Free Agency Update

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Dr.Sens(e)

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Gentlemen,

A few notes on Free Agency…

1/ There were a tremendous number of offers submitted, with some general managers making well over 50 offers with priority lists well into the double digits. This is going to take a bit of time to sort through.

2/ With so many prioritized offers, there are several situations where the highest offer thus far is not a first priority for the team making the bid – and in some cases none of the top three offers are making unconditional offers. As such, there may be instances where the team with the 4th or 5th highest offer at this point may actually get the player. There may also be situations where a player discounts a team’s offer slightly, given the relative priority attached to it. This may also lead to more than three teams being included in a 2nd round of bidding if none of the top three offers an unconditional offer.

3/ Several General Managers will be contacted first regarding players who are willing to sign with the team now, but are not the highest priority. Teams will be given the choice to sign the player immediately, and/or continue bidding on the higher priority player (assuming they are still in the bidding). If they choose not to sign the player, the offer will remain on the table conditionally, but every other team will have the opportunity to see the offer, and jump into the bidding if they are so inclined. This will be happening this week, in advance of a formal announcement on the official results of the first round.

4/ There are three players (Junior Lessard, Thomas Pock and Yann Danis) who received several offers with the maximum allowable salary under the rookie cap. A lottery will be used to determine which teams these players sign with. This should be arranged this week (it takes a few admin team members to assist and maintain the integrity of the lottery).

Of note, a few players received a tremendous number of lucrative offers (over ten). Most notably, Jochen Hecht received offers from more than half the teams in the HFNHL. Suffice it to say, there will be a very wealthy German in our midst when the smoke clears.

Stay tuned for more news shortly,

Reggie Swingstein
HFNHL Player Agent
 

Donga

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1/ There were a tremendous number of offers submitted, with some general managers making well over 50 offers with priority lists well into the double digits. This is going to take a bit of time to sort through.

Any guesses who this could be? I'm looking your way Sean, Brock... oh yeah how can i forget... JOSH!!!!!

2/ With so many prioritized offers, there are several situations where the highest offer thus far is not a first priority for the team making the bid – and in some cases none of the top three offers are making unconditional offers. As such, there may be instances where the team with the 4th or 5th highest offer at this point may actually get the player. There may also be situations where a player discounts a team’s offer slightly, given the relative priority attached to it. This may also lead to more than three teams being included in a 2nd round of bidding if none of the top three offers an unconditional offer.

Geezus, we are getting serious here.

3/ Several General Managers will be contacted first regarding players who are willing to sign with the team now, but are not the highest priority. Teams will be given the choice to sign the player immediately, and/or continue bidding on the higher priority player (assuming they are still in the bidding). If they choose not to sign the player, the offer will remain on the table conditionally, but every other team will have the opportunity to see the offer, and jump into the bidding if they are so inclined. This will be happening this week, in advance of a formal announcement on the official results of the first round.

Kewl... Can't wait...

4/ There are three players (Junior Lessard, Thomas Pock and Yann Danis) who received several offers with the maximum allowable salary under the rookie cap. A lottery will be used to determine which teams these players sign with. This should be arranged this week (it takes a few admin team members to assist and maintain the integrity of the lottery).

Lottery OH MAN!!! what are our chances of winning?? I think second to none coz if recent lottery wins are anything to go by, they are all going to be Sean.

Of note, a few players received a tremendous number of lucrative offers (over ten). Most notably, Jochen Hecht received offers from more than half the teams in the HFNHL. Suffice it to say, there will be a very wealthy German in our midst when the smoke clears.

Rumor has it, the money thrown at him makes him look like Mats Naslund. Ridiculous if you tell me, especially when he had a career year. Beware of the Kip Millers of FA. As you can see, I'm a bit pissed that I don't have the money to get him. :cry:

Stay tuned for more news shortly,

As the tractor holding the drawing board for Mr Swiggle would say, "Oh Hurry Up". Or the crowds at the Cricket watching a Australia vs Canada at the Boxing Day test match, "BOOOORING". :)

PS... All tongue in cheek type stuff. :joker:
 

Dr.Sens(e)

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Ah yes, and one other note. A certain southern team made a massive offer to retired Swede Mats Naslund that would have made him one of the highest paid players in the HFNHL.

After contacting Naslund at his retirement home in Sweden, Mr. Swingstein was assured by Mats that he had no interest in returning to professional hockey, and had in fact, recently retired from his senior rec league.

It is uncertain at this time how this affects this team's strategy of ultimately rising from the depths of the South East division.
 

HFNHL Red Wings

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Egads!!! 50 offers?! You know you're in trouble when Dion acknowedges something is ridiculous ;)

I hope those GM's remember that there is a maximum 50 player roster size. If not they will be buying out some players at 50% of their pro contract value.

I think it's time again to open the debate on mimicking the NHL's maximum organization size. What was it 70 vs. our 50 roster+50 prospect? Something like that anyway.
 

Dr.Sens(e)

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Well, the 50+ offers included many conditional offers, but there are teams that made more than 25 offers unconditionally. If they did land that many, they would be in a pickle in terms of salary and roster size, so putting a limit in future might be a good idea.
 

