shmenguin wrote:Jesse wrote:Stuff
my only issue with your points (and i'm still technically with the owners, but i'm trending towards the players) is implication that the owners and GM's could simply abstain from handing out cap-circumventing contracts. it's just not realistic, imo. you can either be competitive in free agency and partake or you can sit on the sidelines and watch your team and your fan base go into the tank. most teams would have been happy if these deals never existed, but a handful of them pissed in the punch bowl that everyone has to drink from.
I'd disagree here.
The Penguins are a perennial cup contender. Sure, this is a bad example because of Crosby/Malkin, but consider how well they've done and the lack of "poor" contracts on their roster. Look at James Neals' new contract and compare it to his peers in regards to salary. The Penguins do things the right way.
The LA Kings didn't have to go out and destroy their competitive balance. They made smart trades, drafted well, and won the Stanley Cup.
The Bruins spent a lot, but they orchestrated a team that works as a unit and won the Cup based solely off of systematic approach to the game and signing/retaining players that were positive for that system. Sure, they don't have a ton of cap space left, but they're an extremely marketable team that was put together in a very savvy way.
Having a high cap cost doesn't correlate to success rate in any way for me. If it did, the Maple Laughs would be competing for the Cup every year.
The problem, for me, and in the point my post, was giving a guy like Jeff Finger the contract he got. That was worthless and drove the market up in a bad way. Does Christian Erhoff need to be making that kind of money? That deal isn't signed because of market value or the need to compete with other GM's. It's terrible business, period. Paul Statsny at 6.6? Is that a joke? Bryz at 6.5?
The cap was supposed to dictate the market. Once a handful of GM's started to circumvent that, the market went straight to hell.