Confirmed with Link: PK Subban signed - 8y x 9M$ - Part II Meehan Strikes Back

[Sorinth]

How many of those guys are actually going to be here in 3 or 4 years from now?

You may want them to be here but it wouldn't surprise me if half of those guys are gone. Does MB really want Beaulieu? Do Price and Max really want to stay here? Can Gallagher play his style of hockey for 3 to 5 more years? If Galchenyuk is forced to take a bridge deal will he stay?

Teams change a lot more then you think, even at what you consider the core level.

Isn't this just more reason to be going for it now instead of waiting even longer in the hopes of things being better.

 

[Agnostic]

And the way we handled it was also a risk. It was arguably a bigger risk since Subban ended up sitting out 6 games thinking about his future with the team before the bridge deal, and then ending up in an arbitration hearing and being very close to him being 1 year removed from UFA after two difficult negotiations. That's a much bigger risk then giving him what he wants as an RFA and then re-signing him before he becomes UFA.

There wasn't near the risk people are making out to be. Even Meehan, who kept a tight lid on information in the negotiation , said that they were having a problem valuing contracts in the new CBA with big name players.

PK's deal was precedent setting - he was the first player of this calibre at his position to sign a max term deal under the new CBA with a new mega TV revenue stream kicking in.

Makes it easier for the next guys but this was a unique case.

 

[Brainiac]

As for forcing Galchenyuk to take a bridge or leave... let's just say that if/when that happens, it will be WWIII here.

First of all, Galchenyuk (and Gallagher, Tinordi, Beaulieu...) hasn't shown a fraction of what Subban has in his ELC. So yes, these guys will gladly take bridge deals to prove their worth before signing long-term.

And even then, I have this strange feeling that if, and that's one big effing IF, Galchenyuk has, say, an 80 points season next year. Bergevin will suddenly be a little more lax on the bridge deal philosophy. Just a feeling.

 

[Sorinth]

There wasn't near the risk people are making out to be. Even Meehan, who kept a tight lid on information in the negotiation , said that they were having a problem valuing contracts in the new CBA with big name players.

PK's deal was precedent setting - he was the first player of this calibre at his position to sign a max term deal under the new CBA with a new mega TV revenue stream kicking in.

Makes it easier for the next guys but this was a unique case.

I can certainly understand why his current deal took a while but it should never have gone to arbitration. But I was also including the bridge deal as part of the risk. PK sat at home for 6 games discussing with his family and agent whether he had a future in Montreal. That's created a much bigger risk of us losing him then a 5 year deal after his ELC.

 

[Frozenice]

Isn't this just more reason to be going for it now instead of waiting even longer in the hopes of things being better.

I guess that depends on what you mean by going for it now. Trading prospects and draft picks for a trade deadline hopeful is something I'd prefer not to do. Moving some minor pieces around is something I'm okay with.

 

[Not The One]

Yet your original post claimed that the chance of Subban leaving after a 5 year deal was a major reason why the bridge deal was a good idea. How come that "chance" counts as a negative but the one I brought up is meaningless?

There was a greater chance of Subban leaving doing what we did, so if Subban leaving is your prime concern then it was dumb to do. If you thought Subban was going to bust then that's a different argument. If you couldn't see Subban for what he was 2 years ago then you were wrong in your evaluation of him.

And how exactly would a 5x5 contract be one of the worst contracts in the league for a decade?

You must have me confused for somebody else, because I never claimed that at all. And yea a "chance" is meaningless now because it never happened (after the two year deal). I dont' know what would have happened after a hypothetical 5-year deal, but since it leads to unrestricted free agency the "chance" is far from theoretical at that stage. Especially if he considers himself to have been underpaid in the contract's later years. To me, the 2-year deal was perfectly timed to allow the team to properly evaluate Subban's long-term progression.

As for the decade long contract, I think I took your 7,75 million x 10 years remark in the previous post out of context. I assumed you were suggesting that possibility for two years ago. My bad.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

First of all, Galchenyuk (and Gallagher, Tinordi, Beaulieu...) hasn't shown a fraction of what Subban has in his ELC. So yes, these guys will gladly take bridge deals to prove their worth before signing long-term.

