That is definitely part of it, but I think in the end, it would be riskier to let him walk and lose all the fan support gained in recent years, than to bring him back and shell out money. If Weber is the kind of player that will not play for the Preds or give it his all, etc. 1) I'd be very surprised because all reports are that he is an exemplary leader/team guy, and 2) I wouldn't want him on this team. In other words, while it is certainly possible, I think the Preds are comfortable matching because they probably think that would not be an issue after the contract is matched. Would he prefer to play in Philly? It appears as such. Would he hold out or anything like that and demand a trade? I don't see him doing that. Possible for sure, but not likely.
That being said, I hope you are right. Weber is my favorite non-flyers guy (soon to be favorite Flyers, perhaps). I would love nothing more than to see this deal go down. I just don't see it happening. Nashville's franchise would be in a lot more trouble without him than with him. Damned if you do, more damned if you don't.
I just don't see how anyone can quantify the amount of fan support that would be lost as a direct result of NSH not matching the offer sheet. Loss of Jersey sales? Sure, I can see how they can calculate that, but not fan support. If the fan support created was real, than the fans will be there through the rebuild and any loss should be insignificant. Plus, I think any support they retain is far outweighed by the amount of money owed to Weber+Rinne (their support base will basically stay the same, and the operating cost for the same product just shot into the stratosphere).
I agree that Weber would not holdout or create any problems if NSH matches; however, if I am an owner spending $110 million dollars I want to see a clear cut, 100% commitment from the player I am signing.
I also do think that Weber will be matched. I think it might be more of a blow than the money issue. Only way this is solved is if the Flyers and Preds trade with eachother (like others have been saying)
I think they want too. Its just a matter of funds. With their front office just now announcing that new The Shea Weber season ticket plan. They obviously are doing everything they can to keep Weber. But that doesn't look good because they need their fan base to get them some extra cash.
If Nashville wants to be ******** they could now offer to Voracek lol
I don't understand posts like this.
If they offer anything under 5 long term, they have done us a favour. We will easily match.
If they offer anything over 5 mil long term the flyers easily take the first, second and third round pick, which could in all honestly end up as a top 10 pick next draft. Makes no sense whatsoever.
So many gimpy fans on the main board think that they can offersheet Voracek lol. Even Isles, Columbus ect. Why in the world would Voracek sign there lol
I think they want too. Its just a matter of funds. With their front office just now announcing that new The Shea Weber season ticket plan. They obviously are doing everything they can to keep Weber. But that doesn't look good because they need their fan base to get them some extra cash.
I didn't hear about this, just curious as to what that is. Did they ask season ticket holders to dish out more in order to retain Weber?
And in regards to the Voracek offer sheet talk... just no. Why would he sign with a team that has no chance to win a cup in the foreseeable future unless they are overpaying him crazy money which in that case we take the compensation and say good day. Teams would have already done this if it was just as easy as offering him a sheet. Not to mention the Flyers have the luxury to see how the Weber situation pans out first and fully utilize the 7 day window for Voracek before matching the offer if he even did sign for arguments sake.
If they offer anything under 5 long term, they have done us a favour. We will easily match.
If they offer anything over 5 mil long term the flyers easily take the first, second and third round pick, which could in all honestly end up as a top 10 pick next draft. Makes no sense whatsoever.
So many gimpy fans on the main board think that they can offersheet Voracek lol. Even Isles, Columbus ect. Why in the world would Voracek sign there lol
But in all seriousness. The cap hit a year is what nashville wants. Its just the guaranteed money that is a problem. At the end of the day its 50/50. They either pay the money or don't. I've heard a lot about nashville not being a profitable organization in the last 6 or more years. That matters but it the investors could take that risk and swallow the contract and hope that the investment returns for them.
last season the nashville franchise really turned a corner in its market share and place in the community. they were filling the building and carrying real momentum. i doubt seriously that they would match out of spite.
remember that poile got caught in a similar situation with scott stevens signing with st louis. he let stevens go and even thought the resulting picks brought in sergei gonchar and brendan witt, it was widely accepted that they should have kept stevens. with that in mind, i'd expect a match.
so far as revenge? i dont expect that. i would think that holmgren's relationship that has gotten several deals done over the years with nashville has been severely compremized.
I'm confused by the main board, not shocking I know, and their idea on how Nash should sign Weber and then trade him.
They say "Have to match. He's the face of the franchise, captain, and you'll lose the fan base, and sink the franchise if you don't match."
Then they go on to say "They can just trade him in a year for a better package than 4 1st round picks."
Disregarding the $27 million they'd be paying in one year, how the hell does that make sense? Would he no longer be the face of the franchise, captain, and would you no longer lose the fan base, and sink the franchise in a year?
