Player Discussion Loui Eriksson Part IV: EriksSonata - A CambieKev Presentation [VIDEO]

[deckercky]

The impact of offering the second year is that the Sedins were up for contracts in 2009-10 (the second year). Sundins second year would have prevented the Canucks from re-signing the Sedins.

Gillis was just lucky Sundin didn't sign.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

The impact of offering the second year is that the Sedins were up for contracts in 2009-10 (the second year). Sundins second year would have prevented the Canucks from re-signing the Sedins.

Gillis was just lucky Sundin didn't sign.

That would have been a pretty serious blunder...

 

[orcatown]

Shea Weber was under contract for 3 years when free agency opened at that time so he was never an option. You need to reevaluate your entire post cause you have made up some crazy fantasy in there about how the Sundin deal prevented us from signing Shea Weber

Agree Weber was signed before the deadline and not available. There was talk among fans of the Canucks offering sheeting him but he did sign before the deadline.

But saying that totally undercuts the argument is silly. There were many better options available that Gillis might a have got with the money he was throwing at Sundin. These include Jagr, Hossa (and wouldn't that have been nice) Recchi, Selanne (65 goals the next year), Blake, Weight and others . Or with that money, Gillis could have gone after several players such as Brad Stuart, Ryder, Montador, Jackman and others. Heck for all the money he gifting Sundin, he could have just brought back Naslund and let him retire a Canuck. He got 24 goals with the Ranger and was every bit as effective as Sundin was in Vancouver.

Instead Gillis goes out the first day of free agency and makes the big splash with the Sundin offer and than waits around till Xmas to finally sign him.

Also, we are dealing here with the offer. That offer would have prevented the signing of important pieces the Canucks picked up in 2009 and would have made it difficult to re-sign important roster players. (maybe even the Sedins) Since Sundin retired after the 2008- 2009 season, saying his body was done and he couldn't play any more, that 10 million Gillis wanted to give him would have meant 10 million in dead cap space. Right now Benning is getting rightly butchered for all his dead cap space but percentage wise and even money total wise, that amount of dead cap space , which Gillis was totally willing to chance, was greater than in the present situation under Benning. It would have killed any improvement in the team and probably made it impossible for the team to make the Cup in 2011. That's how bad the Gillis offer was and again he was only bailed out by Sundin. Gillis insisted he was very willing to go along with the offer.

I'm supposing that from the lack of answers and the continued praise for Gillis's offer to the washed up Sundin (like he quit at the end of season saying his body couldn't handle the it any more) that you would have been supportive of making a $16 mill offer to Thronton this off-season. (equivalent in cap percent to Sundin's contract) I mean he is about in the same age range, certain Hall of Famer, played over 70 games for 13 out of the last 14 years, consistent point producer, banged up some, great leadership qualities, loved by all .... (sounds a lot like Sundin in 2008)

 

[4Twenty]

Sundin’s final 4 seasons before arriving in Vancouver 300+ points to Thornton’s 160+
Sundin goals 122 vs Thornton 46


The whole discussion is based on something that didn’t happen and a lot of fantasy and misleading going on.

The final 20 games of Sundin’s leaf career is also a lie. He had 6 goals and 14 points in his last 10 games with the leafs.

The more I dig the more BS I find.

 

[rypper]

Coupled with what's been said already in this thread and the first hand accounts from various Canucks on the team (Kesler, Sedins, etc.) I don't know how anyone can look at the Sundin signing as a negative.

You have to dip into "what ifs" and "could have beens" to find a down side.

 

[xtra]

Agree Weber was signed before the deadline and not available. There was talk among fans of the Canucks offering sheeting him but he did sign before the deadline.

But saying that totally undercuts the argument is silly. There were many better options available that Gillis might a have got with the money he was throwing at Sundin. These include Jagr, Hossa (and wouldn't that have been nice) Recchi, Selanne (65 goals the next year), Blake, Weight and others . Or with that money, Gillis could have gone after several players such as Brad Stuart, Ryder, Montador, Jackman and others. Heck for all the money he gifting Sundin, he could have just brought back Naslund and let him retire a Canuck. He got 24 goals with the Ranger and was every bit as effective as Sundin was in Vancouver.

