"Plan The Parade" And Other Miscellany

Someone much smarter than I (the one and only JavaGeek) ran the numbers and says the Caps will be the best team in hockey next season. So what if he has Matt Pettinger still on the Caps (among other lineup innacuracies)?... It's never too early to go shopping for next summer's free agents/this winter's trade bait.... In "Where Is That Crappy Former Caps Blueliner Now?" news, Bryan "Muiracle on Ice" Muir is headed to the KHL. So is J.-F. Fortin. Scared yet, Gary?... Finally, I've always wanted to be bookmarked next to TMZ.com (not really, but many thanks nonetheless).

Caps Sign Morrisonn: One Year, $1.975 Million

Per the team: "The Washington Capitals have signed defenseman Shaone Morrisonn to a one-year contract, vice president and general manager George McPhee announced today. In keeping with club policy, financial terms of the deal were not disclosed."

Per Vogs (who, of course, works for said club): "The arbitrator has ruled that the 25-year-old blueliner will receive a one-year contract for $1.975 million for the upcoming 2008-09 NHL season."

That's a decent deal for the Caps (and a very good deal for Mo), but, at least by my math, the new contract will necessitate some roster juggling in order to get under the cap.

UPDATE: Just a reminder that "[p]er league rules, [and arbitrator] must render his salary decision within 48 hours of the hearing. Once the award has been made, the [team] then [has] a 48-hour window to reconsider the structure, and payroll, of their 2008-'09 roster.

Among the considerations the CBA allows: the possibility of a club to buy out up to three players on the roster." [Link]

Fehr Signs, Theodore Poses

A couple of stories from out at K-Plex today, the first being the signing of right wing Eric Fehr (a one-year, two-way deal worth $735,000) and the second being the introduction of the team's new number one goalie to the local media.

Here's the video on the latter:

A Little Bit Mo' On Mo

As you know by now, Brooks Laich and Shaone Morrisonn filed for salary arbitration ahead of the Saturday deadline for doing so, removing the possibility of either Restricted Free Agent signing an offer sheet with another team (I guess GMGM's threat worked).

Should either case actually go before an arbitrator, here's what you need to know about the process, here's a more detailed look (including a truly interesting read - the Dmitri Khristich/Boston Bruins arbitration decision), and, as another interesting point of historical perspective, here's Vogs on Laich's arbitration hearing from last year. But most of the time when a player files for arb (24 of 31 times last year, in fact) the team and the player reach an agreement before the scheduled hearing date and the parties avoid the often awkward and contentious meeting (recall, for example, the Rangers' description of Sean Avery in their brief).

We've talked a bit about Laich lately (as has Corey), but there hasn't been much chatter on Mo, so let's put him under the microscope. Here are "The Good" and "The Bad" from his Rink Wrap:

The Good: Morrisonn was tied for third among Caps blueliners in hits and tied for second in takeaways. He skated the second most shifts per game on the team, was fourth in average ice time and still managed to cut his penalty minutes by more than 40% from last year, despite playing against opponents' top lines. As tough as they come, Mo played all seven games in the playoffs with a broken jaw and a separated shoulder. Oh, and he tied for the regular season team lead in percentage of faceoffs won.

The Bad: Morrisonn had only 47 shots on goal and an atrocious 2.1 shooting percentage, but when you're Mike Green's partner, it's not your job to score - it's your job to cover his butt. Still, Mo's offensive numbers declined for the second consecutive season on a team whose goal totals have risen at even strength (but declined on the power play) over that span, and he had the fewest points per minute of ice time on the team, as well as his personal career low in points per game (not including his 11-game 2002-03). Mo was second on the team in minor penalties, and got jumped by Vinny Lecavalier in his one fight of the year (which isn't necessarily bad on Mo, but I wanted to mention it, so there it is).

So what's Morrisonn worth? Arbitrators use a pretty narrow definition of "comparables," but we're going to assume that no arbitrator will ever hear this case and so we'll be a little more liberal in our comparables. We'll also only use guys who have signed this year.

