Crosby and RFA’s and Offer Sheets
This is a tad premature, I know, with Crosby having another full year on his rookie contract. But I’ve been thinking a fair amount lately about who is going to replace Mats Sundin when he heads back to his homeland for good, and that got me thinking about franchise players in general and what it takes to get them.
Sidney Crosby is the best player in the NHL and figures to be so for the majority of his career. What would you be willing to give up for Crosby if you were an NHL GM?
Let’s say Crosby becomes a Restricted Free Agent after next season. While Pittsburgh works feverishly to resign him to a contract that will allow them some room and/or flexibility for the next summer, when Jordan Staal and Evgeni Malkin will be looking for big raises of their own, you decide to sneak in an offer sheet to Sid the Kid. Not surprisingly, you offer him something in the neighbourhood of $7-$8 million per year. Maybe you offer him the maximum salary allowed by the then-current salary cap.
Based on the CBA, if Crosby signed that offer sheet the Penguins would have two choices: match that contract or let him go and accept compensation in the form of (for that high a salary) 5 first round draft picks.
Now, I don’t think you’d find a single GM who would choose the draft picks over Crosby. But this line of thought led me down two paths that I found interesting.
First, just what would it take to pry a Crosby, an Alexander Ovechkin or a similar franchise-player type RFA from their former club? And I mean this question seriously. What would you offer to Pittsburgh GM Ray Shero for Crosby, Malkin or Staal if he was having trouble fitting his stars under the salary cap?
7 first round draft picks? 10? 20?
I can’t see this sort of trade ever happening, for two reasons. First of all, no number of first round picks has any guarantee of producing a player of the caliber of a Malkin or Staal, let alone a Crosby. Crosby is more valuable than almost any number of picks because it is virtually guaranteed a player of his caliber will not be available in the next twenty years. Even if such a player does turn up sooner than expected, it will take not merely a first round pick but a first overall pick to obtain it. Second, this deal would also severely hobble the GM that offered up so many picks for his new star. Even if he got Crosby, who would you surround him with if you lacked first round picks for the next decade or two?
The second line of thought has to do with the Penguins situation in particular. I think we can all agree that the Penguins will be unable to keep all five of Crosby, Malkin, Staal, Marc Andre Fleury and Ray Whitney for more than a few years. However, their meteoric rise up the standings this season suggest they’ll be more interested in adding veteran rentals than first round picks over the next few years.
The Penguins are going to have to think long-term, and if they haven’t started already I’d be shocked. What kind of return they get for whichever star they choose to move (Malkin seems the most likely). A combination of draft picks, prospects and especially veteran help seems obvious, but what exactly they add will be interesting to see.
The Pens will also have to have plenty of forethought in their contract negotiations with their youngsters. The Penguins cannot afford to let Crosby, in particular, become even a restricted free agent. You have to expect someone to offer crosby maximum allowable salary pretty well the day his contract expires. That would force the Pens hand further than they can afford pretty quickly, I would think.
So that, I think, is your answer to the Penguins - they will pay Crosby whatever he wants because someone will force their hand anyways. And they had better start exploring trade avenues for one of Malkin or Staal, because they’re going to want to drive that bidding war up as much as they possibly can.
And don’t be surprised to see offer sheets for any other franchise players teams have trouble signing before they hit free agency. If a team doesn’t want to finish 30th in the league, 5 first round picks may be the quickest and cheapest way of acquiring the next cornerstone player.