Instead Gillis goes out the first day of free agency and makes the big splash with the Sundin offer and than waits around till Xmas to finally sign him.

Also, we are dealing here with the offer. That offer would have prevented the signing of important pieces the Canucks picked up in 2009 and would have made it difficult to re-sign important roster players. (maybe even the Sedins) Since Sundin retired after the 2008- 2009 season, saying his body was done and he couldn't play any more, that 10 million Gillis wanted to give him would have meant 10 million in dead cap space. Right now Benning is getting rightly butchered for all his dead cap space but percentage wise and even money total wise, that amount of dead cap space , which Gillis was totally willing to chance, was greater than in the present situation under Benning. It would have killed any improvement in the team and probably made it impossible for the team to make the Cup in 2011. That's how bad the Gillis offer was and again he was only bailed out by Sundin. Gillis insisted he was very willing to go along with the offer.

I'm supposing that from the lack of answers and the continued praise for Gillis's offer to the washed up Sundin (like he quit at the end of season saying his body couldn't handle the it any more) that you would have been supportive of making a $16 mill offer to Thronton this off-season. (equivalent in cap percent to Sundin's contract) I mean he is about in the same age range, certain Hall of Famer, played over 70 games for 13 out of the last 14 years, consistent point producer, banged up some, great leadership qualities, loved by all .... (sounds a lot like Sundin in 2008)

we were in the market for an second line/first line center cause kesler hadn’t broken out yet. Hence why we went after sundin instead of Jagr/Hossa

Why are we dealing with the offer? From what I remeber Sundin didn’t want 2 years he only wanted 1 year. The second year was to get his attention. Now if he signed for 2 years we have a different discussion but he didn’t so that’s not the worst deal, and then you excuse the actual deal and performance that messier got.

28 points in 41 games, 56 point pace as our second line center on a 1 year deal.

as mentioned above Sundin had 78 points in 71 games the season before compared to Thornton who had 31 in 70 games.

at least choose a comparable player that’s realistic.

 

[rypper]

On the latest Vancast with Thomas Drance and Jeff Paterson they did a mail bag edition and someone in their question said "In the 4 seasons that Loui Eriksson has been here, I don't think i've heard his voice once. I wouldn't be able to pick out what his voice sounds like if I heard it."

I am completely in the same boat.

 

[F A N]

"But Sundin has had significant hip problems over the past couple of seasons. It was discovered he had a torn labrum in his hip after the 2006-07 season and while it did not require surgery and has not kept Sundin out of the lineup, he is concerned about the well-being of his hip with all the travel that is required by a west coast team and is apparently being advised that signing with Vancouver might not be his best option."

From an article by Ken Campbell in 2008. Also confirmed by Steve Simmons in a different article. Also here:

Sundin hip ailment confirmed

Sundin chose to play with it rather than having the surgery. But obvious that it effected his skating once signed here.

Barry, his agent, tried to play it down so he could get Sundin another contract and Leafs did as well b/c they wanted to trade Sundin at the deadline. But his hip issues were well known.

When Sundin retired at the end of the season he stated, "My body isn’t up to the every day wear-and-tear of the NHL anymore" and he think he knew more about his body than you seemingly think you do.

Are you trying to maintain there was no issue with the hip?

I actually was not aware that he had hip issues until now. Don't think it was brought up in our discussions at the time.

Regardless, that still only makes half of your point technically correct. He put up 32 goals and 78 points in 74 game with the hip issue you're referring to. If Sundin was averaging 200 points a season in his prime then I would be more inclined to agree that that his then still 1st line production reflects a "washed up" player.

 

[deckercky]

Coupled with what's been said already in this thread and the first hand accounts from various Canucks on the team (Kesler, Sedins, etc.) I don't know how anyone can look at the Sundin signing as a negative.

