The hockey world is abuzz over the St. Louis Blues’ offer sheets to Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway today, but given that the Red Wings have $17.65 million in salary cap space (per PuckPedia), it’s incredibly difficult to imagine that Steve Yzerman or the Red Wings’ management team are at all worried about having to match similar offer sheets when it comes to re-signing Jonatan Berggren, Lucas Raymond or Moritz Seider.
Sure, the offer sheets remind us that it’s almost the middle of August, and that the Red Wings need to gain some traction here as training camp is about a month away, but I’m just not in agreement with the Hockey News’s Connor Eargood here:
As a general manager, Yzerman has always proceeded with patience. When other GMs jump, he calculates. When others give their star players extensions well ahead of the offseason, he sweats out his stars to get the best possible deal. He did it with Steven Stamkos in Tampa Bay and Dylan Larkin in Detroit, even when they could’ve become UFAs. He’s doing it with Seider and Raymond, stars who still don’t have extensions deep into August. With nothing forcing Yzerman and other GMs to move quickly, they can take their sweet time.
If teams are willing to sign offer sheets and give up draft picks, then Yzerman will have no choice but to speed up his process to avoid tempting other teams to offer sheet his players. Especially when a number of prospects should mature into NHL-level players these next few seasons, he’ll have to mind how he approaches the RFA contracts.
For a long time, RFA rights have served as a quasi-contract in the way teams view free agents. This empowers Yzerman’s patience. Take a look at Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond and Jonatan Berggren this offseason. For players of Raymond and Seider’s caliber, the compensation another team would have to give up in return for them is not cheap. It’s hard to fathom any offer sheets for those two not landing above $6.8 million, it’s harder to imagine a team wants to give up their own first, second and third round pick to do that. And don’t even think that Detroit wouldn’t match the offers, either. So, nothing forces Yzerman to move quicker on extensions. He can sweat everyone out deep into the summer.
So what exactly is changing with the Blues’ splash? In a world of offer sheets, compensation costs probably prevent a real blockbuster from affecting negotiations like Seider’s and Raymond’s. But what about players who don’t demand such big contracts? What about the Joe Velenos and Jonatan Berggrens of the future, the players of varying talents who don’t demand huge contracts and who other teams might be willing to give a shot? It’s a whole new ball game.
The Blues’ moves are generally not going to be replicated by other teams’ GM’s–offer sheets are rare for good reason, given that the NHL’s GM’s are generally a staid bunch of folks who don’t take kindly to other teams trying to poach their talent–and while the rest of Eargood’s article is a good read, noting that the Wings will have a gaggle of restricted free agents a year from now…
It’s just not something that Steve Yzerman is going to pay much heed to. It’s not a whole new ball game until offer sheets proliferate, and we’re not at that point in today’s NHL.