Vaive-Alive

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Dr.Sens(e) said:
Well, the 50+ offers included many conditional offers, but there are teams that made more than 25 offers unconditionally. If they did land that many, they would be in a pickle in terms of salary and roster size, so putting a limit in future might be a good idea.

Fiscal restraint should be a natural limit - don't make bids unless you've considered winning them all. However, as we've seen in the past, that doesn't always prevail. Any team winning that many bids would find itself in the red quite quickly unless it waived/traded other players - and with salaries continually rising in our league, they'd have to release more previously signed players at lower salaries just to accomodate fewer newly signed free agents. At that stage, whats the point?! Give away more cheaper able bodies for less more expensive able bodies. Even if the new free agents are better, a team trying to cycle a large number of its players would likely find that it can't fill all the gaps created to make fiscal room for the fewer more expensive newcomers.

Kruegs
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MatthewFlames

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HFNHL Red Wings said:
Egads!!! 50 offers?! You know you're in trouble when Dion acknowedges something is ridiculous ;)

I hope those GM's remember that there is a maximum 50 player roster size. If not they will be buying out some players at 50% of their pro contract value.

I think it's time again to open the debate on mimicking the NHL's maximum organization size. What was it 70 vs. our 50 roster+50 prospect? Something like that anyway.

I think that we should limit the organization side to 70 (pro, minor league and prospect rosters) and then exempt the last two draft classes from the 70.

i.e. All players under contract at the moment, plus the prospects (except for 2003/2004 draftees) must equal 70 players. Then the limit should be hard and fast. No fines. YOU HAVE TO HAVE THE ROSTER AT 70 no matter what.
 
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MatthewFlames

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Vaive-Alive said:
Fiscal restraint should be a natural limit - don't make bids unless you've considered winning them all. However, as we've seen in the past, that doesn't always prevail. Any team winning that many bids would find itself in the red quite quickly unless it waived/traded other players - and with salaries continually rising in our league, they'd have to release more previously signed players at lower salaries just to accomodate fewer newly signed free agents. At that stage, whats the point?! Give away more cheaper able bodies for less more expensive able bodies. Even if the new free agents are better, a team trying to cycle a large number of its players would likely find that it can't fill all the gaps created to make fiscal room for the fewer more expensive newcomers.

Unfortunately I don't think that this natural limit is working and it will not until all the teams face budget crises (which is several years away for over half the teams in the league) Obviously teams are still not showing any restraint - our CBA is not nearly strong enough in this league and the natural order that you speak of only applies to half the teams in the leauge. The rest could sign two or three RFA's (probably mine... at 8 million a year) ten UFA's and still be fine financially.
 

Hossa

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mashcanada said:
I think that we should limit the organization side to 70 (pro, minor league and prospect rosters) and then exempt the last two draft classes from the 70.

i.e. All players under contract at the moment, plus the prospects (except for 2003/2004 draftees) must equal 70 players. Then the limit should be hard and fast. No fines. YOU HAVE TO HAVE THE ROSTER AT 70 no matter what.

Basically, what you're proposing is a hard cap for the roster size rather than payroll?

I find the idea of giving a prospect two years in an organization to prove his worth. Realistically, a real organization probably wouldn't want 20-25 draft picks every year like I had in the 2003 draft, or Brock had this year, or Dion has every year. But I don't think we can limit that.

So just an idea off the top of my head, maybe we can say two years after drafting a player, we have to either cut them or put them into our system. Then make an organizational roster limit of whatever...where you have HFNHL players, minor league players and prospects at least two years removed from being drafted....as well as a seperate list for players drafted in the last two years (for this upcoming season, drafted from the 2003 or 2004 draft).

Just an idea. It's more complicated, but rather than having my 8th and 9th round picks from this past year screw me over for free agent signings or early season trades. I guess this just builds on Matt's idea.

Wouldn't it just be easier if we could get an MLB type of system....HFA, HFAA, HFAAA, HFNHL?
 

MatthewFlames

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Hossa said:
Basically, what you're proposing is a hard cap for the roster size rather than payroll?

I find the idea of giving a prospect two years in an organization to prove his worth. Realistically, a real organization probably wouldn't want 20-25 draft picks every year like I had in the 2003 draft, or Brock had this year, or Dion has every year. But I don't think we can limit that.

So just an idea off the top of my head, maybe we can say two years after drafting a player, we have to either cut them or put them into our system. Then make an organizational roster limit of whatever...where you have HFNHL players, minor league players and prospects at least two years removed from being drafted....as well as a seperate list for players drafted in the last two years (for this upcoming season, drafted from the 2003 or 2004 draft).

Just an idea. It's more complicated, but rather than having my 8th and 9th round picks from this past year screw me over for free agent signings or early season trades. I guess this just builds on Matt's idea.

Wouldn't it just be easier if we could get an MLB type of system....HFA, HFAA, HFAAA, HFNHL?

Wouldn't that be great?

I am not proposing either a hard cap or roster size for any reason other than to take the league that one step closer to RL (real life)... At the moment, teams have so much money in the bank that they have no financial realities to consider. This unevens the league quite heavily.