You have to dip into "what ifs" and "could have beens" to find a down side.

Sundin signing turned out awesome. But all Sundin had to do was agree to the contract that Gillis tendered and we lose the amazing core that the team had from 2009-2012.

Gillis got lucky.

 

[4Twenty]

Sundin signing turned out awesome. But all Sundin had to do was agree to the contract that Gillis tendered and we lose the amazing core that the team had from 2009-2012.

Gillis got lucky.

But he didn't sign it.

Why is it lucky? What if he knew all along the 2nd year wasn't happening.

I think what's getting glossed over here, even though the Gillis part of this issue doesn't really matter to Sundin's 1yr deal having zero bad impact on the team, is that Gillis is a former player agent, with player agent connections, and knows exactly what players in Sundin's situation may have needed to hear to convince him to strap on the skates for one more year.

I think that is much more likely than....he got lucky. I can't remember the Canucks available space, but even suggesting that it ever came close to not allowing the amazing core to blossom seems ridiculous.

Like we're not sitting here arguing about Benning offering a futures package that included Boeser for 1year of Milan Lucic, we're thankful it didn't happen, but it's not the worst trade Benning made, he didn't make it.

Explaining it away as we're lucky it didn't happen, but acting like it's still as bad, seems crazy. If you want ammunition for either, it's not the hypothetical, it's the Ballard and Booth's and the Eriksson, Gudbranson, Sutter etceteras,

 

[joelCAMEL]

Coupled with what's been said already in this thread and the first hand accounts from various Canucks on the team (Kesler, Sedins, etc.) I don't know how anyone can look at the Sundin signing as a negative.

You have to dip into "what ifs" and "could have beens" to find a down side.

It took Sundin until Christmas to decide whether or not to play, which prevented the team from exploring other free agents.
Even though Messier also had admiring teammates, his chemistry divided the locker room and his salary increased team losses each year.
I think Sundin, Messier and Eriksson are the 3 worst player contracts in history.

I believe that John Tortorella, Mike Keenan and Jack Gordon are the 3 worst management contracts. I also have resentment towards Jim Benning, but his positives still outweigh the negatives in the long run.

 

[4Twenty]

It took Sundin until Christmas to decide whether or not to play, which prevented the team from exploring other free agents.

The worst contract in team history prevented them from making some magical moves in one season,?you guys are a riot.

The worst contract was acquired, it was Ballard. Honestly, forget about the trade pieces, just removed Ballard in 2010 (you still get Hamhuis etc), it changes everything. If we're going to complain about a core killing, preventative contract it's Keith Ballard IMO.

Sundin taking until Christmas to decide blocks nothing if you want to think about it realistically, if Nashville wanted to trade you Shea Weber, you pull the Sundin offer plain and simple. It definitely didn't block them from exploring anything.

Sundin was a 1st line player for every year of his career but the one in Vancouver. He was the 20th best goal and point getter the season before he was acquired. It's more akin to going all in for Malkin than it was for Joe Thornton.

 

[joelCAMEL]

The worst contract in team history prevented them from making some magical moves in one season,?you guys are a riot.

The worst contract was acquired, it was Ballard. Honestly, forget about the trade pieces, just removed Ballard in 2010 (you still get Hamhuis etc), it changes everything. If we're going to complain about a core killing, preventative contract it's Keith Ballard IMO.

Sundin taking until Christmas to decide blocks nothing if you want to think about it realistically, if Nashville wanted to trade you Shea Weber, you pull the Sundin offer plain and simple. It definitely didn't block them from exploring anything.

Sundin was a 1st line player for every year of his career but the one in Vancouver. He was the 20th best goal and point getter the season before he was acquired. It's more akin to going all in for Malkin than it was for Joe Thornton.