In fact it'd be worse since your fan base now thinks he's a Pred for life, and then you ship him out a year later.
I don't get it.
There are 2 sides to the deal, hockey side and financial side. Hockey wise, it's a yes. Financially, this is terrible for NSH...as they have already shown they are more concerned about winning the balance sheet.
I don't see making a hockey yes...finance no decision (keeping him) ...and then making other hocky yes decisions which will just deepen the financial losses....it's just a weird choice...
Why make one good hockey choice and a bunch of other bad ones...even if they keep him they will lose money....
But in all seriousness. The cap hit a year is what nashville wants. Its just the guaranteed money that is a problem. At the end of the day its 50/50. They either pay the money or don't. I've heard a lot about nashville not being a profitable organization in the last 6 or more years. That matters but it the investors could take that risk and swallow the contract and hope that the investment returns for them.
Maybe one investor decides to "hope" for a return on a $110 million dollar investment, but 6-8 owners are not going to get in a room and make a LARGE investment decision based solely on hope, or to save face.
Even though 6-8 investors can dilute the individual fiscal risk, they are also looking at smaller individual returns on a fairly risky investment. If the contract where structured so the money in the contract was insurable than I think the owners take the risk; however, the owners have no safety net on this contract and ran a deficit last year.
I just don't see how anyone can quantify the amount of fan support that would be lost as a direct result of NSH not matching the offer sheet. Loss of Jersey sales? Sure, I can see how they can calculate that, but not fan support. If the fan support created was real, than the fans will be there through the rebuild and any loss should be insignificant. Plus, I think any support they retain is far outweighed by the amount of money owed to Weber+Rinne (their support base will basically stay the same, and the operating cost for the same product just shot into the stratosphere).
I agree that Weber would not holdout or create any problems if NSH matches; however, if I am an owner spending $110 million dollars I want to see a clear cut, 100% commitment from the player I am signing.
I think the fact that it is speculative about how much fan support etc they will lose is what scares them. It very well may be nothing. But it also may be crippling. I honestly don't know what the fan base is like there. If Giroux signed an offer sheet and the Flyers didn't match, people would be pissed, but they wouldn't lose much money over it. I don't know if Nashville has that type of support from its fans. If the fans lose faith in the ownership because they don't match their franchise player's offer, that could be very damaging. If they are selling out games now and will go down to 80% because of this for the next long stretch of years, that could be very damaging. It is speculative but in making business decisions, everything is speculative. As a businessman, I'd be more worried about the long-term damage that could result from this than from the long term damage resulting from paying.
Not to mention the ramifications it has on simply putting a good product on the ice. People are worried the Flyers will have trouble signing long-term deals because they traded a few players. Imagine how hard it will be to get guys to go to Nashville when their two faces of the franchises bolted as soon as they could and one of them went by way of an ownership unwilling to match an offer-sheet.
I think both scenarios are high-risk high-reward situations. Nashville missing the playoffs for a couple years with no star power on the team is going to cost them money. Nashville with Shea Weber is going to cost them money. Tough spot to be in for Nashville and I hope they let him walk, but I just don't see it happening.
last season the nashville franchise really turned a corner in its market share and place in the community. they were filling the building and carrying real momentum. i doubt seriously that they would match out of spite.
remember that poile got caught in a similar situation with scott stevens signing with st louis. he let stevens go and even thought the resulting picks brought in sergei gonchar and brendan witt, it was widely accepted that they should have kept stevens. with that in mind, i'd expect a match.
so far as revenge? i dont expect that. i would think that holmgren's relationship that has gotten several deals done over the years with nashville has been severely compremized.
The relationship became compromised when Polie was demanding a ridiculous trade price from Holmgren for a RFA that obviously already wanted to sign with Philly.
I'd say it was compromised before Holmgren shoved a **** sandwich down NSHs throat.
last season the nashville franchise really turned a corner in its market share and place in the community. they were filling the building and carrying real momentum. i doubt seriously that they would match out of spite.
remember that poile got caught in a similar situation with scott stevens signing with st louis. he let stevens go and even thought the resulting picks brought in sergei gonchar and brendan witt, it was widely accepted that they should have kept stevens. with that in mind, i'd expect a match.
so far as revenge? i dont expect that. i would think that holmgren's relationship that has gotten several deals done over the years with nashville has been severely compremized.
If this was the attitude then where were 10yr 7.5 m deals for these 2 last year?
You are either spending to win regardless of losses or trying to hedge your losses/make money while spinning the "we are trying to win" speak.
