$$$ can't buy you love: NYR of Russian league eliminated in 1st round

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dedalus

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Feb 27, 2002
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NYIsles1 said:
Actually, you decided to create your own characterization of what I wrote.
No, when you write "that cup was purchased" I had no need to characterize what you were writing.

NYIsles1 said:
You can acquire someone via buying them from another team which clearly happened in Messier's case
This is only "clear" to you because you wish to see it that way. You want to claim that money was the only important thing exchanged in the trade. That's not the case.

NYIsles1 said:
which led to considerations (Beukeboom) which led to another deal with cash exchanged for Lowe, the Graves signing outright
I'll take the 30 seconds to quibble here and remind you that Graves was acquired before the Messier trade. Thus your chain of logic falls apart where he is concerned. I guess I'll also take this opportunity to point out that when you said that "the Rangers also bought seven Edmonton Oilers" you listed Glen Anderson as one of those seven. I hope you're not trying to say that the Rangers bought Glen Anderson from the poor, cash-starved Toronto Maple Leafs, are you?

NYIsles1 said:
That's not what I wrote at all and I was pretty specific about it. I can repost it word for word again.
Oh I know what you wrote, and that's why I replied: "if you want to deviate from that principle I need to know what qualifies as "buying" versus "trading with money involved." What's the figure allowed to be transferred before you, personally, decide to call something "buying" a player?"

NYIsles1 said:
There is no call to be insulting.
If this is referring to what I said about the feeble nature your assertion regarding Lindros, please be assured I was not trying to be insulting, merely truthful. I can say pretty safely that the vast amjority of fans will laugh in your face if you attempt to argue that the Flyers bought, not traded for, Eric Lindros. I suspect you know yourself that this is a laughable claim.

NYIsles1 said:
Nicholls and whatever Edmonton got back was of little consequence to Edmonton in this deal, the Rangers money was.
So why not make it a straight cash transaction? I can assure you that Neil Smith would have preferred to keep Rice and move Nichols for something else that required a player asset. If Smith and MSG could have bought Messier's rights for nothing other than money, they would have been happy to do so. Given your claim here, Edmonton should have jumped at the chance to ignore these worthless players and prospects and simply take a larger cash payment.

NYIsles1 said:
Just as Philadelphia's money was in the Lindros deal.
So Forsberg, Simon, Duchesne, Huffman, Hextall, Ricci, and two 1st round picks were of little consequence to Quebec?

Uh-huh.

NYIsles1 said:
Without the money Messier-Beukeboom is traded to another organiztion or the Rangers anti-up Leetch and Richter and no cash is exchanged at all.
And without Nichols, Rice, Shaw, and DeBrusk, Messier and Beukeboom ALSO go to another team, so don't tell me that money was all that mattered. As for the "anti-up Leetch and Richter"[sic] point, we both agree that this simply wouldn't happen because Edmonton would have no desire to add that payroll.

NYIsles1 said:
I'm not confusing anything, cash was the over-riding factor as to why these deals happened
No, cash was the overriding factor in why Edmonton had to move these players. It was merely one factor among several in how they became Rangers.

NYIsles1 said:
which is why I contend Messier, Lowe and Beukeboom were purchased.
So then we do agree that if it can be said any Oilers were purchased, it is merely these three. Kind of eats away at your "core of the Rangers" argument, no?

NYIsles1 said:
I have not deviated on that point at all. I think knowledgable hockey fans know the difference between two teams making a legimate trade to improve themselves vs one that is clearly a cash-grab for one side while the other get's the majority if not all of the best players.
And yet those same knowledgeable hockey fans would laugh at you for saying Philadelphia bought, not traded for, Eric Lindros, therefore you cannot use the generic hockey fan to support your point.

What you're saying is that sometimes money can exchange hands and we can call it a trade, but then again sometimes money can't exchange hands. I call that a deliberately vague definition which allows you to skew your argument as appropriate.

NYIsles1 said:
I see no difference between this and the deal/acquistion/purchase/whatever for Messier, Beukeboom, Lowe..ect. I think the only reason you do is because one led to your team winning a cup and you do not like anyone writing your team bought a championship.
Really? You see no difference between Bernie Nichols, Steve Rice, Louie DeBrusk, Dave Shaw, Roman Oksiuta, and a 3rd round pick and Joel Bouchard, Rico Fata, Richard Lintner and Mikael Samuelsson?

So tell me then, since you see no difference between these deals, which of those latter four players equates to Bernie Nichols? Or even to Steven Rice in 1991 terms?

I'm sorry but if you can't (or won't) recognize the difference in value of talent in these two deals, I simply can't help you.

