Inside The Penalty Box 08.28.06: Simon Gagne and Brian Gionta Still Without Contracts
Posted by Neil Borenstein on 08.28.2006
The Philadelphia Flyers and New Jersey Devils have something in common - though, it's not a good thing.
The Philadelphia Flyers and New Jersey Devils are considered immense rivals within the Eastern Conference's Atlantic Division. But sometimes, even enemies can have something in common.
This offseason has seen a lot of free agent activity, but for the Devils and Flyers, they have kept their signings mostly in-house. And right now, with the opening of training camps merely weeks away, both teams have a big restricted free agent waiting to be signed, and whatever problems both teams have come across so far this offseason, they could face another one as their respective players may possibly hold out.
For the Philadelphia Flyers, it is going to become very hard to consider their team legitimately capable of being Stanley Cup contenders without this one player. Though the Flyers are deep and have great talent outside of their goaltending, Simon Gagne is the franchise player in Philadelphia, and not having him under contract causes a large problem for the team.
Gagne had a breakout season last year, and despite newly acquired Peter Forberg's playmaking skills being a big part of it, he still proved himself to be one of the prominent goal scorers in the National Hockey League. With a seventh ranking total in the NHL and team-leading total of 47 goals, Gagne has really become one of the best left wings in the entire league. Along with those 47 goals, 12 of which were on the power play, came 32 assists for 79 total points, and a +31 rating that shows he is still a great two-way player as well. Gagne's agent, Bob Sauve, says that Gagne is one of the most complete players in the game. I'd be hard-pressed to disagree.
And that's why the Flyers are in a world of trouble if they don't start getting to work on getting him under contract.
Back in July, there was very little communication between the two sides about getting a deal signed, and general manager Bob Clarke was not concerned. But, with four days (including today) remaining in August, there is very little reported progress in this situation.
Of course, the biggest problem must be numbers, or in simpler terms, money. It always is. But in this case, I don't think it's because the Flyers don't want to pay Gagne, but instead the fact that where they are salary cap-wise won't allow them to pay Gagne what he wants. And though I don't remember if I mentioned this in an edition of ITPB last offseason, I knew getting Gagne under contract this year was going to be a major problem with how close they put themselves towards the salary cap. They were lucky to have Gagne under a one-year deal last season for $2 million. That won't happen against this upcoming year.
That's the case especially since Sauve also happens to represent Calgary Flames left wing Alex Tanguay. And for Tangauy, Sauve managed to get a three-year, $15.75 million deal. It will pay Tanguay $5 million next season, and $5.375 in both the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 seasons. Sauve wants to get something around that for Gagne, meaning Gagne is looking for a deal of at least $5 million a season, and that could be a problem for a team with very little salary cap space.
Though an exact payroll, at least for salary cap purposes, is unknown, the Flyers are around $38-39 million. That would mean if the Flyers gave Gagne what he wanted in the $5-5.375 million range, they would pressed right up against the $44 million cap. That would not be a stellar idea considering the Flyers are not the healthiest team in the league, and after Forsberg kills an ankle or another four or five defensemen go down with injuries, the Flyers are going to need room to make trades. Being in the spot they would be in if they give Gagne a contract worth that amount of money would not leave them in a comfortable position to accomplish that.
Then comes the problem of unrestricted free agency, which Gagne moves into next summer. The 26-year-old forward could perhaps sign a one-year deal with the Flyers for around $3.5-4 million, though that still doesn't put the Flyers in a tremendous position cap-wise. But if this were to occur, then Gagne would be free to test unrestricted free agent waters next season, and that would be an absolute disaster for Philadelphia to lose somebody of Gagne's caliber.
Getting Gagne under contact is a priority. And Gagne wants long-term, as I'm sure the Flyers want as well. It's going to take some fiddling around though the make that happen, though I have to believe it's a "whatever it takes" kind of scenario to get Gagne's situation done and over with by training camp.
The Devils are in a very similar situation, though they are already at the $44 million salary cap number and the player they have yet to sign has already said that he will take the option of holding out if a contact towards his liking is not offered.
Brian Gionta led the Devils in scoring last season with 48 goals and 41 assists for 89 points, and had an amazing 24 of his goals come with the man advantage. He was sixth in the league in goal scoring with those 48 total goals, just one ahead of Philly's Gagne.