One guy that jumps out is Kurt Sauer, who recently signed with the Phoenix Coyotes. Keep in mind that Sauer was an unrestricted free agent, so his situation was a bit different than Mo's, but let's look at some numbers anyway:

• Drafted: Sauer (3rd round, 2000); Morrisonn (1st round, 2001)
  
• Sauer, Career: 288 games played, 4 goals, 22 assists, -15, 214 PIMs, 170 SOG
• Morrisonn, Career: 278 games played, 6 goals, 39 assists, +24, 278 PIMs, 167 SOG
• Sauer, 2007-08: 54 games played, 1 goal, 5 assists, +17, 41 PIMs, 28 SOG, 18:41 average TOI per game
  
• Morrisonn, 2007-08: 76 games played, 1 goal, 9 assists, +4, 63 PIMs, 47 SOG, 20:16 average TOI per game
  

Morrisonn has a higher all-around upside than Sauer, is nearly two years younger than the 'Yotes blueliner, and even though numbers alone don't tell you much about guys like Mo and Sauer, the latter provides a decent example of what those numbers might fetch on the open market. Sauer signed with Phoenix last week for four years at $1.75 million per year (a steal in Mirtle's eyes).

Looking strictly at RFAs, here are two more names that provide a couple more points of reference when thinking about putting a dollar number on Morrisonn's value:

• Mark Stuart (BOS) - Has 5 goals, 6 assists, a +8 rating and 105 PIMs in 114 NHL games... had 4 goals, 4 assists, +2, 81 PIMs, 60 SOG in 15:22 average TOI per game in 2007-08... signed a two-year deal worth $1.3 million per season as an RFA.
• Tim Gleason (CAR) - Has 7 goals, 46 assists, a -4 rating and 239 PIMs in 262 NHL games... had 3 goals, 16 assists, +5, 84 PIMs, 98 SOG in 18:38 average TOI per game in 2007-08... signed a four-year deal worth $2.75 million per season as an RFA.

Of the three players listed here, Gleason is probably the best fit as a comparable, given that he's forty days younger than Morrisonn, was drafted four picks after Mo, and signed his new deal as an RFA. His offensive and defensive numbers (including hits and blocked shots) are somewhat better than Morrisonn's to date, but Mo played tougher minutes and more of them.

So did the 'Canes overpay on Gleason? My guess is that in four years, that deal's going to look very good for Carolina. More importantly, though, one wonders how (if at all) that deal might impact the Caps' negotiations with Morrisonn. Mo is probably not worth $2.75 million per season right now (Jeff Finger deal aside). But if the team takes a "wait and see" approach by either letting an arbitrator decide on a one-year deal for Mo or signing him short-term themselves, they'll find themselves in a similar position one year from now and they run the risk of missing out on potentially large savings in the out-years to save a few bones in the present.

Shaone Morrisonn is 25 years old. He's steadily getting better defensively and is the franchise defenseman's security blanket. And while I think that his defensive abilities are a little over-rated by many Caps fans, there's a very low risk at this point that he flops (much lower, you'd think, than the chance that Laich does). It's not my money, but if it were, I'd lock him up to a three- or four-year deal at up to, say, $2.5 million per year - the value in three or four years would likely be worth the present day investment.

If this Capitals team is going to compete for a Cup in the next few years, they'll likely need a handful of favorable contracts to go along with the mega deals handed out to guys like Green and Alex Ovechkin. Morrisonn could - and should - be one of those deals, and the time to pull the trigger on it is now.

One Less Reason To Leave

One of the reasons Sergei Fedorov was purportedly thinking of heading back to Russia to play out his hockey career was to play in his homeland with his brother Fedor (who has bounced from league-to-league and country-to-country over the past decade).

Well, according to European Hockey.net, that option is off the table as the younger Fedorov has signed with the New Jersey Devils.

So while the Caps and the elder Fedorov wait for the dust to settle with respect to the team's RFAs, it seems increasingly likely that #91 will be back in the fold for the red, white and blue. That is, of course, if a guy who has made $61,519,036.20 in salary alone as an NHL player can accept a potentially "insulting" offer and take a few fewer rubles for the good of a team that probably needs him more than he needs it (and if he's honestly thinking about walking away from his comrades and the game over $2 million now, he probably doesn't have enough desire to be in it anymore anyway).

The bottom line is that George McPhee is "pretty confident" that Fedorov will return to D.C., which is comforting... until you recall the last UFA GMGM expected would return.

Jeff Friesen Redux?

As you already know, the Caps signed free agent forward Keith Aucoin to a two-year deal today (details here). Whether the move is simply a depth move or a harbinger of things to come remains to be seen, but in Aucoin the Caps get "a hard-skating, hustler who always gives 100%" and who "has proven he can rack up impressive point totals at lower levels" (he was second in the AHL in scoring in 2006-07) but "[n]eeds to work on his defensive-zone coverage."