NYIsles1 said:
I guess when a trades (with money the over-riding factor) happens and the players fail you consider them bought but when they bring you a championship there is a some kind of difference
No. I find it much simpler to look at the value of the players, picks, and prospects being moved.

The Rangers got both the best and the second best (by your own admission) players in the Pittsburgh deal, and they got them for nothing more than 3rd liners, waiver acquisitions, and AHLers.

The Rangers traded away their first line center in the Messier deal, and it was a center who had, over the three previous seasons, out-performed the guy for whom he was traded. In fact he was one of the highest scoring centers in the league over that span.

As I said above, if you can't see the difference here, there's no helping you.

NYIsles1 said:
How am I denying the Rangers won by bringing out examples of buying players? They could have spent 500m in 1994, winning is winning and that cannot be denied.
Please let's not stoop to this level of game playing. We both know what I meant when I wrote that you were attempting to deny the Rangers won a Cup.
 

NYIsles1*

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dedalus said:
This is only "clear" to you because you wish to see it that way. You want to claim that money was the only important thing exchanged in the trade. That's not the case..
I guess we agree to disagree, you see things your own way also.

dedalus said:
I'll take the 30 seconds to quibble here and remind you that Graves was acquired before the Messier trade. Thus your chain of logic falls apart where he is concerned.
Graves knew Messier was headed to the Rangers. He wanted his payday and the Rangers were the only team willing to pay off Edmonton for his services. He signed a month before Messier was purchased knowing he was on his way.

dedalus said:
I guess I'll also take this opportunity to point out that when you said that "the Rangers also bought seven Edmonton Oilers" you listed Glen Anderson as one of those seven. I hope you're not trying to say that the Rangers bought Glen Anderson from the poor, cash-starved Toronto Maple Leafs, are you?

No, what I am saying is by this point the Rangers were adding every former Oiler they could get their hands on. These were Messier's teammates and once he got Nielsen fired it was his organization, he had a great deal of input.

dedalus said:
Oh I know what you wrote, and that's why I replied: "if you want to deviate from that principle I need to know what qualifies as "buying" versus "trading with money involved." What's the figure allowed to be transferred before you, personally, decide to call something "buying" a player?"

It not as easy as me providing you a number because it does not work that way and we both know it. I made that as clear as possible with examples. When teams are making moves to improve themselves contracts exchaged can have large disparities.

In the Messier-Beukeboom purchase, this did not happen. One team got paid, another got the best players in the deal. Which is what happened in the Lindros and Gretzky acquisition/purchase/whatever.

dedalus said:
If this is referring to what I said about the feeble nature your assertion regarding Lindros, please be assured I was not trying to be insulting, merely truthful. I can say pretty safely that the vast amjority of fans will laugh in your face if you attempt to argue that the Flyers bought, not traded for, Eric Lindros. I suspect you know yourself that this is a laughable claim.

We only speak for ourselves. Whether you agree or not without the cash Lindros is not a Philadelphia Flyer and that's the bottom line. Even if Forsberg did became a great player who turned out to be better than Lindros this happened only because of the cash, to me, that's a purchase, not a trade.

dedalus said:
So why not make it a straight cash transaction? I can assure you that Neil Smith would have preferred to keep Rice and move Nichols for something else that required a player asset. If Smith and MSG could have bought Messier's rights for nothing other than money, they would have been happy to do so. Given your claim here, Edmonton should have jumped at the chance to ignore these worthless players and prospects and simply take a larger cash payment..

Maybe the league put a limit on the deal and demanded the Rangers must give up something to balance this out. This did not even happen until after the season started and Nicholls played a game with the Rangers.

The Islanders had to trade Palffy (to be rid of his contract) and the first trade the league voided because it was not enough return for the Isles. Cash did not even exchange hands. Msg wanted Nicholls out and that was public knowledge. Maybe the comissioner told the Rangers they had to include at least a first rounder pick or he would not approve this.

dedalus said:
So Forsberg, Simon, Duchesne, Huffman, Hextall, Ricci, and two 1st round picks were of little consequence to Quebec?..

Without the cash there is no deal with Philadelphia. It's a trade with no money involved, when the cash is more important than the players exchanged it's a purchase.

dedalus said:
And without Nichols, Rice, Shaw, and DeBrusk, Messier and Beukeboom ALSO go to another team, so don't tell me that money was all that mattered. As for the "anti-up Leetch and Richter"[sic] point, we both agree that this simply wouldn't happen because Edmonton would have no desire to add that payroll..

Without the money this does not happen.

