Dr Love
Registered User
[url]http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/sports/9759676.htm[/url]
Timmy P. has a good point. Elite talent is always going to get paid. But if the average player keeps getting more and more, then the elite player will too. Of course, there are a number of reasons why things have gotten out of hand, this is certainly one of them.The problem, as we see it, is that what ownership did at the bottom end of the scale in free agency raised the bar for salaries at every level. Simply put, clubs vastly overpaid for the services of third- and fourth-line players, many of whom either had never scored 20 goals in a season or scored barely that many. In a league in which salaries jumped dramatically for 30-, 40- and 50-goal scorers in the '90s, there was no reason to make millionaires out of 20-goal-and-under guys. But ownership did.
In 1996, Ron Caron, the St. Louis Blues' general manager, signed Joe Murphy to a three-year, $10 million contract as a free agent. Here was a 22-goal scorer receiving an outrageous $3.3 million a season. So what should a 40-goal guy have been paid? Maybe $6 million? Maybe more?
In 1997, the Boston Bruins signed Dave Ellett to a three-year, $4.5 million contract. The pedestrian defenseman had scored 20 goals just once to that point but suddenly was being paid $1.5 million per season. The average NHL salary going into that summer was less than $900,000.
Consider how many elite players the NHL had in 1997. Now if a player of Ellett's limited capabilities is making more than the average, he's pushing up the salary of every player above him. Thank you, Harry Sinden.