Well, who knows?

And even then, I have this strange feeling that if, and that's one big effing IF, Galchenyuk has, say, an 80 points season next year. Bergevin will suddenly be a little more lax on the bridge deal philosophy. Just a feeling.

I hope so.

Again, I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of a bridge. I'm opposed to the idea of lowballing (that never should've happened) and I'm opposed to the idea of a hard rule of a bridge for everyone no matter what. In some cases a bridge might make sense. It depends on the player and the players' demands.

As for Galchenyuk, I'd like him to be given more opportunity this year and I'd like to see him succeed. Then we can worry about contracts, bridges, salaries etc... My biggest concern with Galchenyuk isn't the upcoming contract, it's how he'll be used by our coach.

 

[JohnLennon]

And the way we handled it was also a risk. It was arguably a bigger risk since Subban ended up sitting out 6 games thinking about his future with the team before the bridge deal, and then ending up in an arbitration hearing and being very close to him being 1 year removed from UFA after two difficult negotiations. That's a much bigger risk then giving him what he wants as an RFA and then re-signing him before he becomes UFA.

It's not as much of a risk, though, because at that point he was still an RFA. Not really fair to claim that the process was a negative experience for Subban when we truly don't know what occurs behind closed doors. I understand your point, but I think it makes more sense to bargain hard with Subban while he is still an RFA than to try negotiating a huge contract with him while he can potentially just go UFA.

 

[Sorinth]

It's not as much of a risk, though, because at that point he was still an RFA. Not really fair to claim that the process was a negative experience for Subban when we truly don't know what occurs behind closed doors. I understand your point, but I think it makes more sense to bargain hard with Subban while he is still an RFA than to try negotiating a huge contract with him while he can potentially just go UFA.

Like I said just look at O'Reilly in Colorado, he wasn't happy with Colorado bargaining hard and so he signed an offer sheet and is now seems to want to be UFA at the earliest possible time whereas he was willing to sell his UFA years before then. Johansen in Columbus also doesn't seem happy with a potential bridge deal.

I'm not sure how you can say it wasn't much of a risk given that Subban actually sat out a couple weeks. That's never a good thing.

You shouldn't bargain hard just because he's a RFA. That just creates a dynamic where once the player is proven he'll want max value. It's much better policy to establish loyalty with the player by treating them fairly so that when they are in a position to ask for the moon they'll be more likely to give you a discount.

 

[Kriss E]

It's not as much of a risk, though, because at that point he was still an RFA. Not really fair to claim that the process was a negative experience for Subban when we truly don't know what occurs behind closed doors. I understand your point, but I think it makes more sense to bargain hard with Subban while he is still an RFA than to try negotiating a huge contract with him while he can potentially just go UFA.

How do you evaluate those risks?

But from a management perspective, it just makes more sense to sign your player through as many UFA years as possible. Even if you're willing to risk UFA after 5 years, it is still just that: a risk. And not a smart one to take with the face of your franchise.

No it doesn't. You cannot plan for UFA days. If a player wants to become an UFA, then he's going to become one and there's nothing you can do about it. That is a fact people here constantly leave out.
From a managerial standpoint, you get to lock up a Norris winner for 5 years at 5M, that is a smart decision.
Getting into a contractual dispute with your star player forcing him to hold out and miss camp/games because you're undervaluing him only to have to make him the highest cap hit Dman in the NHL just two years later is not a smart managing decision.

We could have had him for 5years, and then extended him just like he agreed to an 8 year deal. After his own words, it should be pretty darn clear that unless we really messed up with him, he doesn't want to go somewhere else, so no reason to speculate he'd leave.

 

[Lshap]

It's not as much of a risk, though, because at that point he was still an RFA. Not really fair to claim that the process was a negative experience for Subban when we truly don't know what occurs behind closed doors. I understand your point, but I think it makes more sense to bargain hard with Subban while he is still an RFA than to try negotiating a huge contract with him while he can potentially just go UFA.