As for the " Anti-up " point if Sather demanded Leetch and Richter instead of Nicholls no money would have been exchanged and the deal never would have happened. Smith was not handing over top players and paying another team for the priviledge. I seriously doubt Leetch and Richter at that age were making more than Nicholls back then.

Sather would have taken Leetch-Richter's contract instead of Nicholls because both were younger and cheaper. What likely happened was Smith demanded Sather also take Nicholls contract in exchange for the Rangers eight million payment, which is why Smith also demanded Beukeboom and why this was never a legimate trade made to improve two teams on the ice.

The Oilers get the cash, the Rangers get all the impact players on their terms.

dedalus said:
So then we do agree that if it can be said any Oilers were purchased, it is merely these three. Kind of eats away at your "core of the Rangers" argument, no?

The Rangers kept one core-Richter/Leetch added four championship players from Edmonton's core and later took high contracts from Edmonton and other teams to finish the core at the 94 trade deadline when it was clear the Rangers did not think they were good enough to win.

dedalus said:
And yet those same knowledgeable hockey fans would laugh at you for saying Philadelphia bought, not traded for, Eric Lindros, therefore you cannot use the generic hockey fan to support your point.

I do not think so. I think knowledgable hockey fans know up front when a trade is made to make a team better vs one that is based upon one ownership putting a multi-million dollar check in the bank but I only speak for myself. There is no Lindros trade without the cash. Quebec got some players that turned out to be very good and one was great but at the time this happened Lindros was being sold off because he refused to play for Quebec, nothing more.

And soon there was no more Quebec.

dedalus said:
What you're saying is that sometimes money can exchange hands and we can call it a trade, but then again sometimes money can't exchange hands. I call that a deliberately vague definition which allows you to skew your argument as appropriate.
How many trades have we seen in the NHL where money (in terms of a million dollars or more) outright changes hands and is the major requirement up front to making a trade in the first place ? Outside of Kovalev, Messier-Beukeboom-Lowe, Gretzky, Lindros I really cannot not think of any that standout in almost twenty years.

dedalus said:
Really? You see no difference between Bernie Nichols, Steve Rice, Louie DeBrusk, Dave Shaw, Roman Oksiuta, and a 3rd round pick and Joel Bouchard, Rico Fata, Richard Lintner and Mikael Samuelsson?

So tell me then, since you see no difference between these deals, which of those latter four players equates to Bernie Nichols? Or even to Steven Rice in 1991 terms?

I'm sorry but if you can't (or won't) recognize the difference in value of talent in these two deals, I simply can't help you.
I guess you can't help yourself. The only thing I recognize is that the Rangers got the best players in these moves and the other teams got a check and the lesser players because they had no choice and needed the money. Bottom line neither were done to make Pittsburgh or Edmonton a better team on the ice.

dedalus said:
The Rangers got both the best and the second best (by your own admission) players in the Pittsburgh deal, and they got them for nothing more than 3rd liners, waiver acquisitions, and AHLers.

The Rangers traded away their first line center in the Messier deal, and it was a center who had, over the three previous seasons, out-performed the guy for whom he was traded. In fact he was one of the highest scoring centers in the league over that span.

As I said above, if you can't see the difference here, there's no helping you.

All I see is impact. One player led a team to a fifth Stanley Cup and was already a legendary player, the other bombed so badly he was being run out of his second organization. This deal was about impact. To justify this with statistics is not an accurate barometer at all and if you only want to talk numbers (besides the cash) than you cannot help yourself.
 
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dedalus

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NYIsles1 said:
Graves knew Messier was headed to the Rangers.
Source?

NYIsles1 said:
He wanted his payday and the Rangers were the only team willing to pay off Edmonton for his services.
The Oilers got some of Graves's paycheck? How was Edmonton "paid off" by the Rangers? An independent arbitrator ruled the compensation fo the Graves signing. The Oilers got nothing from the Rangers except what HE gave them, so how could the Rangers have "paid off" the Oilers?

Also do you have a source indicating that the Rangers were the only team to tender Graves an offer?

NYIsles1 said:
No, what I am saying is by this point the Rangers were adding every former Oiler they could get their hands on.
That may have been what you meant but here's what you wrote: "Actually the Rangers also bought seven Edmonton Oilers and won the 94 cup .... Graves, Andersson, Lowe, Tikkanen, Beukeboom, Mac Tavish, Messier. That's 1/3 of Edmonton's championship teams."

You wrote that the Rangers bought seven Edmonton players and listed Anderson as one of those seven that was bought. You should either withdraw his name or explain how the Rangers "bought" him from the Leafs.

