Shea Weber

Roman Yoshi

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Aug 16, 2009
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You give him $8 million this season, what does he ask for next season?

That is a ridiculous argument. What if he gets injured? What if he has a horrible year? I would've rather spent the 500k to avoid arbitration than have to go through the process.

Am I the only one that cares about how the team is portrayed around the NHL and in Nashville? Seriously? Instead of getting weber signed we had to go through weeks of speculation and dozens are articles land blasting the preds for offering weber 4.75M. What does this say about our franchise? I know it is a negotiating number but that isn't what the media is going to report and casual fans who jumped on the band wagon aren't going to understand either. Am I the only one that sees a window of opportunity to be an elite team with the addition of a top six forward? The next 2-3 are going to be very defining for our franchise. Are are willing to pay the price to be a winner, or are we going to have to rebuild again.
 

glenngineer

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Jan 27, 2010
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I would've offered him a one year, 8 million deal. If shea didn't take that then go to arbitration.

Yes there is plenty of blame but I do feel like some of this could've been avoided by Poile being more proactive in trying to improve the team and giving weber a one year deal in order to prove that we are committed to winning.

More proactive? He's been offered a multi year deal for good money. He was also offered good money for a one year deal too. He's a RFA, you don't offer a guy $8 million for one year if he's restricted. It's cap suicide if you do. If he's going to get that as a RFA, what would he get on the open market as an UFA? You have to look long term and if you do look short term, you're going to shoot yourself in the foot.

I always am amazed that people think Poile just sits around and does nothing. The two parties couldn't come to a conclusion that made sense to either of them. Poile is concerned with the team finances and long term future and Weber is concerned with the team and his long term future. If it takes a while to figure this out, so be it but to say Poile isn't proactive is ludicrous.
 

Viqsi

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Oct 5, 2007
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That is a ridiculous argument. What if he gets injured? What if he has a horrible year? I would've rather spent the 500k to avoid arbitration than have to go through the process.

Am I the only one that cares about how the team is portrayed around the NHL and in Nashville? Seriously? Instead of getting weber signed we had to go through weeks of speculation and dozens are articles land blasting the preds for offering weber 4.75M. What does this say about our franchise? I know it is a negotiating number but that isn't what the media is going to report and casual fans who jumped on the band wagon aren't going to understand either. Am I the only one that sees a window of opportunity to be an elite team with the addition of a top six forward? The next 2-3 are going to be very defining for our franchise. Are are willing to pay the price to be a winner, or are we going to have to rebuild again.
So you'd rather have the team look like it wildly overpays people because it's desperate to keep players that help it "look good", right?

Haters gonna hate, hon. The only thing they'll respect is winning, and many of 'em won't even respect that. (See: Carolina Hurricanes.)
 

Nashvols

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Jun 8, 2011
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That is a ridiculous argument. What if he gets injured? What if he has a horrible year? I would've rather spent the 500k to avoid arbitration than have to go through the process.

Am I the only one that cares about how the team is portrayed around the NHL and in Nashville? Seriously? Instead of getting weber signed we had to go through weeks of speculation and dozens are articles land blasting the preds for offering weber 4.75M. What does this say about our franchise? I know it is a negotiating number but that isn't what the media is going to report and casual fans who jumped on the band wagon aren't going to understand either. Am I the only one that sees a window of opportunity to be an elite team with the addition of a top six forward? The next 2-3 are going to be very defining for our franchise. Are are willing to pay the price to be a winner, or are we going to have to rebuild again.

Possibly. I'm pretty much numb to the perception after the way we were treated through the first 12 or so seasons. Sure, I would like them to portray us in a more positive light, but it doesn't really bother me when they don't. Most of the time, it just shows their bias and ignorance beaming gloriously through. I'd rather our players have a positive view of Nashville...and from what I can tell...most of them do.
 

101st_fan

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I would've offered him a one year, 8 million deal. If shea didn't take that then go to arbitration.

Yes there is plenty of blame but I do feel like some of this could've been avoided by Poile being more proactive in trying to improve the team and giving weber a one year deal in order to prove that we are committed to winning.

If only Poile didn't trade away our 1st round pick for Fisher he could have had it to sweeten the offer for Richards or Carter and hope that Philly wasn't really looking for forwards in return. Or if he had Shea locked up then Poile could have thrown an uninsurable $11mil offer at Brad Richards. If he kidnapped Radulov, that would be "more proactive in trying to improve the team" and do a great job of slobbering all over a RFA's glutes.

Spending a lot of money does not equal a better team. If it did then the Flames, Rangers, and Leafs would all be consistent champions in the modern era.
 

SmokeyClause

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Am I the only one that cares about how the team is portrayed around the NHL and in Nashville? Seriously?