All that aside, my main question is whether or not Aucoin, if he ever plays for the Caps, will ask for, receive and wear the number he's worn in his previous NHL stints. If so, it might look a little strange (though not unprecedented)...

Controlling The Message

When George McPhee spoke to the media late Tuesday afternoon, many of the collected questioners were surprised at the substance of his discussion on his inability to re-sign incumbent netminder Cristobal Huet. Even more surprising, however, was just how candid GMGM was in that discussion.

"Huet’s agent, Stephen Bartlett didn’t want to get into the specifics of the negotiations with the Caps," blogged the WTimes' Corey Masisak, "But McPhee atypically was willing to oblige." And oblige he did:

He said the Caps started at the 3 years/$3.7 million and Huet’s camp started at 3 years/$5 million. McPhee said the Caps came up to $4.3 and then $4.6 and finally to $5 million per season, but Bartlett/Huet decided they wanted to test the market. McPhee said the team considered going above $5 million today, but the combination of that and the four-year term was too much.

It's not often that you hear any GM speak so openly about a failed negotiation, and it's especially rare to hear the notoriously tight-lipped GMGM do so.

So why did he in this case (and clearly this was not a heat of the moment decision as he has repeated the talking points to anyone who will listen)? To control the message.

When Olie Kolzig went on a local media tour to talk about how unfairly he was treated by the team that had paid him $42 million over a 15-year period, Caps management was relatively silent, favoring the high road to a war of words played out in the media. As a result, only one side of the story was heard and public reaction favored the player more than it might have, had all the facts been out in the open (and this wasn't the first time that the team's refusal to throw its full version of the facts into the public arena has caused some degree of consternation amongst portions of its fan base, perhaps legitimately and otherwise). [Note: I don't know any more than you do on these - I'm just assuming that the team has a different take than the parties leaving the organization.]

But all of that goes with the territory - blast players on their way out the door and see how quickly others line up to potentially be the next to go in front of the firing squad (really, Cory?).

The Huet situation, however, is different - in part because no matter how great he was for two months, no one's debating whether or not #38 should be raised to the Verizon Center rafters - and one that Caps management wanted to get out in front of for a couple of possible reasons.

To begin with, when you lose a player like Huet to free agency (especially when an agreement had been expected for more than a month), the immediate reaction is to assume that it was because the team didn't want to meet the player's monetary and/or term demands. This wasn't the case here, and a rejuvenated fan base and the rest of the hockey world needed to know that. Couple that with the announcement of the signing of the next best alternative and an explanation of why that deal made better sense for the team in both the long- and short-terms and no one can legitimately question the team's commitment to winning or its ability to attract free agents.

Secondly, the team probably wanted to expose Bartlett's questionable negotiating tactics to serve both as a bit of a public shaming and as a warning to the rest of the League. In a game full of codes and gentlemen, Bartlett's Lucy to GMGM's Charlie Brown routine will not be without repercussions.

The irony of the entire situation, of course, is that McPhee afforded Huet the opportunity to earn as much as twice what he might have had he finished out the season as Carey Price's backup, and this was the thanks he got. And this is how he dealt it - still on the high road, considering how it could have been handled. Well played, I say.

Step Back From The Ledge

Jose Theodore is no Cristobal Huet. Or perhaps Huet is no Theodore.

Jose Theodore has played in more than 52 games in a single season before (five times) and has won a playoff series (four times, in fact). Jose Theodore has won a Hart Trophy and a Vezina Trophy. Jose Theodore has scored a goal, failed a drug test, and probably nailed Paris Hilton.

But as the Jose Theodore deal isn't as much about the past as it is about the future, let's focus on that.

Rather than commit huge dollars and years to a goalie who has never played a full season as a number one netminder and who missed time over the past three campaigns with a groin injury (five games in December of 2007), back spasms (one game this past March), a knee injury (18 games in 2005), and a season-ending hamstring injury (twenty games in 2007), the Caps went with Plan B - a short-term deal with the second-best goalie on the free agent market.

Best case scenario? Theodore plays well, and when his deal is up Simeon Varlamov or Michal Neuvirth is ready to take over the starting spot, giving the Caps a cheap, young netminder while they worry about re-signing RFA's Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Semin. Worst case scenario? Theodore is awful, and the team either addresses the problem via trade at some point along the way, or the parties part ways after two years, leaving the team in search of a goalie and having high-profile RFAs to sign... not unlike the position in which they found themselves at noon yesterday.