NYIsles1 said:
We only speak for ourselves.
No I like your idea of a poll. You've felt free to use the term "most knowledgeable hockey fans," therefore you've felt free speaking for others. I'll put something up on one of the boards and we'll get a clearer idea of whether or not "most knowledgeable hockey fans" feel Philadelphia bought or traded for Eric Lindros.

NYIsles1 said:
Even if Forsberg did became a great player who turned out to be better than Lindros this happened only because of the cash, to me, that's a purchase, not a trade.
And that's the heart of the matter. You've decided to make the money exchanged (even when there's no money exchanged in the case of Graves, Tikkanen, Anderson, and MacTavish) the sole issue. You're willing to ignore every other asset that is moved from one team to another and thus equate the Gretzky deal with the Kovalev deal with the Lindros deal. That's fine because you're certainly allowed to wear any kind of blinders you wish, but you should at least concede that refusing to look at any factor other than the one that you most wish to see is the position of the fanatic.

NYIsles1 said:
Maybe the league put a limit on the deal and demanded the Rangers must give up something to balance this out .... Maybe the comissioner told the Rangers they had to include at least a first rounder pick or he would not approve this.
LOL! Conspiracy theories?

Okay tell you what, since we're playing the "maybe" game, howsabout this?

Maybe Glen Sather thought that Steven Rice was destined to be the league's next great power forward and thus wasn't just getting fair value in exchange for Messier, but robbing the Rangers blind. After all, we know the Oilers organization was dreadful at scouting young talent. Stands to reason they merely grossly misread Rice's potential, but they really did the deal to get the young rising star.

Like my "maybe" theory?

NYIsles1 said:
when the cash is more important than the players exchanged it's a purchase.
I think that could actually be a decent beginning of a definition. The problem is your application of it. By your own admission you do not discrimnate when the cash is to be weighed against other assets moved in the deal. You see no shades of grey where the players are concerned, and so Michael Samuelsson is equivalent to Bernie Nicholls, one of the league's top centers, in any of these trades.

In short, cash is more important when YOU decide it is, not as dictated by the actual assets traded. Thus Gretzky=Kovalev=Lindros.

And just to clarify things, if this is your working definition, how do Tikkanen, MacTavish, and Graves fit into your idea of buying players? Since no cash was exchanged in any case - much less "cash being more important than the players involved" - how do you call these purchases? (And don't write that the Oilers were looking to dump contracts. Again, that speaks to WHY the deals happened, not WHAT KIND of deals they were.)

NYIsles1 said:
Sather would have taken Leetch-Richter's contract instead of Nicholls because both were younger and cheaper.
Oh I'll want proof of that in Leetch's case. As for Richter, there's a much simpler explanation for why Sather wouldn't even bother to ask for him. That reason is Bill Ranford.

NYIsles1 said:
What likely happened was ...
Aaahhh, here we go ...

NYIsles1 said:
Smith demanded Sather also take Nicholls contract in exchange for the Rangers eight million payment
It's funny how someone who likes to speak so authoritavely on the Rangers could so grossly mis-state the way they do business. I'm sorry, but if you're going to live on speculation, you need to speculate within the framework reality has provided. Until Jaromir Jagr this year the Rangers have never been an organization that asks other teams to eat contracts. They do the eating, they do it happily because money is a non-issue, and they can get what they want by doing the eating. I think we also both know Glen Sather well enough to know that, in his Oilers days, he would laugh at a team like the Rangers demanding Messier on the condition that the Oilers take a contract that the Rangers don't want. Sather held the Smith and the Rangers in utter contempt ("If I had the Rangers's payroll, I'd never lose a game"), and while he may have needed to move contracts, he most certainly didn't do it by crawling to the Rangers and saying, "Please take my players! I'll even take bad contracts in exchange!"

His contempt for the Rangers aside, he had no reason to do so. As you like to keep pointing out, he was trading valuable commodities (an almost unique one as you seem to suggest in your glowing descritpion of Messier). The Rangers were hardly the only team that wanted what he was offering, so please don't try to tell me that Neil Smith was dictating terms to Glen Sather.

No, this speculation is, in its own way, more far fetched than your conspiracy theory above.

NYIsles1 said:
The Rangers ... later took high contracts from Edmonton and other teams to finish the core at the 94 trade deadline
So now we're going to bring other teams into this money thing. Are you saying now that when one team takes a high contract from another team that the team is buying players? Otherwise I don't see the point of this statement with regard to what we're arguing. For starters I'm thinking that the Leafs actually took the higher contract when they exchanged Anderson for Gartner, but more importantly I'm thinking contracts weren't on either team's mind. I'd say the same went in the dealine deal that sent Matteau and Noonan for Amonte and Oates. Is it your contention that those deals were about contracts and thus in some way buying players? If not, why are you bringing them up?

