Read a lot, don’t post often, but I’d like to offer my very humble POV on the Hamilton affair.
Knowing that:
- the Bruins offered him $33M/6 yrs ($5.5M/yr)
Darren Dreger @DarrenDreger 30 juin
Bruins made offers on 4-5-6 year terms. Best offer to Hamilton was 6 years at $5.5 average. Obviously both sides believed change was best.
- that Hamilton camp countered with $45M/6 yrs ($7.5M/yr):
Per Elliotte Friedman: The best information I can give you is it appears the team offered six years and $33M to Hamilton, while the response was about $2M per year higher. (
http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/30-thoughts-canucks-bieksa-deserves-better/)
- and that Hamilton ended up signing for $34.5M/6 yrs with Calgary ($5.75M/yr),
we're justified to conclude that Hamilton had no intention of staying here, as said Elliotte Friedmann:
Elliotte Friedman @FriedgeHNIC 30 juin
BOS offer to Hamilton was $5.5 AAV. New contract in CAL will be approx $5.75. Safe to say player wanted a fresh start and Flames are it.
Moreover, Sweeney at his presser after the trade said:
“…I think the more important part was I don’t believe that we would have been that Dougie would have been comfortable in Boston going forward, for the long term…†(
http://nesn.com/2015/06/live-stream-don-sweeney-discusses-bruins-dougie-hamilton-milan-lucic-trades/, at around the 4:20 mark)
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The first sticking point is when did Sweeney learned that.
I have no idea, but obvisouly, the sooner the better so he can have more time to find the best trade possible.
The second one is why did Hamilton want out.
Some people on this board I consider well-connected (mainly DHK and Dom) seems to know something.
After reading stuff right and left, my general take is that “Team Hamiltonâ€, for whatever reason, wanted Dougie in “comfortable surroundingsâ€, for whatever that means, and that Boston (or the Bruins) was not that (it reminds me a bit the Lindros affair, but I'm not going there
). Further, I think that it was not necessarily a “Boston†thing, that there were very few places that were considered “comfortable surroundings†by Team Hamilton, limiting the list of possible suitors.
I’m pretty sure that some higher-ups on other organizations knew something about that and had some ideas of what were those “comfortable surroundingsâ€. That would partly explain why we heard so much about offer sheet threats leaking through the media leading up to July 1st.
One who very probably knew that Team Hamilton would not sign in Boston was Chia. I would venture to guess that he approached Sweeney to let him know that and that he’d rather make a trade for Dougie than offer sheet him, not unlike Burke did in Kessel’s case.
The problem for Sweeney is that his trading options were limited, even more if he excluded some or all the Eastern Conference teams. I’m pretty sure that Arizona and Carolina for example would have either known of Team Hamilton wants or would have wanted to talk to Hamilton before-hand. Since I guess those were not considered comfortable surroundings, they were not that interested in dealing with that.
Essentially, Sweeney’s hands we tied up to a certain point, and Team Hamilton had a lot more leverage than we might have thought.
Seeing that, Sweeney opted to trade him for picks before this year’s draft instead of declining an upcoming offer sheet, which was the right thing to do since the 2015 draft had been drummed up as a super rich and deep draft.
Obvisously, he could have matched the offer, but then the team is "stuck" with a player not wanting to be here for at least a year and a crop of picks in a weaker draft. I know team chemistry is overrated, but that could have turn pretty ugly.
Funny because I’ve read some posts saying the Bruins played hard ball with the kid, but it seems to me that they rather let him get what he wanted.
That’s why I give Sweeney a pass here, espacially after the other moves he made.
Maybe I should take off my Black and Gold glasses, but hey, I am what I am!