But let's not sugarcoat things - Jose Theodore is an average goaltender with the ability to get scorching hot or fairly putrid for decent periods of time (though the former stretches outnumber the latter). He has a 2.96 goals against average and an .895 save percentage since the lockout (2.44/.910 this past season), but had a 21-13-2 record, a 2.24 GAA and a .919 save percentage in his last 37 starts of 2007-08 [Sidenote: Le fantastique Cristobal Huet was 25-8-4 with a 2.35 GAA and a .917 save percentage in his last 37 starts of the regular season. Sidenote Sidenote: If you're not already reading The Red Skate, who goes into more detail on the Theodore/Huet comparison, you need to be doing so.]

Clearly Huet is a better goaltender than Theodore (or so we're told), but look at it this way - the Caps went 23-13-7 (a 98-point pace) from the day Bruce Boudreau took over behind the bench until Cristobal Huet was acquired. Over that span, their number one goalie went 17-9-6 with a 3.02 GAA and a .886 save percentage. Does anyone doubt that Jose Theodore can do at least that well? I sure don't. If he can go the entire season without giving up more than three goals in back-to-back starts - a feat he accomplished last year - he's going to win an awful lot of games, which, as I recall someone mentioning not long ago, is all that really matters (and don't give me that "Quennville's defensive system" crap - the Caps gave up 0.2 more shots per game over the entire season than Colorado did, and nearly a third of those shots were on juicy Kolzig rebounds).

Bottom line: if you were of the belief that Cristobal Huet was the kind of goalie that could take a team all the way, you're probably inconsolable today. But for the rest of us, the reality is that provided that everything else comes together over the next few days/weeks/months, there's no reason to believe the Caps won't be perfectly fine in both the short- and long-term. And hey, at least they didn't sign Ray Emery, right?

Don Meehan Reaches Into Ted Leonsis's Pocket

Two weeks ago we speculated that Mike Green's negotiations with the Caps might have stalled in part because Green's agent-by-extension, Don Meehan, had a bone to pick with the Caps after being fired by Alex Ovechkin (to clarify, Green's agent is Craig Oster, an agent in Meehan-founded Newport Sports Management).

Well, today's Newport Sports Management Happy Hour is likely sponsored by the Washington Capitals, as Green signed a four-year, $21 million deal and Meehan client Jose Theodore signed a two-year, $9 million contract. And while the annual total ($9.75 million) is just a shade over what Ovechkin's cap hit will be this year, one wonders if Meehan's thirst for possible revenge is now slaked.

Wait a second - he's an agent. Nevermind. Maybe he can soak the team for another million or more on a new deal for Eric Fehr.

Caps Sign Theodore

Per TSN.

Per the team:

The Washington Capitals have signed goaltender Jose Theodore to a two-year contract, vice president and general manager George McPhee announced today. In keeping with club policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed [Note: It's two years at $4.5 million per year].

Theodore, who will turn 32 on Sept. 13, won the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player in 2001-02. The 5’11”, 182-pound native of Laval, Quebec, is a 12-year professional who spent the last two seasons with the Colorado Avalanche. He was 28-21-3 with three shutouts, a 2.44 goals-against average and a .910 save percentage in 2007-08, including a 21-13-2 record, a 2.24 GAA and a .919 save percentage in his last 37 starts.

Theodore started 20 of the Avalanche’s last 21 games in 2007-08 en route to his fifth career 20-win season. He ranked fifth among NHL goaltenders with a 2.24 GAA after January 1. Theodore posted a 6-1 record in shootouts this season and has a 9-2 mark in shootouts in his career.

A second-round choice of the Montreal Canadiens in the 1994 NHL Draft, Theodore spent parts of 10 seasons with Montreal, including his Hart Trophy season in 2002. He also won the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goaltender and made his first of two NHL All-Star Game appearances that year.

Theodore appeared in his 400th career game in 2007-08 and has a career mark of 183-197-40, with a 2.65 GAA and a .909 save percentage. He ranks 10th among active goaltenders in career appearances (444) and 14th in victories (183).

Green's Green

Maybe we're all wrong to be fearing the worst in the Mike Green situation.

The Fourth Period claims that the Caps and Don Meehan (founder of Newport Sports Management, the agency representing Green) are talking, but that "there is a major gap between the two parties," and that "Green is believed to be looking for around $3.5 million to $4 million per season."