(And you see this goes directly to my main point. You seem to be willing to go in any bizarre direction just to try to prove that the Rangers championship was somehow less legitimate. Why are you mentioning contracts with relationship to these other deals except to cast the same kind of aspersions on those deals that you're casting on the Oiler deal? As I said, you just seem to be reaching for any way you can to attack the Rangers on any kind of money issue.)

NYIsles1 said:
The only thing I recognize is that the Rangers got the best players in these moves and the other teams got a check and the lesser players because they had no choice and needed the money. Bottom line neither were done to make Pittsburgh or Edmonton a better team on the ice.
These two points go together nicely. You're right, both Edmonton and Pittsburgh fielded lesser on-ice teams when they traded these players away. The Rangers also fielded a lesser on-ice team when they traded away Leetch, Malakhov, Nedved, Kovalev, DeVries, and Rucinsky, yet we both know they were hardly selling players. This is the part of the discussion you want to ignore in favor of talking about money. You want to pretend that Doug Weight had no relevance in the Tikkanen trade; nor that Oksiuta and a 3rd rounder had no relevance in the Lowe trade; nor that Rice and Debrusk had no relevance in the Messier trade; nor that Marchant had no relevance in the MacTavish trade.

The fact of the matter is that Edmonton knew perfectly well that their on-ice team was about to get worse by moving veterans. They also hoped (and were right in the cases of Weight and Marchant and even Oksiuta in that he brought Slegr to the Oilers) that their team was getting something for tomorrow's on-ice teams. But you'll ignore the youth and building factor and say this only had to do with money. This is also where your statement about "having no choice" comes in. Of course they had a choice. They probably had at least five other choices in the form of five other teams who would have traded for these players. Did those other teams have the commodities the Oilers wanted? Well we certainly know the Wings, Leafs, Flyers, Kings, and a handful of others had the money the Oilers wanted.

These trades happened because the Rangers had the combination of things the Oilers wanted, including the money the picks, the players, and the prospects. If it was only money, these players could have ended up in 8-10 different markets.

This is a simple truth but one I have no doubt you'll ignore.
 

NYIsles1*

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dedalus said:
I cannot provide links to articles in 1990, it was common knowledge most of that summer Messier was going to be a Ranger.


dedalus said:
The Oilers got some of Graves's paycheck? How was Edmonton "paid off" by the Rangers? An independent arbitrator ruled the compensation fo the Graves signing. The Oilers got nothing from the Rangers except what HE gave them, so how could the Rangers have "paid off" the Oilers??
I should have clarified this better. He (meaning Messier) wanted his payday and the Rangers were the only team willing to pay off Edmonton for his services. He (meaning Graves) signed a month before Messier was purchased knowing he was on his way.

dedalus said:
Also do you have a source indicating that the Rangers were the only team to tender Graves an offer?

Signing players away from their teams in that era were usually rare as free agents, which is why this went before an independant arbitrator, so I doubt there were offers for Graves aside from the team paying for Messier.

dedalus said:
That may have been what you meant but here's what you wrote: "Actually the Rangers also bought seven Edmonton Oilers and won the 94 cup .... Graves, Andersson, Lowe, Tikkanen, Beukeboom, Mac Tavish, Messier. That's 1/3 of Edmonton's championship teams."

You wrote that the Rangers bought seven Edmonton players and listed Anderson as one of those seven that was bought. You should either withdraw his name or explain how the Rangers "bought" him from the Leafs.

In the sense of giving the Leafs cash or making a one-sided deal for Anderson that was not designed to improve both teams I cannot write he was bought so I will withdraw his name ever though they likely added the higher salary.

dedalus said:
No I like your idea of a poll. You've felt free to use the term "most knowledgeable hockey fans," therefore you've felt free speaking for others. I'll put something up on one of the boards and we'll get a clearer idea of whether or not "most knowledgeable hockey fans" feel Philadelphia bought or traded for Eric Lindros.
I also made it clear, I only speak for myself at that end of those comments.

I also never suggested a poll what I did write is go ask the question on the Oilers board and see what reaction you get about the Lowe trade. You wrote: Well we'd need a time machine first so that we could ask Oilers fans THEN if it was a fair deal.