My guess is that Subban would not have become a UFA, but would have happily re-signed with the Habs for whatever the market value of a top-five dman is in 2017. Hometown discounts? Not with Don Meehan at the bargaining table.

 

[Price is Wright]

t's much better policy to establish loyalty with the player by treating them fairly so that when they are in a position to ask for the moon they'll be more likely to give you a discount.

Nobody was more loyal to Rick Nash than the Columbus Blue Jackets. He still took every dollar he could out of them and then got them to trade him to New York.

Nobody was more loyal to Mario Lemieux than the Pittsburgh Penguins. He still demanded to be the highest paid player in the league while the team almost went into bankruptcy and couldn't even afford the contracts. So much for loyalty.

 

[Sorinth]

You must have me confused for somebody else, because I never claimed that at all. And yea a "chance" is meaningless now because it never happened (after the two year deal). I dont' know what would have happened after a hypothetical 5-year deal, but since it leads to unrestricted free agency the "chance" is far from theoretical at that stage. Especially if he considers himself to have been underpaid in the contract's later years. To me, the 2-year deal was perfectly timed to allow the team to properly evaluate Subban's long-term progression.

As for the decade long contract, I think I took your 7,75 million x 10 years remark in the previous post out of context. I assumed you were suggesting that possibility for two years ago. My bad.

Sorry your right wrong poster.

But by your logic if we had signed him to a 5 year deal and were still able to re-sign him the "chance" of him becoming UFA would have been meaningless then as well. That seems like a strange way of looking at things.

 

[Sorinth]

My guess is that Subban would not have become a UFA, but would have happily re-signed with the Habs for whatever the market value of a top-five dman is in 2017. Hometown discounts? Not with Don Meehan at the bargaining table.

Meehan was also Nik Lidstrom's agent. Giving a discount is all about the player not the agent.

 

[Frozenice]

Nobody was more loyal to Rick Nash than the Columbus Blue Jackets. He still took every dollar he could out of them and then got them to trade him to New York.

Nobody was more loyal to Mario Lemieux than the Pittsburgh Penguins. He still demanded to be the highest paid player in the league while the team almost went into bankruptcy and couldn't even afford the contracts. So much for loyalty.

There's a lot of factually not correct content in your post but believe whatever you want, just realize it doesn't make it true.

 

[Sorinth]

Nobody was more loyal to Rick Nash than the Columbus Blue Jackets. He still took every dollar he could out of them and then got them to trade him to New York.

Nobody was more loyal to Mario Lemieux than the Pittsburgh Penguins. He still demanded to be the highest paid player in the league while the team almost went into bankruptcy and couldn't even afford the contracts. So much for loyalty.

Do you want me to start listing all the player who did give discounts to their team?

 

[JohnLennon]

Like I said just look at O'Reilly in Colorado, he wasn't happy with Colorado bargaining hard and so he signed an offer sheet and is now seems to want to be UFA at the earliest possible time whereas he was willing to sell his UFA years before then. Johansen in Columbus also doesn't seem happy with a potential bridge deal.

I'm not sure how you can say it wasn't much of a risk given that Subban actually sat out a couple weeks. That's never a good thing.

You shouldn't bargain hard just because he's a RFA. That just creates a dynamic where once the player is proven he'll want max value. It's much better policy to establish loyalty with the player by treating them fairly so that when they are in a position to ask for the moon they'll be more likely to give you a discount.

But the thing is, Subban has always maintained that he wants to be a Montreal Canadien for life. He has made that clear. O'Reilly and Johansen haven't. And even with the bridge deal, Subban still didn't go for max value. I can assure you he would've earned more on the open market.

Again, the process that was chosen ended up being the best process in my opinion. We save money in the long run. If he were to go UFA in three years, he would be paid a lot more than he is now, and we wouldn't have been able to acquire star players like Vanek which enabled us to go on such a deep playoff run.