First of all, while I have no doubt that Don Meehan is involved in the Green negotiations at some level, Craig Oster is Mike Green's agent and the one handling negotiations at last check.

Secondly, you've got to believe that if Green was willing to sign for "around $3.5 million to $4 million per season," it would have been done long ago and on a contract that was as long as the player would accept. One year? Fine - it gives the player a chance to prove that he can continue to develop into an elite defenseman. Thirteen years? Fine - the way the salary cap is rising, that would be a bargain as early as, well, next year.

Finally, there's no way there's "a major gap between the two parties" if that's all Green is looking for. Surely the Caps didn't open negotiations with their best offer, but it's a stretch to think that they went to Green and said, "Here's our offer. Sure, it's less than what we gave Brian Pothier two summers ago when our budget was much tighter, but that's our starting point."

Of course, the National Post today thinks the dollars are going to be in that same neighborhood and notes that Green could be poached, but that the "price to steal Green away from Washington will not come cheap. If a team offers him US $4-million per year, the Capitals would receive a first-round, second-round and third-round draft pick."

No they wouldn't. They'd receive nothing because they'd match that as soon as they finished writing the "Thank You" card to the team that signed him to such a deal.

If Mike Green was willing to sign a deal in the $3.5m - $4m range before July 1, it probably would have been done already. Is it possible that he ends up signing for that? Sure. But it won't happen until he sees what the market has to offer, and since he's been allowed to negotiate with other teams since last Thursday, you can bet that he has an idea of what is - and isn't - out there.

Update: TFP had a typo in their piece. They meant to say $4.5m - $5m.

A Look At Laich

"Here's hoping Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey and agent Don Meehan have settled the monetary portion of Andrei Kostitsyn's contract, because the Philadelphia Flyers have set the bar a bit higher for forwards who score 53 points.

The Flyers and Jeff Carter have reportedly agreed on a three-year deal worth $15 million. Carter, a centre, had 29 goals and 24 assists last season and was a plus-6, while Kostitsyn had 26 goals and 27 assists and was plus-15."

That excerpt is from Saturday's Montreal Gazette, and while Habs fans no doubt winced at the Carter deal in light of what it might mean in terms of their team resigning the elder Kostitsyn brother (or "Big Tits," as we're going to call him from now on), Caps fans probably are wondering what it might mean for their team's top RFA forward, Brooks Laich.

A quick look at the career and 2007-08 numbers:

• Carter: 225 career games played, 66 goals, 66 assists, -1; 82 games played, 29 goals, 24 assist, +6 in 2007-08
• Laich: 233 career games played, 36 goals, 41 assists, -15; 82 games played, 21 goals, 16 assist, -3 in 2007-08

It should be noted that Laich got 14:02 of ice time this past season, 1:18 of which was on the power play, while Carter played 18:50 per night, 2:26 with the extra man. As Corey let us know the other day, "[t]here was only one player in the entire NHL (Colorado's Marek Svatos) who scored more goals with less average ice time" than Laich. Of course, the ice time argument cuts both ways - if Laich were really such an integral part of the team's on-ice fortunes, it could be argued, he'd be getting more shifts.

To be clear, Brooks Laich isn't Jeff Carter. But when you have neutral third parties pegging Laich's salary in the $1.3 million or $1.75 million range and then word of the Carter deal comes in, you can see why the Caps and Laich haven't been able to reach an agreement yet. Is Brooks Laich worth, say, half as much as Jeff Carter? Reasonable minds might disagree on that, but you can bet that the player and his agent think so, and if the Caps don't, someone else very well might. And if that salary is the difference between keeping Mike Green and letting him go, I think you'll be bidding adieu to Laich.

Leave The Picks. Take The Cannoli.

So you're thinking that one of the Caps' Restricted Free Agents is going to sign an offer sheet with another team and you're wondering whether or not the Caps should match. You're going over and over all sorts of hypotheticals in your head, all of which come back to one question: "Are the Caps better off with an overpaid Player X or the unspent money and compensatory draft picks?"

Let me make that questions slightly easier on you. Take the picks out of the equation - they're likely not worth much.

To begin with, let's look at exactly what picks we're talking about (dollar values represent the average annual salary of the contract the RFA signs):

Below $863,156: No compensation
$863,156-$1,307,812: One third-round pick
$1,307,812-$2,615,625: One second-round pick
$2,615,625-$3,923,437: One first- and one third-round pick
$3,923,437-$5,231,249: One first-, one second- and one third-round pick
$5,231,249-$6,539,062: Two first-, one second- and one third-round pick
$6,539,062 or more: Four first-round picks

Now let's throw out all the second and third round compensatory picks. Why? They're crap.

