he was paid market value. he would've gotten the same or similar elsewhere.
it's tallon's fault we have 10M invested in goaltending. he made the decision to try and secure that position for years with a huge contract. at the time, we all knew there was a chance it'd be a regrettable decision - teams are winning cups with young goalies left and right.
that said, i like bob and am rooting for him. he's a good guy and works hard.
To me it takes alot for good players to sign with the Florida panthers pre-tallon and during Tallon's reign. We had no real rep, was fairly unstable at certain points, no real momentum or progress and when we did gain any progress it was usually short lived which led to the roster/coaching/mgmt/staff being nuked the next season. In addition to that, we need face it.. we are a southern hockey team. We are not respected in the hockey league, nor do we really deserve it to a certain extent because we haven't done much compared to most of the bigger hockey markets. I feel that is turning around with our roster, stable ownership, prospects panning out and hopefully stable mgmt. It is easier to convince player's to take a leap of faith to join our roster because we are finally cooking with something great here.
So with that being said it always felt like Tallon had to overpay to "convince" players to sign with us so he threw the checkbook at them. I remember the cats spreading the "blueprint" plan, Tallon digging into Chicago's reserves and having Viola promise to open up his wallet. Every signing was like 2-3.5mil over and 1-2 years too much. By the end of it Viola already cut the cap and told Tallon not to buyout player's anymore. Viola himself had no confidence in Tallon & co. It was THAT bad.
Bob had the advantage from the start as he wanted to play for Florida and given we had absolutely no one in the net... Tallon went all in. Bob and his agent exploited a weakness. The only team I could see signing Bob at that ridiculous contract was new york as Luds was on his way out. Seeing how Zito handled trades and player signings is a breath of fresh air. I like Tallon for what he did but he made many mistakes that couldn't be swept under the rug. Bob's salary should really be around the 6.5 - 7mil range, 10 mil is absurd and will bite us in a ass later on. All in all I am pleased with his play so far and hopefully it continues till the celebration parade comes floating down the streets.
