences, it took three cops, some mace and a high dose of electricity to get him into the back of the cop car. And all because I had made one too many offers for Backstrom. Felt bad about that one.

I can just see Matt in a dark room in Hollywood after this post, muttering to himself and swinging his hockey stick as random objects in his palatial pad. So dramatic down there, no wonder he's thriving.

I have been wondering why you stopped making offers for Backstrom. I thought that whole thing was because Alfie was in the bar and Tony was being creepy.

Now where is my drama queen icon???? Somewhere in here......

 

[HFNHL Commish]

This is the problem with free agency and the offseason...everyone's bored, refreshing every five minutes to see if anything's changed. So, in essence, this stuff snowballs in a matter of hours.

And THEN, I finally log back on. I'm surrounded by animals, I tell ya! WTF?

I need a drink.

 

[HFNHLOilers]

Any idea when UDFAs lottery will be held?

 

[MatthewFlames]

Any idea when UDFAs lottery will be held?

We are going to take a short breather to getbthe files updated before the UDFA and 2nd round of FA. Stand by for an announcement

 

[Fan.At]

I thought that whole thing was because Alfie was in the bar and Tony was being creepy.

shut up

 

[Dryden]

We are going to take a short breather to getbthe files updated before the UDFA and 2nd round of FA. Stand by for an announcement

How do you keep 27 idiots in suspense?

 

[Donga]

How do you keep 27 idiots in suspense?

This sounds like a lightbulb joke waiting to happen...

 

[MatthewFlames]

SECOND ROUND FINAL

NJD Michael Leighton 3 x 500,000
NJD Brian Elliot 4 x 1,000,000
NJD Thomas Griess 4 x 800,000
NJD Robbie Earl 4 x 450,000
DET Peter Sykora 2 x 1,375,000
CHI Stephane Veilleaux 1 x 750,000
CHI Ryan Reaves 3 x 525,000
CHI Steve Pinizzotto 3 x 600,000
MTL Jonathon Hazen 3 x 900,000
MTL Zach McKelvie 1x450,000
VAN Owen Nolan 4 x 1,000,000
VAN Steven Reinprecht 4 x 1,000,000
VAN Andrew Desjardins 1 x 600,000
VAN Janne Pesonen 4x1,000,000

 

[Hossa]

SECOND ROUND FINAL

NJD Michael Leighton 3 x 500,000
NJD Brian Elliot 4 x 1,000,000
NJD Thomas Griess 4 x 800,000
NJD Robbie Earl 4 x 450,000
DET Peter Sykora 2 x 1,375,000
CHI Stephane Veilleaux 1 x 750,000
CHI Ryan Reaves 3 x 525,000
CHI Steve Pinizzotto 3 x 600,000
MTL Jonathon Hazen 3 x 900,000
MTL Zach McKelvie 1x450,000
VAN Owen Nolan 4 x 1,000,000
VAN Steven Reinprecht 4 x 1,000,000
VAN Andrew Desjardins 1 x 600,000
VAN Janne Pesonen 4x1,000,000

Hazen's already signed.

Greiss and Elliott are RFA offer sheets I assume?

 

[Fan.At]

SECOND ROUND FINAL

NJD Michael Leighton 3 x 500,000
NJD Brian Elliot 4 x 1,000,000
NJD Thomas Griess 4 x 800,000
NJD Robbie Earl 4 x 450,000
DET Peter Sykora 2 x 1,375,000
CHI Stephane Veilleaux 1 x 750,000
CHI Ryan Reaves 3 x 525,000
CHI Steve Pinizzotto 3 x 600,000
MTL Jonathon Hazen 3 x 900,000
MTL Zach McKelvie 1x450,000
VAN Owen Nolan 4 x 1,000,000
VAN Steven Reinprecht 4 x 1,000,000
VAN Andrew Desjardins 1 x 600,000
VAN Janne Pesonen 4x1,000,000

Nashville matches the offer sheet on Greiss (obviously)

 

[Ohio Jones]

Why would Elliott's agent agree to a 4-year deal at that price point?

 

[Brent Burns Beard]

VAN Owen Nolan 4 x 1,000,000

4 years? really?

 

[Hossa]

4 years? really?

What difference does it make. He may not even make it to the end of the week without retiring or returning to Europe, there's no way Nolan plays out those four years, so there's no risk. Maybe he catches on and pops 20 goals this year and is worth more than 1M next year, or maybe the extra years beat out a one-year offer, but what's the downside?

 

[Brent Burns Beard]

What difference does it make. He may not even make it to the end of the week without retiring or returning to Europe, there's no way Nolan plays out those four years, so there's no risk. Maybe he catches on and pops 20 goals this year and is worth more than 1M next year, or maybe the extra years beat out a one-year offer, but what's the downside?

well its your team and clearly you know what you are doing but i just figured in the context of a "simulated" NHL it stood out like a sore thumb that Owen Nolan would be offered a 4 year contract.

obviously its within the rules, good luck with the season!

 

[Dryden]

I actually agree with Rob. These contracts are kinda weasally. Might as well just offer an extra $50 or something. The 4 years is just done because it's the max you can offer and if someone offers a 1 year contract the agent will choose the 4 year contract.

Perhaps we should limit the number of years for players over a certain age to stop this. Or something like that.

 

[Brent Burns Beard]

I actually agree with Rob. These contracts are kinda weasally. Might as well just offer an extra $50 or something. The 4 years is just done because it's the max you can offer and if someone offers a 1 year contract the agent will choose the 4 year contract.