When this past season ended, there were more players on NHL rosters who were never drafted or who were drafted in rounds that don't even exist anymore than players who were drafted in the second round, and more than twice as many of those first group of players then players who were drafted in the third round. [Source]

From the 1998 draft (ten years out sounds like a fine draft to use), 36 of the 59 second and third round picks (61%) have played less than one full season's worth of NHL games, and only nine of the 59 (15%) have played more than four seasons' worth of NHL games (we'll perhaps generously call players who have played at least four seasons' worth of games "legitimate NHLers" the rest of the way). From the 1997 draft, those numbers are 76% and 7%, respectively, and from the 1999 draft, those numbers are 72% and 9%, respectively. For the three year stretch, 69% of the players drafted in the second and third rounds have played fewer than 82 NHL games and only 10% (19 players total) are legitimate NHLers, having played more than four seasons' worth of NHL games.

Bringing the analysis a little closer to home, the Caps have drafted 24 players in the second and third rounds in the past ten drafts (2008 excluded). The total number of NHL games played for these 24? 599. Matt Pettinger has played 324 of those and Nathan Paetsch has played 123 (which one could reasonably say were really played as a 2003 Buffalo seventh round pick and not as a 2001 Caps second rounder), meaning that the other 22 Caps second and third round picks over that span - 92% of the 2nd and 3rd rounders - have averaged fewer than seven NHL games per man.

But since picks (especially those after the first round) take a while to mature, let's look at the ten-year span from 1990-1999 (arbitrary, and mostly under a different front office, but humor me). The Caps made 22 second and third round picks, and those players combined (not one is still active in the NHL) to play 1,948 NHL games, with 1991 third round pick Steve Konowalchuk playing 790 of those and 1996 second rounder Jan Bulis playing 552. Even including those guys, that's an 88.5 NHL games average (just over one season's worth) per pick, and one pick in each of the second and third rounds over a decade of drafting that panned out.

The bottom line here, both from the League-wide analysis and the Caps' experience over two different decade-long stretches, is that a player picked in second or third round of the NHL draft has, at best, around a 10% chance of playing at least one full season's worth of NHL games.

Now on to the first rounders. In the ten-year span from 1990-99, 53% of the players drafted in the top-30 (not all first-rounders, mind you, but top-30 talent is top-30 talent) have played more than four NHL seasons' worth of games, but 30% have played less than one full NHL season. [Note: for the purposes of this analysis, Nick Boynton, who was drafted in the first round twice and with whom I just realized I share a birthday - is treated as two different players; one who never played in the NHL and the other who has the 437 career games played] That "miss" rate goes way down when you're talking about top-10 picks, of course, and 88% of the 100 players fitting that description have played more than 82 NHL games, with 74% of the hundred playing more than four seasons' worth (granted, this includes guys like Bryan Allen, Andrei Nazarov, Drake Berehowsky and Mark Bell, so don't get too excited).

So there's slightly better than a 50/50 chance, all else equal, that a team will get a legitimate NHLer (as defined above) with a generic first round pick, but a three-in-ten chance of getting a dud. And while the balance shifts dramatically when we're talking about top-ten picks, even then, they're not all Alexes and Sids. Which leads to our next point, which is the fool's gambit of trying to figure out the true value of a first round pick by predicting where the team from whom the pick comes will finish in the standings.

When Brian Burke didn't match the offer sheet to which the Oilers signed Dustin Penner last summer, the Anaheim GM's decision was widely hailed not only for recognizing that Penner ain't worth $4.25 million per year, but also because Edmonton was surely headed for the lottery, so the compensatory picks would be that much better. Then Edmonton went out and finished 19th in the League, giving Anaheim a nice pick, but not a top-10 pick, and not what they might have hoped for or expected.

Since the League expanded to 30 teams for the 2000-01 season, only 13 times has a team finished in the bottom-five (a.k.a. Lotteryville) in consecutive seasons, and only twice since the lockout ushered in the new "age of parity." Over that same span (since 2000-01), teams have only had consecutive bottom-ten finishes (and thus top-ten picks) 37 times (many of which were recent expansion teams), and 13 times since the lockout. Percentage-wise, this tells us that since the League has had 30 teams, a team followed up a bottom-five finish with another bottom-five finish approximately 36% of the time (and only 20% since the lockout) and answered a bottom-ten finish with another bottom-ten finish 63% of the time (65% post-lockout).