I guess a time machine is not required for the Lindros deal but one is for the Lowe deal? Too bad we cannot ask Quebec Nordique fans because they did not get a chance to have a board.

dedalus said:
And that's the heart of the matter. You've decided to make the money exchanged (even when there's no money exchanged in the case of Graves, Tikkanen, Anderson, and MacTavish) the sole issue. You're willing to ignore every other asset that is moved from one team to another and thus equate the Gretzky deal with the Kovalev deal with the Lindros deal. That's fine because you're certainly allowed to wear any kind of blinders you wish, but you should at least concede that refusing to look at any factor other than the one that you most wish to see is the position of the fanatic.

So you now agree Messier, Lowe and Beukeboom were purchased? There are several ways of buying a championship. Exchanging cash for impact players, outright throwing cash at free agents an absorbing larger contracts for smaller contracts.

The heart of the matter is this team was constructed with eight million dollars landing the rights to Messier which set up many of these moves which led to a cup.

Wearing blinders to me is trying to make a case statistical case that this was a trade where money was combined with talent to make it come off as a legit deal.

dedalus said:
Okay tell you what, since we're playing the "maybe" game, howsabout this?

Maybe Glen Sather thought that Steven Rice was destined to be the league's next great power forward and thus wasn't just getting fair value in exchange for Messier, but robbing the Rangers blind. After all, we know the Oilers organization was dreadful at scouting young talent. Stands to reason they merely grossly misread Rice's potential, but they really did the deal to get the young rising star.

Like my "maybe" theory?

The only problem is in the Gretzky purchase the league did get involved and forced Los Angeles to include something with the fifteen million the Oilers were getting to make the deal, but not nearly equal competitive. The Kings got Gretzky and Peter Pocklington got his cash. There was the same precedent going into the situtation with Messier and how the Oilers were doing business, just as Bettman put limits on the Kovalev purchase and set a cash limit.

dedalus said:
I think that could actually be a decent beginning of a definition. The problem is your application of it. By your own admission you do not discrimnate when the cash is to be weighed against other assets moved in the deal. You see no shades of grey where the players are concerned, and so Michael Samuelsson is equivalent to Bernie Nicholls, one of the league's top centers, in any of these trades.

In short, cash is more important when YOU decide it is, not as dictated by the actual assets traded. Thus Gretzky=Kovalev=Lindros.

When cash is the primary reason to move a player and the return is not designed to improve both teams equally I cannot call that a legitmate trade regardless of how it works out. How can you only agree the Rangers bought Kovalev and not see Rice and Nicholls as better (but hardly equal) assets to Messier just makes no sense to me unless you are loyal to players who won a cup as Rangers.

dedalus said:
And just to clarify things, if this is your working definition, how do Tikkanen, MacTavish, and Graves fit into your idea of buying players? Since no cash was exchanged in any case - much less "cash being more important than the players involved" - how do you call these purchases? (And don't write that the Oilers were looking to dump contracts. Again, that speaks to WHY the deals happened, not WHAT KIND of deals they were.).

The Oilers were looking to dump contracts. Maybe not in a young player like Graves case because it went to arbitration but deals happened to save the Oilers money first and foremost.

dedalus said:
Oh I'll want proof of that in Leetch's case. As for Richter, there's a much simpler explanation for why Sather wouldn't even bother to ask for him. That reason is Bill Ranford..

Are you trying to tell me Leetch was making more than Nicholls in 1990? Bernie had a high salary with the Kings and likely got his biggest payday when he became a Ranger. As far as we know maybe the Rangers paid part of his contract when they moved him. If Sather got Richter he would have moved Ranford because Richter was not making more than Ranford at that age.

dedalus said:
It's funny how someone who likes to speak so authoritavely on the Rangers could so grossly mis-state the way they do business. I'm sorry, but if you're going to live on speculation, you need to speculate within the framework reality has provided. Until Jaromir Jagr this year the Rangers have never been an organization that asks other teams to eat contracts. They do the eating, they do it happily because money is a non-issue, and they can get what they want by doing the eating.

Money is a non-issue to the company that owns the team, but they do not make a profit, in fact no team claims to lose more but that's another topic. As for how this organization does business they mostly absorbe contracts of star players for lesser players (Bure) and often name the terms unless it's with a team that makes a profit (Sakic) or is also owned by a large corporation. Or they just throw so much money at unrestricted free agents the player cannot pass on that kind of security.

dedalus said:
I think we also both know Glen Sather well enough to know that, in his Oilers days, he would laugh at a team like the Rangers demanding Messier on the condition that the Oilers take a contract that the Rangers don't want. Sather held the Smith and the Rangers in utter contempt ("If I had the Rangers's payroll, I'd never lose a game"), and while he may have needed to move contracts, he most certainly didn't do it by crawling to the Rangers and saying, "Please take my players! I'll even take bad contracts in exchange!"..