A few pages back, you said Benning was the worst contract in history. Now, you said Ballard was the worst contract. Where do you rank Eriksson again?
So, a few posters rank Sundin's contract as worst top 3 and you disagree. That's the great thing about opinions, they do not matter.

 

[ChilliBilly]

I wondered why there were 3 pages on the LE board. The I made the mistake of reading some of this useless drivel about worst contracts. Admittedly there is not a lot else to do, but MODS, could you please move this crap to some other thread. It is tiresome when a thread gets hijacked like this.

The best thing that could happen to the canucks is that LE have something go wrong in the AHL, and he ends up on LTIR for 2 years. Otherwise its going to cost something like Podkolzin to get rid of his salary ....

edit - please not I am not advocating this. They should live with the bloody contract unless someone will take something like a 2nd round pick as a sweetener. IF they do so, don't go blow the cap space on another anchor. Will Benning never learn. Virtually none of his UFA signings have been a good thing.

 

[BWJM]

Messier never provided a moment like this for us:



But yeah, he was beyond bad at the start. I remember him looking for the oxygen tank at the end of every SHORT shift. However he did seem to FINALLY got into shape come post-season time & he (imho) was one of our better forwards.

That Wellwood attempt was horrible wtf. Announcers "This point is huge for the Canucks". Wellwood "Nah".

 

[F A N]

But he didn't sign it.

Why is it lucky? What if he knew all along the 2nd year wasn't happening.

I think what's getting glossed over here, even though the Gillis part of this issue doesn't really matter to Sundin's 1yr deal having zero bad impact on the team, is that Gillis is a former player agent, with player agent connections, and knows exactly what players in Sundin's situation may have needed to hear to convince him to strap on the skates for one more year.

I think that is much more likely than....he got lucky. I can't remember the Canucks available space, but even suggesting that it ever came close to not allowing the amazing core to blossom seems ridiculous.

Like we're not sitting here arguing about Benning offering a futures package that included Boeser for 1year of Milan Lucic, we're thankful it didn't happen, but it's not the worst trade Benning made, he didn't make it.

Explaining it away as we're lucky it didn't happen, but acting like it's still as bad, seems crazy. If you want ammunition for either, it's not the hypothetical, it's the Ballard and Booth's and the Eriksson, Gudbranson, Sutter etceteras,

So are you of the opinion that a 2 year deal was offered or are you of the opinion that a 2 year deal was never offered but was publicly announced to make Sundin look and fell good?

 

[Hit the post]

LE stats this past postseason despite seeing some icetime in the top 6:


0 goals
0 assists
10 playoff games

 

[rypper]

It took Sundin until Christmas to decide whether or not to play, which prevented the team from exploring other free agents.

The team needed a 2nd line center, I'm struggling to find who you think that free agent could have been if they had not pursued Sundin. Looking over the free agent lists for centers it's very slim pickings besides Sundin.

Unless you could have convinced Peter Forsberg to stay in north America instead of going to Sweden, or maybe Burnaby Joe with his wonky back wouldn't have stuck his hand in a lawn mower if he'd had signed in Vancouver? Sergei Fedorov wasn't leaving Russia-lite in Washington to come here.

 

[vancityluongo]

Sundin was like the Patrick Marleau in Toronto contract. As Dubas did with the extra year, Gillis likely would have had to pay someone to take it had Sundin taken the two year deal.

It wouldn't have cost the Sedins. They may have signed one year bridge deals to wait the Sundin deal out. Or we may have traded Grabner + 1st to get rid of Sundin's contract instead of taking on Ballard's, and used that additional space to also keep Willie Mitchell on top of Hamhuis. Who knows!

Getting into hypotheticals like that is the same dumb logic as "if we didn't lose a trillion games while also not tanking we wouldn't have Petey/Hughes!!", ignoring that we might have had Auston Matthews and Cale Makar instead.

 

[joelCAMEL]

The team needed a 2nd line center, I'm struggling to find who you think that free agent could have been if they had not pursued Sundin. Looking over the free agent lists for centers it's very slim pickings besides Sundin.