Perhaps we should limit the number of years for players over a certain age to stop this. Or something like that.

i actually wasnt commenting on it being weasily more like who would offer a guy like Nolan such a deal. like i said, in the context of a "simulated" NHL it is a dumb offer but based on the framework of our league, its not.

but now that it is brought up, a solution i have seen to this is that when players retire, the team has to buy out the remaining years of the contract at 50%. this seems to help people be a little more realistic in term and $$ of guys like Nolan.

that said, not trying to stir up controversary!

 

[Hossa]

Give me a break. If we want to make a list of all the transactions in our league which don't make sense in a "simulated NHL" way, this is really not where we're going to start. I mean even just in free agency, between the contracts that were handed out and the UDFA lottery, the entire thing is a product of our league's reality, because not everything attempts to mimic the NHL and not everything should. And that's fine. We work hard to make our season and our trades and our draft realistic, but we accepted long ago that contracts and free agency had to include certain concessions, adaptations and restrictions.

And frankly, I think when it comes to free agency and contracts, I think our league does a better job of keeping things modest and avoid the crazy than the NHL. For one thing, some of the contracts you see handed out in the NHL are insane on both dollars and term. Tomas Kopecky and Sean Bergenheim got 4-year deals at 3M and 2.75M a piece this summer, and neither of them has as many goals over the last three years as Owen Nolan. And Nolan spent one of those three years in Zurich.

 

[Ville Isopaa]

I still think we should enforce the NHL rule on multiyear contracts for +35 year old players. The salaries should count towards the cap for the full contract even if the guy retires.

 

[Hossa]

I still think we should enforce the NHL rule on multiyear contracts for +35 year old players. The salaries should count towards the cap for the full contract even if the guy retires.

Ya, I've had the same thought. It's a good rule in the NHL, definitely one of their more effective loophole-closing measures. As with any rule though, we have evaluate whether the time and energy to enforce it would be proportional to the benefit of enforcing it, and generally speaking we've been trying to simplify all contract and free agency work because it gets time-consuming.

The other question is how you'd enforce it within the salary cap, since we calculate our cap differently than the NHL. Do all 35+ contracts automatically count within the top 21 OV players? The NHL rule is to protect against excessively long and/or frontloaded deals to veterans, but our contracts are flat and capped at 4 years.

Anyways, I have no opposition to it in principle, but no matter how many rules you have, people will still find new strategies that fit within or walk along the line.

 

[Ville Isopaa]

the easiest way to make these contract stick out is to add $1 to them and not remove them from the rosters, so if Nolan retired, his 1m x 4y contract would be $1,000,001 x 4y and he'd rate say 40's in all ratings. No other contracts would be allowed to end on a 1, to make them easier to spot.

As to how it would count towards the cap, I think there are two options.
1) When the player doesn't make the top 21 OV players or retires he becomes the 22nd player to cont towards the cap.

2) The +35y contracts would first take out the 21st player that counts towards the cap. If you have two +35y contracts, the 2nd would count as the 6th defenseman, 12th forward or 2nd goalie, etc. In this case I guess we'd have to add that the +35y contract doesn't count in case the salary is lower than the contract that would be replaced. So if your 21st players salary would be 1,2m and Nolan retired, his 1m contract would not count at the moment, as it would be lower.

 

[Dryden]

Sean, I wasn't calling you out personally just The lack of a rule in general.

I like Ville's idea

 

[Fooladelfia]

Give me a break. If we want to make a list of all the transactions in our league which don't make sense in a "simulated NHL" way, this is really not where we're going to start. I mean even just in free agency, between the contracts that were handed out and the UDFA lottery, the entire thing is a product of our league's reality, because not everything attempts to mimic the NHL and not everything should. And that's fine. We work hard to make our season and our trades and our draft realistic, but we accepted long ago that contracts and free agency had to include certain concessions, adaptations and restrictions.

And frankly, I think when it comes to free agency and contracts, I think our league does a better job of keeping things modest and avoid the crazy than the NHL. For one thing, some of the contracts you see handed out in the NHL are insane on both dollars and term. Tomas Kopecky and Sean Bergenheim got 4-year deals at 3M and 2.75M a piece this summer, and neither of them has as many goals over the last three years as Owen Nolan. And Nolan spent one of those three years in Zurich.

That`s me there.
BTW I like Ville idea too...

 

[Hossa]

Sean, I wasn't calling you out personally just The lack of a rule in general.

Ya, but you timed it so I'd read it before I had my morning coffee, and therefore you had to realize there was no way to predict how I'd respond.

 

[MatthewFlames]

UPDATED 2nd ROUND

UFA

NJD Michael Leighton 3 x 500,000
NJD Robbie Earl 4 x 450,000
DET Peter Sykora 2 x 1,375,000
CHI Stephane Veilleaux 1 x 750,000
CHI Ryan Reaves 3 x 525,000
CHI Steve Pinizzotto 3 x 600,000
MTL Jonathon Hazen PREVIOUSLY SIGNED
MTL Zach McKelvie 1x450,000
VAN Owen Nolan 4 x 1,000,000
VAN Steven Reinprecht 4 x 1,000,000
VAN Andrew Desjardins 1 x 600,000
VAN Janne Pesonen 4x1,000,000

RFA

NJD Brian Elliot REMAINS RFA
NJD Thomas Griess 4 x 800,000 -- Matched.

So as pointed out - Hazen is not a free agent. I missed that Elliot and Griess were RFA. They are. Elliot doesn't sign - I didn't realize that he was qualified at 1.5 million. Griess matched.

Now - any further free agent nonsense is passed onto the Agents. GOOD LUCK!