I understand your point, but I think with the way things have turned out, it is hard for you to make a point that it was a bad decision for the team. We ended up getting a better deal than we would have if we signed him to the 5x5. But granted, if he were a player like O'Reilly, this course of action would've failed miserably.

No it doesn't. You cannot plan for UFA days. If a player wants to become an UFA, then he's going to become one and there's nothing you can do about it. That is a fact people here constantly leave out.
From a managerial standpoint, you get to lock up a Norris winner for 5 years at 5M, that is a smart decision.
Getting into a contractual dispute with your star player forcing him to hold out and miss camp/games because you're undervaluing him only to have to make him the highest cap hit Dman in the NHL just two years later is not a smart managing decision.

We could have had him for 5years, and then extended him just like he agreed to an 8 year deal. After his own words, it should be pretty darn clear that unless we really messed up with him, he doesn't want to go somewhere else, so no reason to speculate he'd leave.

How can you possibly respond "no it doesn't" to the fact that it makes more managerial sense to get as many UFA years out of your player as possible, for as cheap as you can get? That's literally the one thing every GM is trying to do with all their top players. You can't just say "no" and ignore the point.

Subban made it clear he doesn't want to leave Montreal from day one, and maintained this rhetoric throughout the arbitration process. So in his case, the smarter move would be to lock him up for as many years as possible for as cheap as we can get. Having him go UFA in three years would just mean a larger contract for the Habs, and he would be a much more expensive player than we currently have him signed for. The bridge deal was the safe option, most GM's would have done the same thing, and it ended up paying off in the end.

My guess is that Subban would not have become a UFA, but would have happily re-signed with the Habs for whatever the market value of a top-five dman is in 2017. Hometown discounts? Not with Don Meehan at the bargaining table.

I agree, he most probably wouldn't have gone UFA and re-signed with the Habs, but that contract would be millions more than the contract he is currently signed to. Just like you said, with Meehan doing the negotiations, Molson would be milked for every dollar he is worth.

In the end, there is no ill-will between Subban and the management/ownership, and we got Subban for a great price, so I find it really hard to agree with posters arguing that we went about this the wrong way. Don't get me wrong, if this contract wasn't signed, I would never forgive Bergevin. But it worked out, and we don't know how the negotiations went behind closed doors, but everyone seems very happy with how things turned out so I find it hard to criticize how the team went about doing things.

 

[Lshap]

Meehan was also Nik Lidstrom's agent. Giving a discount is all about the player not the agent.

How old was Lidstrom at the time of that signing? Honestly don't know.

In three years, had he renegotiated as a UFA, Subban would be 28, at the height of his career and earning power. Not the time for a discount. But even assuming one was offered, a discount on a 2017 salary for a franchise player would still be more than his current cap hit.

 

[Kriss E]

How can you possibly respond "no it doesn't" to the fact that it makes more managerial sense to get as many UFA years out of your player as possible, for as cheap as you can get? That's literally the one thing every GM is trying to do with all their top players. You can't just say "no" and ignore the point.

If you were right GMs would all sign their star players to bridge deals and give them long deals like we did with PK. Instead we see GMs locking them up to 5-6 year deals right off their ELC. Or are they all lost?

Subban made it clear he doesn't want to leave Montreal from day one, and maintained this rhetoric throughout the arbitration process. So in his case, the smarter move would be to lock him up for as many years as possible for as cheap as we can get. Having him go UFA in three years would just mean a larger contract for the Habs, and he would be a much more expensive player than we currently have him signed for. The bridge deal was the safe option, most GM's would have done the same thing, and it ended up paying off in the end.

Having him as a UFA 3 years from now would also mean having him cheap for 5. You forget about that very important fact.
How much will he cost in 3 years? Well I don't know. An injury can happen. His progression might halt. He could be 4 years removed from winning the Norris. How will the cap increase over the next years? Front load the deal. So just how much more his cap would be is a crap shoot.
All you know is that you would for sure have had PK for cheap over 5 years.

