Faceoff Factor

More Than Meets the Eye: Preds/Flyers Dealings

Michael Farkas | National Hockey League

Jun 21, 02:24 AM | Hype this story!

The Philadelphia Flyers jumped the gun on the free agency logjam that was set to begin July 1st. For those just emerging from under their respective rocks, the Flyers acquired the rights to forward Scott Hartnell and defenseman Kimmo Timonen in exchange for the Predators first round pick (23rd overall) in the 2007 NHL entry draft.

I think that this makes for a rather historic marker in the new-NHL history books.

This deal invokes a few different things, and none of which are too terribly fantastic.

Let’s start with the most universal of the three: The acquisition of exclusive negotiation rights.

This is something I was recently pondering about, whether this would become a more common practice with the salary cap bearing down on every NHL team. No longer can the Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers just bid, bid, bid their Bobby Holik’s and Martin Lapointe’s up to an illegitimate amount of money. Every team is held to that hard cap and I really believe that it opens the door to things like this. The only thing I ever remember happening like this is when the NHL used to offer compensatory draft picks for losing these type of free agents, so on around June 30th at 11:35 p.m. the NHL would announce a player like Curtis Joseph being traded from Edmonton to Calgary for a sixth round pick because the Flames would then receive a compensatory draft pick for losing CuJo the very next day, merely a housekeeping move. If I recall correctly, and please write in and correct me if you know otherwise, but I believe the Capitals acquired former defenseman Dimitri Yushkevich for a draft pick only to have him leave the NHL and leaving the Caps with a wasted draft pick, but that may have been just a wonderful dream.

Anyway, this trade may have an interesting effect on how unrestricted free agency pans out in the future, and by future, I mean as soon as June 30th, 2007. There may still be a chance to salvage something for an unrestricted free agent after deadline day has passed. Now the Flyers certainly overpaid for Scott Hartnell and Kimmo Timonen, not by an egregious amount, but they did overpay none-the-less. So, this leads me to believe that if a team is desperate enough to get a player and thusly over pay that player, they can get him before every team has a shot at him. I can’t tell if I like that idea or not. It’s not breaking the rules, in fact, it’s exceedingly clever, but is it in defiance of the rite of passage that is July 1st?

The Flyers gave up a first round pick to get these guys, which is hefty sum, especially when there is no way they could have talked to these players before hand without being accused of tampering. So, in no way is this plan foolproof, which is why the Flyers needed to overpay. Essentially, they needed to simulate the bidding war for these players and then come out on top of it and they did just that to secure these guys. If I may use the immortal Vin Scully’s words, “you talk about a roll of the dice, this is it.” What if you acquire these players and they don’t accept your offer? What if they aren’t interested in playing for you? What if they have an arrangement to sign with their preceding team and to help the team, he accepts the trade, gets the draft pick to his “old” team, then refuses to sign with the “new” team, and come July 1st he signs right back with his “old” team. Ethics and “codes” come in to play here, in the same way that they do for the dreaded RFA offer sheet.

It will be very interesting to see if this becomes a trend in the salary cap era of the NHL.

My other two points are fairly minor and self-explanatory, a relief to those who read through the marathon that was my first point.

As I mentioned above, the Flyers needed to overpay these guys. Unrestricted free agency following a career year or unrestricted free agency in general can be a once-in-a-lifetime pay day for any professional athlete. The Flyers had to offer a once-in-a-lifetime contract to grab these guys before they hit the open market.

Scott Hartnell is the youngest unrestricted free agent in NHL history at just 25 years old. That alone could be precedent-setter for the future as the Group III age continues to lower. Hartnell is coming off of a 22 goal, 39 point year (in 64 games) with Nashville. His career high for goals in a season is 25 (career total: 93), his career high for points is 48 (career total: 211 in 436 games). He made $1.75 million last season; this season he will make $5.2 million as part of an extremely front-loaded contract (cap hit of a very generous $4.2 million for the next six years). Now again, cue Vin Scully, this is a young kid, and with his numbers (just numbers wise) he’s really no better than a Scott Walker or Ryan Malone (who’s salaries would average out to about half of Hartnell’s). The Flyers have themselves a basket overfilled with eggs perhaps, they would look like geniuses because they may all turn out to be golden, but they may just roll out and shatter, but Paul Holmgren won’t have anyone to help him clean it up.

Kimmo Timonen is coming off a career year in Nashville. Highs in goals (13), assists (42) and points (55) raised Timonen’s contract by just that much. Defensemen have received some inflated contracts this side of the lockout, so it’s yet to be determined if Timonen’s cap number ($6.333 million) will be as outlandish as the numbers of years he signed on for (6). Timonen is 32, he’ll be 33 late this regular season, was it really that great of an idea to have this guy hitting your cap to the tune of more than $6 million per year passed the age of 36, 37, 38 years old? Timonen’s receive a heavily front-loaded contract as well; he’ll make $16 million over the next two seasons and $30 million over the next four.

What this kind of contract means to an “all-numbers” defenseman like Sheldon Souray and all-around defensemen like Brian Rafalski should have a very interesting answer.

Also, this marks the end of the Nashville Predators. The writing is on the wall, they are tearing this team down by the second. Hartnell and Timonen are already gone; expect Forsberg, Kariya, Arnott, Sullivan, Dumont, Zidlicky and Vokoun to follow suit through free agency or trade. This payroll will be slashed to near the salary floor. The Predators got all the pieces together to make one last run to save the team before anyone really knew what would happen this year (sans management), they failed to win the Cup, they failed to get the kind of recognition they needed and they will get a fresh start in Canada.