Unless you could have convinced Peter Forsberg to stay in north America instead of going to Sweden, or maybe Burnaby Joe with his wonky back wouldn't have stuck his hand in a lawn mower if he'd had signed in Vancouver? Sergei Fedorov wasn't leaving Russia-lite in Washington to come here.

Using hindsight; Hossa, Huselius, and Vrbata come to mind. Vancouver already had centers in Sedin, Kesler, Demitra and Wellwood, and they had already played half the season before Sundin joined the team.

It is unclear if any of those players would have signed with Vancouver, but Gillis seemed fixated on Sundin.

 

[F A N]

The team needed a 2nd line center, I'm struggling to find who you think that free agent could have been if they had not pursued Sundin. Looking over the free agent lists for centers it's very slim pickings besides Sundin.

Unless you could have convinced Peter Forsberg to stay in north America instead of going to Sweden, or maybe Burnaby Joe with his wonky back wouldn't have stuck his hand in a lawn mower if he'd had signed in Vancouver? Sergei Fedorov wasn't leaving Russia-lite in Washington to come here.

Sundin was absolutely the right target. The problem was that the 2 year $10AAV contract really was a "big splash" type offer that made zero sense unless you didn't need the cap space.

Honestly, as a Canucks fan, I so wanted Sundin to sign here.

 

[M2Beezy]

Anyways the guy in my avatar sucks

 

[RebuildinVan]

On the latest Vancast with Thomas Drance and Jeff Paterson they did a mail bag edition and someone in their question said "In the 4 seasons that Loui Eriksson has been here, I don't think i've heard his voice once. I wouldn't be able to pick out what his voice sounds like if I heard it."

I am completely in the same boat.

How many interviews has he done? This guy is just nonexistent everywhere. By all accounts he is the first off the ice after practice. This guy offers absolutely nothing anywhere all the time

 

[M2Beezy]

How many interviews has he done? This guy is just nonexistent everywhere. By all accounts he is the first off the ice after practice. This guy offers absolutely nothing anywhere all the time

He wheres good suits apparently

 

[tyhee]

...
Sundin is a giant in the game. Hall of Famer. Olympic gold. He clearly rubbed off on the core.

He didn't become a giant in the game nor make the HOF based on his results in Vancouver, so it really doesn't matter. The only thing that's given me cause to wonder if he really did have an impact was a comment from one of the Sedins about his impact on their development. They tend to be diplomatic enough that I wasn't sure how to take it.

I agree with you though about reasons you gave that the Sundin deal wasn't one of the worst in Canucks history. His single season AAV has to rank high among the worst in Canucks history, but if they weren't going to spend the money otherwise that one season, the only ones hurt were the team owners.

Messier's contract with the Canucks has to rank among the worst. It was before the NHL salary cap so didn't impact the team the same way as the Eriksson deal has, though it may have limited the amount the owners were prepared to spend on other players. As well as $ 6 million per season and a $2 million buyout after the third season, it contained a phantom stock deal giving him a portion of any increase in the value of the franchise during his five year contract. He made $6 million per season for the three seasons he played for the Canucks, the Canucks paid him $2 million to buy out the last two seasons, the team increased in value the two seasons after he was gone and Messier successfully sued the team for his share of that increase that took place after he was bought out. If I've got it straight, he ended up with $26 million from his time in Vancouver, a lot of money for a contract signed before the turn of the millenium as a 36 year old. He was supposed to provide leadership to take the Canucks to the promised land, but strangely enough the biggest positive effect he had on the Canucks' franchise wasn't done with that intention. Messier helped hasten the departure of Trevor Linden as he was on the downside of what to that time had been a very good career, giving the team future all-star Todd Bertuzzi, Bryan McCabe (who gave the team a season plus playing 1st d-pair minutes before being dealt in the series of trades that brought the two Sedins to the Canucks) and a pick who became Jarko Ruutu (267 regular season and 24 playoff games with the Canucks.)