You aren't the only one. I've heard several posters complain about it. But to me, it's not relevant what anyone outside of NHL players (and of those group, I only care about current and potential future Predators) think of Nashville. It's just like in HS. It's not worth the fuss to worry about what most other people think, want, and expect. What is important is to do the best with what you've got. If your best is worthy of respect, especially considering your circumstances, all the people who you need to respect you will respect you.

All that respect that Nashville might have lost from the fickle crowd of NHL fans and media types with Weber comes right back if they win and it goes back to being the same "Man, Poile does so much with so little money and Trotz consistently gets his teams to play hard." Conversely, Columbus makes the big move to land Carter and Wiz. It means nothing if they repeat last season.

All that just reinforces my thought that Poile should bleep what the fans think (and that includes us) and bleep what the media thinks and literally focus on building a Cup capable team. In the end, who cares if he trades Suter, Rinne, and Weber today and makes Lebda the captain if this year we make it to the Cup finals with a legimate chance to win it all? Obviously, that's an exagerration for the sake of the point, so don't everyone panic on my post just over that. :)
 
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29dryden29

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Jul 4, 2010
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Problem is where he is salary wise which I fully agree he should be if not a tad higher your offers coming back from other GMs will not exceed much more than the type of suggestion I have placed above for him. Especially with him as an RFA and making 7.5 this year where does that leave many GMs to negotiate for next season. I also unfortunatly hear from people I know in Nashville say the ownership isn't prepared to go much higher especially when they have to try and sign Suter and Rinnie and Weber and SK all next season. It kind of ties the hands of DP when it comes to offers and trades and the cap.
 

Proto

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Jan 30, 2010
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So would 8.5 be too high for you? 10? Where is that line?

Weber is a RFA who says he wants to stay, then goes for a short term deal. He wants to see so called improvements and commitments while engaging in actions that make it impossible. Poile can't even consider spending like crazy on 1 July (not that it's likely he would) when his #1 signing priority is still unsigned.

There's plenty of blame for all here.

Outside perspective here with a couple comments.

What Weber wants in terms of salary length/structure does not "make it impossible" for the Predators to make "improvements" provided they're willing to spend more money to ice a superior product. I think last time I looked the Weber deal puts the Predators right around the cap floor. They could spend an additional 15 million dollars -- or, more appropriately, probably about 7 million, reserving the rest to re-sign players next summer.

My opinion would be that Weber wants them to spend that money before he's going to commit. Teams that spend to or around the cap floor simply haven't fared well in the postseason in the salary cap era. Sure, a team could win, but under-spending makes the likelihood of that extremely low.

If Weber is serious about winning being his priority, then wouldn't he want the ownership/management group to be equally serious? The Predators are run with exceptional efficiency, but they're unwilling or incapable (to this point) of taking that next step to compete with big market clubs.

Also, to those frustrated by silly proposals, just keep in mind that I think a majority of hockey fans probably don't think those "po' lil' Predators" can't afford to pay Weber 7.5 million. They're probably just not articulating what I said above about what Weber might see as "necessary" to re-sign.

In a lot of ways the Predators last year reminded me of my Canucks in 06-07. Great defensively but needed to make an aggressive move to ignite the offense, something the previous management group failed to do. When Mike Gillis arrived he made the (in)famous Sundin offer and has really targeted a strong transition game.

Obviously I'd love to see Weber in the Blue and Green, but short of that I hope you guys manage to hold on to him :)
 

nomorekids

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Feb 28, 2003
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over on the trade board i outlined a pretty reasonable outline that sees all three of the "core" being resigned while still qualifying for the bulk of revenue sharing. It's contingent on the cap\floor\midpoint going up at about the same rate it has the past few years. Assuming cap hits of 6.5 for Suter, 6 for Rinne, and 7.5...there'd still be 3-4 million left over at a minimum, even with modest raises to Blum and Wilson(as someone else pointed out, their caphit should actually end up matching, with full bonuses being counted whether or not they're achieved), and bouillon(1.3) and lebda(1.45) coming off the books.
 

29dryden29

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over on the trade board i outlined a pretty reasonable outline that sees all three of the "core" being resigned while still qualifying for the bulk of revenue sharing. It's contingent on the cap\floor\midpoint going up at about the same rate it has the past few years. Assuming cap hits of 6.5 for Suter, 6 for Rinne, and 7.5...there'd still be 3-4 million left over at a minimum, even with modest raises to Blum and Wilson(as someone else pointed out, their caphit should actually end up matching, with full bonuses being counted whether or not they're achieved), and bouillon(1.3) and lebda(1.45) coming off the books.