 

[Kriss E]

How old was Lidstrom at the time of that signing? Honestly don't know.

In three years, had he renegotiated as a UFA, Subban would be 28, at the height of his career and earning power. Not the time for a discount. But even assuming one was offered, a discount on a 2017 salary for a franchise player would still be more than his current cap hit.

Meehan was also Markov's agent when he signed his discounted deal here.

 

[Sorinth]

But the thing is, Subban has always maintained that he wants to be a Montreal Canadien for life. He has made that clear. O'Reilly and Johansen haven't. And even with the bridge deal, Subban still didn't go for max value. I can assure you he would've earned more on the open market.

Doesn't that mean there was no risk in him being UFA after the initial 5 year deal since he wanted to be a Hab for life. So it becomes a question of numbers, 5 years at 5m and then another 8 year deal is much better for us then 2 years at 2.875 and then 8 years at 9m.

Again, the process that was chosen ended up being the best process in my opinion. We save money in the long run. If he were to go UFA in three years, he would be paid a lot more than he is now, and we wouldn't have been able to acquire star players like Vanek which enabled us to go on such a deep playoff run.

Money is irrelevant for us, cap hit is what's important. We saved on cap for the first 2 years which we didn't even really need it. Getting a Vanek is way more important over the next 3 years then it was over the first 2.

And I'm not sure we saved much money in any case. The cap will go up causing his salary in 3 years to be higher, but we are also buying less "prime" years. Subban valued his best years at 11m and his later years at 8m. So his next contract would have more of those 8m years and less of the 11m ones.

I understand your point, but I think with the way things have turned out, it is hard for you to make a point that it was a bad decision for the team. We ended up getting a better deal than we would have if we signed him to the 5x5. But granted, if he were a player like O'Reilly, this course of action would've failed miserably.

I've never denied that things didn't work out because they have. It was a missed opportunity more then anything else. But there are a lot of people saying this was the right/smart decisions which I disagree with. Also most people supporting the bridge deal think we should do it with all future RFAs which is crazy. If Galchenyuk puts up 80pts next season and he's looking for a reasonable long term deal then I want to skip the bridge deal, I certainly don't want him missing games trying to get a fair deal.

 

[Shadow Journal]

Doesn't that mean there was no risk in him being UFA after the initial 5 year deal since he wanted to be a Hab for life. So it becomes a question of numbers, 5 years at 5m and then another 8 year deal is much better for us then 2 years at 2.875 and then 8 years at 9m.

How can you know that without knowing the value of the hypothetical 8 year contract following the 5 year deal? Clearly, it would be preferable for the present to have him at 5M for the next few years, but who knows what his UFA contract would have looked like.

 

[Kriss E]

How can you know that without knowing the value of the hypothetical 8 year contract following the 5 year deal? Clearly, it would be preferable for the present to have him at 5M for the next few years, but who knows what his UFA contract would have looked like.

Because PK set his own value from 11M to 8M when he turns 33.
So if he were to sign a deal that gets him to 36, it's pretty darn likely he'd get a front loaded deal that would lower more.

 

[Sorinth]

How can you know that without knowing the value of the hypothetical 8 year contract following the 5 year deal? Clearly, it would be preferable for the present to have him at 5M for the next few years, but who knows what his UFA contract would have looked like.

Obviously without knowing the exact details we can't be a 100% certain but Subban valued his prime UFA years at 10.5m and is over 30 years at 8m.

After the 5 year deal he would have 3 prime years left, and 5 years of his over 30 years. It's also reasonable to assume his salary would continue to drop with age.

13
13
12
9
9
8
8
7

Seems like something that's pretty reasonable, on his prime years it's about a 5% increase per year over 3 years due to cap inflation. And then decrease at a similar rate based on age. It works out to 9.875, so not that different then his current deal. So yes I'd take 5 years at 5m and 8 years at 9.875m over 2 years at 2.875 and 8 years at 9m.

 

[Lshap]

Meehan was also Markov's agent when he signed his discounted deal here.

I think markov fired meehan.