His contempt for the Rangers aside, he had no reason to do so. As you like to keep pointing out, he was trading valuable commodities (an almost unique one as you seem to suggest in your glowing descritpion of Messier). The Rangers were hardly the only team that wanted what he was offering, so please don't try to tell me that Neil Smith was dictating terms to Glen Sather.

The Rangers were not the only team after Messier's services. Source please?

First of all Sather is a former Ranger player, any contempt he may have had toward the organization in the late 90's likely came from dealing with the Rangers as he was forced by Peter Pocklington to dismantle his championship teams. That contempt was clearly not a very big issue when he was bought and paid for by Msg as quickly and easily as the players he was forced to hand over.

You act as if Sather had control over these trades and had choices in negotiations with Neil Smith. He was not allowed to keep Messier's contract any more than he was allowed to keep Gretzky's. Just as Pittsburgh could not keep Jagr or Kovalev.

Sather had no leverage at all. To portray this as an equal negotiation is not reflective of the circumstances surrounding this.

dedalus said:
So now we're going to bring other teams into this money thing. Are you saying now that when one team takes a high contract from another team that the team is buying players? Otherwise I don't see the point of this statement with regard to what we're arguing. For starters I'm thinking that the Leafs actually took the higher contract when they exchanged Anderson for Gartner, but more importantly I'm thinking contracts weren't on either team's mind. I'd say the same went in the dealine deal that sent Matteau and Noonan for Amonte and Oates. Is it your contention that those deals were about contracts and thus in some way buying players? If not, why are you bringing them up?

All I can say is these moves were a by-product of the Rangers purchasing Messier, they never would have happened otherwise.

dedalus said:
(And you see this goes directly to my main point. You seem to be willing to go in any bizarre direction just to try to prove that the Rangers championship was somehow less legitimate. Why are you mentioning contracts with relationship to these other deals except to cast the same kind of aspersions on those deals that you're casting on the Oiler deal? As I said, you just seem to be reaching for any way you can to attack the Rangers on any kind of money issue.)

The Rangers are too easy a target. No one needs to go as far back as Messier aside from brining up my very first point, you can win a cup with spending as easily as you can fail with spending.

Did I write the Rangers championship was less legimate? What I wrote was winning is winning, but how they get there is part of the story and this should be a part of it. Without the cash going to Edmonton there is no Messier with the Rangers and no championship. The Oiler deals with Los Angeles and the Rangers were a sad day for the NHL because they were not even trades designed to evenly improve two teams.

dedalus said:
These two points go together nicely. You're right, both Edmonton and Pittsburgh fielded lesser on-ice teams when they traded these players away. The Rangers also fielded a lesser on-ice team when they traded away Leetch, Malakhov, Nedved, Kovalev, DeVries, and Rucinsky, yet we both know they were hardly selling players.

You actually comparing the situtations the 90's Oilers and Pens were in with the Rangers last year dumping high priced players they mostly purchased to sell a youth movement of marginal prospects to fans because they couls not build a prospect base like well-managed teams do? :help:

dedalus said:
This is the part of the discussion you want to ignore in favor of talking about money. You want to pretend that Doug Weight had no relevance in the Tikkanen trade; nor that Oksiuta and a 3rd rounder had no relevance in the Lowe trade; nor that Rice and Debrusk had no relevance in the Messier trade; nor that Marchant had no relevance in the MacTavish trade.

I'm not ignoring anything, these deals were not predicated on Weight's potential, they were made based upon the Rangers trading smaller contracts for larger contracts because Edmonton had to dump salary which began with an eight million dollar check for Messier, which is the same point I have made about Forsberg, who turned out to be a great player.

dedalus said:
The fact of the matter is that Edmonton knew perfectly well that their on-ice team was about to get worse by moving veterans. They also hoped (and were right in the cases of Weight and Marchant and even Oksiuta in that he brought Slegr to the Oilers) that their team was getting something for tomorrow's on-ice teams. But you'll ignore the youth and building factor and say this only had to do with money. This is also where your statement about "having no choice" comes in. Of course they had a choice. They probably had at least five other choices in the form of five other teams who would have traded for these players. Did those other teams have the commodities the Oilers wanted? Well we certainly know the Wings, Leafs, Flyers, Kings, and a handful of others had the money the Oilers wanted..