Not to sound demeaning but why oh why do your owners rely so heavily on Rev sharing to make money? If they are that worried then maybe it is time to raise ticket prices spend a little more money on salary ice a true contender and see what the fan base thinks then. Rather than cheap tickets low payroll and 10 mil a season from the other teams. Our fans are screaming because mgmt still has 6 mil or so till we are at the cap and we want them to go out and get someone else. We want out owners and management to spend the money alloted by the cap every season. I miss the non cap days.
 

triggrman

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Not to sound demeaning but why oh why do your owners rely so heavily on Rev sharing to make money? If they are that worried then maybe it is time to raise ticket prices spend a little more money on salary ice a true contender and see what the fan base thinks then. Rather than cheap tickets low payroll and 10 mil a season from the other teams. Our fans are screaming because mgmt still has 6 mil or so till we are at the cap and we want them to go out and get someone else. We want out owners and management to spend the money alloted by the cap every season. I miss the non cap days.
Your in a hockey market, we are not. See the difference, do I need to explain it to you more? Our owners spend enough to break even, it keeps the team here.
 

nomorekids

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Feb 28, 2003
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Not to sound demeaning but why oh why do your owners rely so heavily on Rev sharing to make money? If they are that worried then maybe it is time to raise ticket prices spend a little more money on salary ice a true contender and see what the fan base thinks then. Rather than cheap tickets low payroll and 10 mil a season from the other teams. Our fans are screaming because mgmt still has 6 mil or so till we are at the cap and we want them to go out and get someone else. We want out owners and management to spend the money alloted by the cap every season. I miss the non cap days.

attendance has gone up every year since the new group took over ownership. payroll has gone up proportionally. They don't mince words, "as much money as the fans give us, we'll keep spending."

They're not willing to bleed money like some teams, the goal is not only to win a Cup, but to remain viable as a hockey market long term. They're increasing capacity of arena slightly, they're hoping to build on the 16 sellouts we had last season in the regular season up to 25. I think their goal is what the fans hope it would be: eventually being able to spend to the cap while being comfortable financially.
 

AtlantaWhaler

Thrash/Preds/Sabres
Jul 3, 2009
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Well, looks like DP is waiting until camp to start talkin turkey:

“They’re both unrestricted this year. All of our focus has been on Shea’s situation to this point,” Poile said. “I would much prefer to get into training camp to get everybody there, to see how good our team is, to sit down with Shea again, Sutes and Pekka at the appropriate time and see how everybody thinks.”
 

ThirdManIn

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Aug 9, 2009
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Not to sound demeaning but why oh why do your owners rely so heavily on Rev sharing to make money? If they are that worried then maybe it is time to raise ticket prices spend a little more money on salary ice a true contender and see what the fan base thinks then. Rather than cheap tickets low payroll and 10 mil a season from the other teams. Our fans are screaming because mgmt still has 6 mil or so till we are at the cap and we want them to go out and get someone else. We want out owners and management to spend the money alloted by the cap every season. I miss the non cap days.

Wow, really? A team that has been around for over 100 years, and exists in a city that has more than double the population of Nashville (and is also the second largest city in its country automatically making it a huge media market) can spend to the cap? Any more insight into the world of hockey? Do tell...

We want our owners to spend to the cap, too. Most of us understand why they cannot. It doesn't mean we are happy about it. It means we are educated about the situation, and have resigned ourselves to existing within it rather than unsuccessfully rebelling against it.
 

Nashvols

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Jun 8, 2011
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Not to sound demeaning but why oh why do your owners rely so heavily on Rev sharing to make money? If they are that worried then maybe it is time to raise ticket prices spend a little more money on salary ice a true contender and see what the fan base thinks then. Rather than cheap tickets low payroll and 10 mil a season from the other teams. Our fans are screaming because mgmt still has 6 mil or so till we are at the cap and we want them to go out and get someone else. We want out owners and management to spend the money alloted by the cap every season. I miss the non cap days.

gnomes_plan.png


Looks like Dryden has been using the underpants gnome's logic again.
 

I Will Son

An Army of One
Feb 15, 2010
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Wow, really? A team that has been around for over 100 years, and exists in a city that has more than double the population of Nashville (and is also the second largest city in its country automatically making it a huge media market) can spend to the cap? Any more insight into the world of hockey? Do tell...

We want our owners to spend to the cap, too. Most of us understand why they cannot. It doesn't mean we are happy about it. It means we are educated about the situation, and have resigned ourselves to existing within it rather than unsuccessfully rebelling against it.

Spot on.
 

101st_fan

I taught Yoda
Oct 22, 2005
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Outside perspective here with a couple comments.

What Weber wants in terms of salary length/structure does not "make it impossible" for the Predators to make "improvements" provided they're willing to spend more money to ice a superior product. I think last time I looked the Weber deal puts the Predators right around the cap floor. They could spend an additional 15 million dollars -- or, more appropriately, probably about 7 million, reserving the rest to re-sign players next summer.

My opinion would be that Weber wants them to spend that money before he's going to commit. Teams that spend to or around the cap floor simply haven't fared well in the postseason in the salary cap era. Sure, a team could win, but under-spending makes the likelihood of that extremely low.

