First off Detroit will not be matching McClement. Heck he was offered in trade for a 3rd rounder on draft day a month ago and you could have signed him for less than 2 million. Will I take a 2nd rounder? Duh ... yes!
As for the rest I guess I'm throwing gas on the fire here but I thought offer sheets would only be accepted if they were reasonably high for the player. The reason for that was we had some suspected collusion a few years back with a particular GM submitting low QO offers that would be matched to help buddies out. Not suggesting this is the case but I confess the Hale offer in particular looked ridiculously low to have been accepted given my perception on what would have been an acceptable RFA offer sheet.
I don't have a problem per se with Hale accepting the offer sheet despite the lowball offer but your point is a good one.
My argument is that at 660K there is no reasonable way the GM wouldn't match especially since they get NO compensation in return - that indication is pretty clear when the GM bothered to qualify the player that they thought he wasn't worth letting the player became a UFA.
Last year I did let several minor leaguers become UFA's and then re-signed them to league minimum one year deals. I qualified those players this year because they made NHL debuts this past season. Sean's point about exclusive negotiating rights makes sense - but since Hale has been on the trade block for months and Dion's never made one approach I doubt thats the reason. Besides - now I'm po'd and there is no way I'd trade him to you Mr. AC.
I'm hoping the league sides with Ryan in that the trade was completed before the RFA announcement and it doesn't affect Dion - he just has exclusive negotiating rights with a different GM since Ryan or I will both match the Hale outcome no matter the result of the leagues decision. In fact given my
mood over it he might even have more luck with Ryan than me in negotiating a trade.
Who knew that David Hale would become the most desired and fought over player this free agency?
And I'm not disputing the RFA process. It's kinda fun when we have the same disputes as the NHL. I have been both a loser and winner in the past. I lost Kovalchuk et al but I got Iginla that way the following year.
Even this year it's played out very well in this case over Mlilan Jurcina. I didn't feel he as worth a whole big chunk of salary as my 7th Dman - but I couldn't drum up much interest in trade talk - especially not a 2nd rounder. Now the bar has been set and it's not as high as I might have expected. I have an interesting choice to make whether I choose to match or not, or to try to trade to Greg at a different value. I feel like the process worked for me much in the way Robb alluded to with the contracts he's been able to get for his RFA's in the past.