Sather had no choice, whether you care to admit this or not. You also cannot equate the Wings, Leafs, spending habits today back in 1990 or you have not done your homework. The money paid to Edmonton by the Rangers in 1990 is almost equal to or greater than some of the total payrolls of most of those teams even in
92-93:

http://www.hockeyzoneplus.com/$maseq_e.htm

Sather got something as in whatever left-overs as he was forced to downgrade. As quckly as Nicholls (your franchise player) in the Messier purchase
was gone for even lesser value. And yes, you are right in that Sather (if he had some say) in these deals made a good call in Weight or Smith foolishly included him.

dedalus said:
These trades happened because the Rangers had the combination of things the Oilers wanted, including the money the picks, the players, and the prospects. If it was only money, these players could have ended up in 8-10 different markets.
This is a simple truth but one I have no doubt you'll ignore.

I completely disagree, the purchase of Messier took place only because of cash. If cash were not the primary part of the trade he would never have been a Ranger.

The idea that almost half the teams in the NHL back in 1990 were going to spend amounts equal or greater than their entire payroll to get Mark Messier is just completely incorrect and I do not see how you can justify this...
 
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Sonny Lamateena

Registered User
Nov 2, 2004
1,261
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Ottawa, Ontario
Bottom line, the 1994 Cup was not bought. The majority of the players on the team were aquired through trade but not the stupid cash trades of the more recent years, the Rangers gave up equal and some cases greater value in most of the trades. Admittedly alot of the deals were for young players or prospects and some didn't pan out, in hindsight the Messier deal was a steal, but thats the way deals work, you win some you lose some. Its not like Craig Mactavish, Esa Tikanen or Kevin Lowe, gave the Rangers years of all-star performances. The Oil i'm sure were more then happy to get Doug Weight and Todd Marchant for them. Jeff Beukeboom wasn't a key contributor on any of the Oiler teams and wasn't a huge loss for them, he had great success once paired with Brian Leetch but wasn't a key Oiler contributor. Glen Anderson was dealt to the Rangers from the leafs for Mike Gartner, a trade i personally wish hadn't been made, i feel the Rangers could of won the cup with Gartner and wish he would of won one stanley cup in his great career. Adam Graves played well for the Oil but statistically they got a comparable player in return, again in hindsight that was another steal. Its actually not that uncommon for one team to end up aquiring alot of players from one franchise, the devils had a real fascination with the habs in the past, aquiring players and personel, so that is pretty similar.
 
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RangerBoy

Dolan sucks!!!
Mar 3, 2002
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Bernie Nicholls was not thrilled with the trade to Edmonton because his wife(I think her name was Heather)was having a difficult pregnancy at the time of the trade.She had a previous miscarriage and was stuck in bed for most of her pregnancy

Typical of this Islander fan who is fascinated and obsessed with the Rangers.Give it up buddy and just admit your love for the Rangers :)

Nicholls never received any new contract from the Rangers.That was 1990 when the NHL salaries were not even released publicly and the players did not make that much money.Bernie never fit in New York and clashed with Roger Neilson

Why does this guy spend so much time and energy focusing on the Rangers :shakehead
 

NYIsles1*

Guest
RangerBoy said:
Typical of this Islander fan who is fascinated and obsessed with the Rangers.Give it up buddy and just admit your love for the Rangers
I admit I'm fascinated with the Rangers as a business story. A team that claims the most losses and mismanages themselves this badly while signing or trading players for top dollar is a fun business story and sports story.

Just as this topic was an interesting story because this Russian team should have won.

It's almost impossible to spend over five hundred million dollars for seven years and not finish in the top sixteen sports once. Dolan's Rangers and Spano-Milstein's Islanders could well be the two most mismanaged teams in sports history at completely opposite ends of the spectrum with the same result.

By your definition maybe you should give it up and admit your love for the Pens? How many articles are you going to post to get them relocated out of Pittsburgh.
 
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MojoJojo

Registered User
Jan 31, 2003
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Munchausen said:
The argument isn't that teams will win on a regular basis because they can spend. It's that teams cannot win on a regular basis if they can't spend. If you think about it, there's actually a huge difference.

Cannot? which team won the Stanley cup last year? What was their Payroll? What other team did they beat?
 

kdb209

Registered User
Jan 26, 2005
14,870
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MojoJojo said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Munchausen
The argument isn't that teams will win on a regular basis because they can spend. It's that teams cannot win on a regular basis if they can't spend. If you think about it, there's actually a huge difference.
Cannot? which team won the Stanley cup last year? What was their Payroll? What other team did they beat?

Yes, Tampa had a low payroll the season they won the cup, but what would there payroll have been the next year if they tried to keep their team intact. That's the problem - a low spending team can be sucessful one year (A hot goaltender, key players underpaid because of the ELS, surprise breakout years, etc), but not on a regular basis.

Look at the other recent low spending teams that have had cup runs in recent years - Carolina, Anaheim, etc - how many have had continued success.
 
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