If Weber is serious about winning being his priority, then wouldn't he want the ownership/management group to be equally serious? The Predators are run with exceptional efficiency, but they're unwilling or incapable (to this point) of taking that next step to compete with big market clubs.

Also, to those frustrated by silly proposals, just keep in mind that I think a majority of hockey fans probably don't think those "po' lil' Predators" can't afford to pay Weber 7.5 million. They're probably just not articulating what I said above about what Weber might see as "necessary" to re-sign.

In a lot of ways the Predators last year reminded me of my Canucks in 06-07. Great defensively but needed to make an aggressive move to ignite the offense, something the previous management group failed to do. When Mike Gillis arrived he made the (in)famous Sundin offer and has really targeted a strong transition game.

Obviously I'd love to see Weber in the Blue and Green, but short of that I hope you guys manage to hold on to him :)

The team is only going to spend to the midpoint for revenue sharing reasons ... so there isn't 15mil, there's maybe 8mil additional to spend .... possibly up to 9.5mil with a big bump to the cap. Going beyond that starts to jeopardize the financial health of the team and for those of us who lived through the summer of 2007, we don't want that again.

Another 3 for Suter and 2 for Rinne takes up 5 mil of that available money. 4.5mil to bring in this help he's demanding and pay the kids coming off of EL contracts isn't a lot. There's a little wiggle room by letting guys like Tootoo move on, but, moves like that only open up a couple of million after signing less costly replacements.

Quite simply, tying up over 1/3 of our available cash in three players makes it almost impossible to bring in the type big name offensive help Shea seems to be demanding.
 

AEM6729

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Mar 1, 2010
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Am I the only one that cares about how the team is portrayed around the NHL and in Nashville? Seriously?

Definitely not. I care. It matters, because it's not just a few random media people or hardcore fans thinking badly of us about all this...it's everybody. And some of those hockey media people obviously have contacts in the league, and NONE of them have said that Weber going to arbitration could be anything but a bad sign. Plus, it's spilled over into the general population in Nashville. I don't want anyone thinking the Preds aren't committed to a Cup, especially our own players, other NHLers, and current or potential Preds fans. This paragraph in a Puck Daddy article today basically personifies how a lot of people seem to feel about our team:

Neither side could agree on either compensation or length of an extension that would have helped avoid the arbitration hearing; probably because David Poile kept faxing over a piece of paper that said, "100 years/$0." So when Nashville lowballed him at the hearing, maybe people shouldn't have been surprised, given the Predators' penchant for hugging the salary floor like a scared four-year-old and his blankie.

Maybe it's not all true...but perception is reality sometimes.

Well, looks like DP is waiting until camp to start talkin turkey:

UGH. Why?!
 

AEM6729

Registered User
Mar 1, 2010
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Nashville
Wasn't there talk of a new super-rich owner coming into the fold soon? Would that help us spend more on payroll, thereby maybe helping us re-sign Weber?
 

Paranoid Android

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Wasn't there talk of a new super-rich owner coming into the fold soon? Would that help us spend more on payroll, thereby maybe helping us re-sign Weber?

Maybe, but IMO we won't be spending too much more until paid attendance is higher. We'll see how this year goes. I wonder how season ticket sales are going.
 

StarvinArvyn33

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Jun 18, 2010
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Maybe, but IMO we won't be spending too much more until paid attendance is higher. We'll see how this year goes. I wonder how season ticket sales are going.

I listened to the entire conference call between Shea and Poile and I think it was Shea who mentioned that season ticket sales are going great and dont remember exactly what he said but it was nothing but positive and coming from a player you would think they are going good for him to go out and say that.
 

29dryden29

Registered User
Jul 4, 2010
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London Ont
Wow, really? A team that has been around for over 100 years, and exists in a city that has more than double the population of Nashville (and is also the second largest city in its country automatically making it a huge media market) can spend to the cap? Any more insight into the world of hockey? Do tell...

We want our owners to spend to the cap, too. Most of us understand why they cannot. It doesn't mean we are happy about it. It means we are educated about the situation, and have resigned ourselves to existing within it rather than unsuccessfully rebelling against it.

You also forgot that it is a city and province that has the highest income tax in Canada and is also a french first province. Speaking of media markets our broadcasters up here spend hundrends of millions in their own region alone for hockey because we demand it. Not to mention ticket prices I believe are the highest or near the highest in the league.
 

I Will Son

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Feb 15, 2010
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You also forgot that it is a city and province that has the highest income tax in Canada and is also a french first province. Speaking of media markets our broadcasters up here spend hundrends of millions in their own region alone for hockey because we demand it. Not to mention ticket prices I believe are the highest or near the highest in the league.

So you want a medal?
 

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