Gionta not only proved himself as a great offensive asset, both on the power play and at even strength, but he also had great chemistry with two of the other top players in the Devils' organization – Scott Gomez and Patrick Elias. Having only scored 29 points last season, 25 in 58 games the year before and 11 during his first season of 33 games, Gionta has shown tremendous growth and progress in New Jersey.
But now, Gionta sits there without a deal, waiting for general manager Lou Lamoriello to ship him an offer. The problem is, the Devils have no space under their salary cap to offer him anything. He knows they won't offer him a bad deal just because they are screwed cap-wise, but Lamoriello and the Devils have absolutely no wiggle room and are in a rut for options on how to handle this matter.
Gionta wants a long-term deal, hence the reason he avoided arbitration in the first place. At most he would only receive a two-year deal from an arbitrator, and he would most likely only receive one. Plus, he wants to stay in New Jersey for the long haul. In his mind, the only deal is a long-term one. And he wants to make around $3.5 million a season, a number I believe is very fair for the 27-year-old right wing who excelled last season on a team not known for having a tremendous offense.
The problem is, for as great as Lamoriello was under the old NHL system, the new collective bargaining agreement's implementation of a salary cap structure has turned him into a horrible general manager.
For starters, any GM in the league that offers Colin White a six-year deal at $18 million, which pays off at $3 million per season, deserves to lose their job on the spot. Lamoriello's only saving grace on that one is that he is Lou Lamoriello, and perhaps he gets a free pass. But any other GM should never get the opportunity to make an asinine re-signing like that again. White is a good defensive defenseman, and is very physical in nature, but somebody like him does not get the kind of money he was signed to. I'm not so sure White is really even worth $1 million, let alone the $3 million he's going to get over the next six years. That's just ridiculous.
Then, on top of that, they signed their star right wing to a seven-year deal for $42 million. To begin with, the Devils were not in great cap positioning, and this signing only made it worse. Sure, at an average of $6 million per season, it's completely worth it for at least the first five seasons for somebody like Elias. But deals that long-term are very dangerous, especially when a club can barely afford the first few years of it.
And then, New Jersey chose to accept the arbitration ruling of $5 million for Gomez. Gomez is an important player for the Devils, and he had a breakout season of sorts as well last year with 84 points. But, at the same time, he is not a $5 million center. At least, he isn't yet. The offer the Devils made in arbitration of $4 million seems better, and though $1 million may seem like nothing, with the spot the Devils' payroll is in, that's a lot of money.
And now, their biggest offensive option of last season is sitting idly by without a contract because the Devils simply have no space. It doesn't help that $7.1 million of their cap is being spent on two players who won't be doing anything in forward Alexander Mogilny and the retired Vladimir Malakhov, but that's the spot Lamoriello put the team in and now he has to figure out a way to make this all right.
Gionta has stated that holding out is an option, and I fully believe he will go as far as he can on this. He's not going to give in to a lower deal, and as stated above, Lamoriello probably won't offer him one. But the Devils need to wheel and deal, and have had to for quite some time in order to open up some cap space.
They are sitting around $45.18 million in payroll, considering the salaries of the injured forward Jason Wiemer and defenseman Richard Matvichuk are off the books until they come back. And those two make around a combined $2.3 million. But still, the Devils are over the cap by about $1.82 million – a cap which they need to be at or under by the time the season starts in October – and also need to re-sign David Hale and Paul Martin, as well as grab a sign a backup goalie, in addition to getting Gionta under contract.
To be honest, Lamoriello really put his team in a world of trouble this offseason. How he's going to get them out if it, I have no idea. But the Devils need to trade somebody, or more likely two or three players, to make this all work out. And they have very little time to do it in.
For these two teams, timing is everything at the moment. If this were the beginning of July still, the pressure might not be as big to get these two wingers under contract. But we're sitting at the very end of August with training camps set to open in a few weeks, and two key pieces are missing from their respective teams' lineups.
Clarke and Lamoriello are two veteran general managers of the NHL, and in essence, that's a good thing. But, they have made very few improvements to their lineups and are in dire need of keeping their own guys on the team so things do not become worse.
The clock is definitely ticking.
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Until next week, you have just been Inside The Penalty Box!