Beyond those numbers, at times it's been no great surprise that a team has had consecutive down years (the Caps and Penguins during their rebuilds, for example), but it's becoming less predictible all the time. Fourteen teams haven't finished in the bottom ten in the League since the lockout. Six teams have finished in that group just once, and six teams have done so twice. Eighteen haven't finished in the bottom five since the lockout, nine have done so once and three teams have done so twice. All of this is to say that in a League that, since the work stoppage, has seen Pittsburgh go from 29th to 9th, Philly go from 30th to 10th, and three other double-digit standings leaps forward all in the span of one season, today's cellar dweller is tomorrow's playoff contender (unless, of course, we're talking about Columbus or Florida, who have each finished in the bottom ten in every season since 2000-01).

The bottom line on first round picks, then, is that a generic first-round pick is around 50% likely to yield a legitimate NHLer (as we've defined that term above), and while the odds get markedly better if that pick is in the top ten, it's difficult in hockey's salary cap era to accurately predict whether a team that's currently down is going to stay down long (and it's a fairly safe bet that a team that is willing to part with first-round picks as compensation for signing an RFA expects to be on the rise sooner rather than later - you don't part with those picks if you're rebuilding).

The point of this ridiculously long-winded and dense discussion is that when it comes to deciding whether or not to match an RFA-signed offer sheet, a team shouldn't even think about the compensatory draft picks as anything more than a tie-breaker in the event that it's impossible to determine whether or not the salary fits into the team's overall salary structure (which it never is). As we've established, second and third round picks have an extremely low success rate attached to them, and first-rounders are by no means sure things. Still don't believe me? Try this little excercise: pick a random team, then pick any four-year stretch and see who was picked in that team's standings-based draft slot (i.e. 2005 doesn't count) in each of those years (and go ahead and report your findings in the comments for the rest of us to see).

This is not to say, of course, that a team should match any offer that one of its RFAs signs, but rather to say that the decision should be about the dollars, not the draft picks. If a GM is seriously weighing the latter, he likely flatters himself a bit much.

So when you're thinking about RFAs, do yourself a favor and forget about the non-monetary compensation. Focus on the salary. Leave the picks. Take the cannoli.

Most Everybody's Qualified (For Something)

In a series of largely procedural moves that come as a surprise to absolutely no one, the Caps have extended qualifying offers to all of the team's NHL-level Restricted Free Agents: Eric Fehr, Boyd Gordon, Mike Green, Brooks Laich and Shaone Morrisonn. The team did not, however, tender offers to Stephen Werner or Jamie Hunt, who will now become unrestricted free agents (recall that last year the team qualified everyone except Jiri Novotny, Kris Beech and a bunch of farmhands).

The qualified players can now accept their qualifying offers, negotiate other deals with the team or test the RFA waters and hope to get offers from other clubs.

[Thanks to Dick Dillman Award winner Paul Rovnak for passing along the news.]

Update: Tarik's got more on RFA process (key dates, who has arbitration rights, etc.), and Corey has a must-read analysis on Brooks Laich's situation. I've said it before here and elsewhere that re-signing Laich might become the toughest decision among these RFAs and Corey, being smart, seems to agree with me.

Reading Between The Lines On Green

Mike Green picked a good time to have his breakthrough season, didn't he? He didn't miss a game all season, had a League-leading 18 goals from the blueline, a 20-goal/65-point pace after Thanksgiving, and a plus-eleven rating after January, all of which lead to a seventh-place finish in Norris Trophy voting at the tender age of 22, which will, in turn, lead to big bucks this summer for one of the most attractive Restricted Free Agent targets.

But you knew that.

Then you read Larry Brooks yesterday, who wrote that "Green, a dynamic difference maker, is being low-balled by the Caps," and your stomach dropped. Now, Brooks certainly isn't the most credible character in the world of hockey journalism, but rather than dismissing this out of hand, let's take a second to think about it.

Assuming that no one in the Caps organization is running around bragging to folks about how insulting their offers to the young blueliner have been - a pretty safe assumption, I should think - where would Brooks be getting his information? Perhaps from the same place writers always get their information on player contract negotiations - from the player's agent.