I''ll tell you what.....with all that money Nashville would have to front to retain him... Weber would probably become the poster child for the term franchise player in sports. What other player would have all that net worth in comparison to the net worth of the entire franchise. Him and Rinne could bankrupt that team in one fell swoop.
Finally, where are all the resident insiders? I mean do we really have to rely on the likes of Panotch and the other yahoos. How come Eskin didn't break this....
FORWARDS
Scott Hartnell ($4.200m) / Claude Giroux ($3.750m) / Jakub Voracek ($4.000m)
Wayne Simmonds ($1.750m) / Brayden Schenn ($3.110m) / Danny Briere ($6.500m)
Ruslan Fedotenko ($1.750m) / Sean Couturier ($1.375m) / Matt Read ($0.900m)
Eric Wellwood ($0.580m) / Maxime Talbot ($1.750m) / Zac Rinaldo ($0.544m)
Jody Shelley ($1.100m) /
DEFENSEMEN
Kimmo Timonen ($6.333m) / Shea Weber ($7.857m)
Braydon Coburn ($4.500m) / Nicklas Grossmann ($3.500m)
Luke Schenn ($3.600m) / Andrej Meszaros ($4.000m)
Bruno Gervais ($0.825m) / Andreas Lilja ($0.738m)
GOALTENDERS
Ilya Bryzgalov ($5.667m)
Michael Leighton ($0.900m)
BUYOUTS
Oskars Bartulis ($0.100m)
------
CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS
(these totals are compiled without the bonus cushion)
SALARY CAP: $70,200,000; CAP PAYROLL: $69,328,944; BONUSES: $2,705,000
CAP SPACE (23-man roster): $871,056
That is not a bad looking team. Swap Sestito for Shelley and you save a bit more cap room.
And if you have to send Meszaros and someone else to Nashville to secure the deal for Weber, you have room for another UFA winger like Doan or Semin...
Honestly if they match. I don't even see them being a team that can compete with that much money tied up. I don't even seem them making the playoffs this year. People say well they have extremely good defensive depth but do those players equal the caliber of Ryan Suter? They have good depth in terms of prospects but asking them to replace Suter is a huge step.
Just look at their offensive lineup. Its very underwhelming. Their top scorer was Erat with 19 goals and 58 total points. Legwand came in second with 53 and Fisher with 51. Those are second liners playing in a first line role.
Now here is where the problem is. They lost Suter who was after Weber in points with 46. Weber had 49. He had 19 goals. Where are they going to replace that offense from the back end with Suter? Who is going to replace his minutes? Gill? Klein? or Josi? Those players aren't top pairing defenseman. The very fact that they had two defenseman who were about 12 or 14 points off from being the leading scorers on their team is very concerning about their depth up front but also the blow to the team with Suter leaving for nothing.
I don't see them as a playoff team next year i don't care how good of a coach Trotz is. There are teams in the west that got significantly better. Their division is also rough.
If they match this offer they have to deal with the fact they could be fielding a losing team that can hardly compete because of the money tied up on Weber & Rinne. It could possibly be hard for them to field a decent squad around them if they cannot afford it. Also they would be in an even worse spot if the team doesn't even make it to the playoffs. A budget team that has that kind of money tied up that isn't profitable NEEDS to qualify for the playoffs. Its not a very easy situation financially. Homer knew what time it was and he called Pollie's bluff.
But if they have the money then they will be fine. If they are really a cap team like Pollie's says then i wouldn't mind watching Weber for the rest of his career here while i'm living here in Nashville. If they can match the offer then it means they can pay the money and surround Weber and Rinne with talent. If they can't then its unfortunate for them but Pollie shouldn't wait so long to get deals done. Its bad asset retaining. He has done this too many times. He can't low ball his franchise players. The fact they offered him $4.5 million in arbitration last summer shows you the lack of funds and commitment they Preds have in trying to pay him what he needs to be paid. Investors at the end of this season were looking for 15m-25m alone to try and inject some cash in the system.
I'm just all speculating but from my point of view and gut feelings Weber will be a flyer.
I'm sure Bryz is happy at the prospect of having that kind of D corp around him...of course added pressure to hold up his end of the bargain although he's not exactly a bargain....
I'm not so sure the Preds can't match. Bret Wilson, one of their minority owners, is made of money. They can come up with cash if they want to. We don't want them to, so we might need to encourage them not to.
If we don't at least offer some kind of trade back, I really think they will match.
Yes, it keeps him out of the East if they do, and their franchise is screwed either way.
The Flyers are in a position to give them an out and get what WE REALLY WANT: Shea Weber in #6 on the Flyers first pairing....
Bret Wilson only owns 5% of NSH. So if I am him and the rest of the group wants me to foot the 26 Million, guess what - I need more ownership than just 5%.
