I used to like Hudler, Eva has convinced me not to anymore.
He just flat out isn't worth that contract
David Jones and P.A.Parenteau signed the exact same contract, but with Colorado. Parenteau has been great (41 points) playing with Duchene, but Jones (career-high 45 points, has only broken 20 points twice) has nine points.
Going further, T.J. Oshie (20 points) signed for a slightly higher cap hit ($4.175m) and 5 years instead of four.
Saku Koivu signed for this season only at $3.8m, and has 27 points.
Chris Stewart (1yr), Chris Kelly (4yr), Mikael Samuelsson (2yr), and Sergei Kostitsyn (2yr) have $3m UFA cap hits signed last summer.
Kelly has 9 points, but is paid for his defense.
Kostitsyn has 3 goals and 15 points.
Stewart has 18 goals and 34 points.
Samuelsson we all know about.
For a few higher summer 2012 cap hits than Hudler's $4m/4, we have...
Shane Doan, $5.3m/4 (13g, 26pt, 46GP)
Ales Hemsky, $5m/2 (9g, 20pt, 38GP)
Tuomo Ruutu, $4.75m/4 (2g, 7pt, 15GP)
Chris Stewart is the only player who is clearly outperforming Hudler. And his contract was signed coming off of a season in which he scored 15 goals and 30 points in 79 games; less on both than he has now in 46 games.
Doan is a veteran, a physical player, and the "face" of the Coyotes. And he has similar offensive production to Hudler.
Hemsky, Ruutu, Kostitsyn are all clearly behind Hudler. Kelly is a different type of player and not truly a comparable; a better comparable for Kelly would be Helm.
So Hudler is clearly not overpaid based on contracts signed on the UFA market last season and how those players have performed.
there are different options and we can turn the page.
Do these options play for the Wings? How much will these options cost to sign, if they are free agents? Flip wants $5m. If you seriously think the Wings would have been worse off this season if Filppula had walked as a UFA last summer and Hudler were around and had the season he has had in Calgary, I don't know what to say.