You say can't control the injuries... I say injuries are part of the issue
You want to invest big money into a player who has injury problems and is not even a PPG player when healthy anymore.
Basically going to pay 7-8 million dollars for 65-70GP and 60-65Pts
Awesome
1235 goals for Ottawa since 2008/09. All years, even the shortened season Spezza missed 90% of. Spezza has 342 points. Spezza is a part of 27.7% of the goals Ottawa has scored over 6 years. This year he was in on 27.9% of our goals. In 2011/12 he was in on 33.7% of the teams 249 goals.
Is that worth $7 million a season? Is it worth $7 million next season when the cap is $71 million and the team probably (in my estimation) will spend around ballpark $65 million. Is 10-12 % of our cap space/payroll too much to spend on a scoring forward that contributes that much offensively?
I would try to resign Spezza for 7 years at $6.5 million a season. Spezza gets a long contract (and a year early), team gets a team friendly cap number and the contract is not more then Karlsson's. Clearly Spezza could get more on a shorter term deal and could get 7 years for maybe more on the open market. He does get to sign it a year early which is insurance against injury. And he knows he won't have to move and he can raise his family here. Long term he makes 8-9% of the likely increasing cap. You have 20 players on a roster and $70ish million in cap space. Approx $2.85 Million a player slot. Slotting in Spezza at $7 or $6.5 Million hardly is a detriment to the team.
I am not in love with Spezza. He can even frustrate me at times. He can also dazzle me. The issue I have with the idea of trading Spezza is that we will very likely not get as talented player in return, either now or in the future. If we could guarantee that then sure, maybe I would consider trading him for another big piece. That is unlikely though, we will likely get a veteran player that is average or slightly above, a good prospect and a good pick. Which likely drains elite talent out of our franchise. 30 teams means incredible parity. There are so many good and very good players. There are not that many truly elite talents and not many near elite talents. Spezza has 4 seasons (Pizza years and 2011/12) where he was an elite player and the rest of his career he has been a near elite talent. How many players are a lock for top 40 in NHL scoring if they play at least 75 games?
The Senators have exactly two elite offensive players. Spezza and Karlsson. I think we saw Ryan is not elite offensively this year. Very, very good but not elite. Then through in Turris and MacArthur and that is the 5 (add Hemsky is 6) really talented offensive players. You need to have as many of these as possible. Without Spezza we are without a top scoring threat at forward. Compared to teams like Chicago that have 4 of them, that's not good at all. You can end up being Nashville'd and never getting a really good scoring forward.
Many people act like it is easy to attract talent. So few players get to UFA because teams recognize the need to keep as much of their own talent as possible. If you don't have a top 2 or top 3 pick, your chance of getting an elite scorer in the draft is pretty tough. You totally can get one throughout the first round, though it is kind of lucky when you do as most never work out. Especially past 7 or 8ish. Top talent is hard to come by. Players in the top 10 percentile. There are loads of good players that are a bit above average or offer loads of intangibles. But the truly elite are spread sparsely among 30 teams.
When the Sens were insanely great they had 7 elite talents at one time. Player's like Havlat, Alfredsson, Spezza, Heatley, Hasek, Chara, Redden. Havlat and Redden were elite player's at one time. The good old days. Damn the Olympics!!!!!
Almost always you lose in a quality for quantity trade. Which a Spezza trade almost inevitably would be.
Spezza is currently 30 years old (soon to be 31). He is not too old to still have some more elite seasons. In my opinion.