Now, one can argue that all teams started on equal terms and that it is the fault of the GM's (or those who managed the teams previously) and each GM should just be free to do what they can. I am just concerned that the integrity of the league is in danger with the imbalance the way it is at the moment, especially in the way the salaries are going. Soon it will be nigh on impossible for teams to reach the minimum OV rating for there rosters - they will simply not have enough $$ to pay for the minimum salaries needed to keep the roster at that minimum level.

Yes, there are few more complications but I really think that it is an idea worth debating. This still allows you to draft 27 players a year if you want and doesn't penalize you because you can still just drop them after two years (ie you do not offer them a contract)... You can also have enough flexibility to have 5 or 20 minor leaguers.. or 5 or 25 prospects... you just have to balance your minor leaguers and prospects better.

I also think that this roster size cap is preferable to a salary cap because of the same reasons stated above. GM's who have managed their money well will not be punished by a roster size cap as they would with a salary cap.
 
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HFNHL Red Wings

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I wasn't really looking at as a capping instrument just an administrative one :) It really is a pian in the but every year creating all those unknowns (half the time you have to look all over the net to find the basic info of height, weight, stickhand, etc.) and then ratings updates.
Thank heaven I don't have to do it this year. Sorry Josh.

The roster size proposed by Matt is very close to the NHL one. I don't see alot of benefit in having to actually sign the players as it creates the same annoyance as described above. We do charge $50,000 per prospect older than 2 years which is the equivalent amount of signing him to a $500,000 contract but only paying $50,000 on the farm team.

The only real reason this was not implemented 2 years ago was the headache, and eventual backlash, that would come from addressing teams that were over 70 already. It had been hoped that the growing roster size trend would, at the very least, stabilize but it has not.

As for salary caps, well I think we will have to learn the hard way as some HFNHL GM's already have. Besides if the NHL adopts a cap (hard or soft) I'm pretty sure we would as well. Until then restraint is our only cap hence my earlier post.
As I learned the hard way this year, Reggie uses the most outragous contracts as his bench mark when renegotiating the next round of UFA's so those renegade GM's impact us all :-P
 

Dr.Sens(e)

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Reggie is a bit of ******* - no question.

In terms of the teams adding extra players, this year teams who have signed those players will be asked to submit to Josh all of the player details required in order to add them to their roster. There is no way Josh should have to look all of them up, especially when we have some teams signing more than 10 college free agents no one else even bid on. The teams will have to provide the links to each players specifics for verification purposes. I think this will at least help minimize the work for Josh or whomever.
 

Donga

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Hossa said:
I find the idea of giving a prospect two years in an organization to prove his worth. Realistically, a real organization probably wouldn't want 20-25 draft picks every year like I had in the 2003 draft, or Brock had this year, or Dion has every year. But I don't think we can limit that.

One big draft and i get pinged. Hmmm...

The big question I have about the prospect list is the money paid for the ones that are over two years after the draft? i mean do teams pay the European clubs anything annually to keep them there?? This goes the same for the NCAA? I can handle paying for the CHL boys.
 

HFNHL Red Wings

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Donga said:
The big question I have about the prospect list is the money paid for the ones that are over two years after the draft? i mean do teams pay the European clubs anything annually to keep them there?? This goes the same for the NCAA? I can handle paying for the CHL boys.

You are technically correct Dion however it comes down to a simplification in the HFNHL. Are you volunteering to each year review all 400 prospects to determine whether they were classified as Euro or NA at time of draft and what league they played in the prior year? There are several variabls that go into deciding who has to pay $50k and who doesn't. It is a purely a matter of administrative feasibility that sometimes leads us to some 'simplification' of rules I'm afraid.
 

Ohio Jones

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HFNHL Red Wings said:
You are technically correct Dion however it comes down to a simplification in the HFNHL. Are you volunteering to each year review all 400 prospects to determine whether they were classified as Euro or NA at time of draft and what league they played in the prior year? There are several variabls that go into deciding who has to pay $50k and who doesn't. It is a purely a matter of administrative feasibility that sometimes leads us to some 'simplification' of rules I'm afraid.

One other factor that came into the development of this rule... we were attempting to introduce elements that would keep teams from hording players indefinitely, whether they were CHL, NCAA or Euro players. This way, teams have to "fish or cut bait" after two years, hopefully releasing more prospects to the free agent market and thus giving talent-poor teams a chance to pick up some good finds. If you look through the current prospect release list, you'll see a number of college and Euro players that would still be protected in the NHL, but which have come up for Free Agency in the HFNHL because the team that drafted them has decided (after two years) not to offer them a contract. While it can take prospects longer to make the NHL from Europe or College (at least compared to Junior), that is less often the case than it used to be, and in any event it just means you have to be more careful when doing your scouting.

All of these considerations - the two-year rule, prospect and roster limits, etc. - are essentially ways to help all teams compete in a diluted talent pool, instead of just having a few rich teams hording all the players and prospects and leaving nothing for the rest.

D'you hear that, Mr. Quain? :mad: :D
 
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