For example, Adrian Dater just the other day wrote in The Denver Post that a deal between the Avalanche and Jose Theodore was (and presumably still is) "imminent." Dater's source? Not the Colorado front office, of course, but Theodore's agent Don Meehan.

So Don Meehan is chatty. Know what else he is? Mike Green's agent (and Matt Cooke's, Steve Eminger's and Eric Fehr's). Know what else he is? [Cue Dramatic Hamster] Alex Ovechkin's former agent who Ovechkin famously fired after five years of representation, less than 14 months before Ovechkin signed his 13-year/$124m mega-deal. Given that a sports agent's cut is typically around three or four percent of his client's salary, that's potentially upwards of $3.7 million (perhaps much more) over the span of Ovechkin's deal that's not going into Don Meehan's bank account.

Whether or not Meehan has a legitimate ax to grind with the Caps, one could pretty easily see why he'd want to reach into Ted Leonsis's pocket and take as much money as he possibly can as some form of payback.

Which brings us back to Green. If Meehan is telling Larry Brooks that the Caps are low-balling Mike Green, it could mean one of two things: it could mean that the Caps are offering a deal that's way below Meehan's assessment of market value or it could mean that the Caps are offering a deal that's way below what Meehan is willing to accept for reasons detailed above. If it's the former, perhaps there's hope that the two sides can reach some middle ground (though I personally wrestle with what legitimate market value for a 22-year-old with Green's upside is, and I imagine I'm not alone). If it's the latter, however, and there's nothing that fits within the Caps salary structure that they could offer and have Meehan accept, there's little point in continuing negotiations at this point.

Maybe I'm being a bit conspiracy-minded, but this thing certainly seems to be headed for the RFA negotiating and signing period without a deal being done, at which point another team would do the dirty work of putting together a deal, Green would sign it, and the Caps would match as they have said they would (which may, actually, be the best and cleanest way to get this done... and if you think it would sour the relationship between the team and the player, I can assure you it would not).

One thing is for sure: agents can indeed be a frightening prospect. At some point, perhaps the player himself is going to have to step in.

Flash Extended... But Why?

Late this morning the Caps announced that they had re-signed winger Tomas Fleischmann to a two-year deal that will pay the 23-year-old Czech $725,000 in each of the next two seasons.

Flash's stats haven't been terribly impressive - six goals, 15 assists and a minus-four rating on the season; 10 goals, 21 assists and a minus-17 rating in 96 career NHL games - so the signing begs a number of questions. Let's look at some of them:

1. Why sign him now?

It sounds as if the Fleischmann camp didn't much enjoy being unsigned through last summer, so they pressed to get a deal done sooner rather than later. But why were the Caps so eager to make it happen now? If they're certain he's "developing at the right pace," why not give him another 25 NHL games to be even more certain? I doubt his play and price will jump substantially between now and what would be restricted free agency this summer.

Perhaps the team feels that Flash will play better, unburdened by pending free agency. Perhaps it's a reward to coach Bruce Boudreau - taking care of one of "his guys" as payback for the job he's done so far. Or (cue foreboding music) perhaps it's easier to trade a player who is under contract for two more years than a guy who will be an RFA on June 1.

Frankly, I don't buy any of those and am fine with "the player wanted it, the team named their price and the player took it." But with at least four other arguably more important RFAs left to sign, the timing of this deal is, if nothing else, something to talk about.

2. Where does Flash fit in next year? And the year after that?

This is the better question. It's a given that Flash is a top six forward, if he's an NHLer. And one would like to think that the Caps' top six forwards for next season are more or less set in stone - Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Eric Fehr, Alex Semin, Michael Nylander and Viktor Kozlov.

Barring a big-time breakthrough, signing Flash is insurance in case Fehr's development is slower than hoped and/or he gets bitten by the injury bug again and the team actually commits to Chris Clark as a third-liner (something we've been harping on for a while).

As for 2008-09, after next season, Kozlov is a free agent and we'll have a much clearer view of what kind of NHLers Fehr and Flash (and perhaps others) will be.

Besides, you know how many games all five of the current top five forwards on the team have played in this season so far? Twenty-one (and it'll be 21 of 82 when the season's over). It doesn't hurt to have some depth up top.

3. So is it a good deal?

Sure. At $725,000, Flash is a low-risk/medium-reward signing. Since Nylander's injury, Flash has just one goal and seven assists in 13 games (a 50-point/82 games pace), but he has been playing on a line with a fourth-line center and a guy who's not exactly known for distributing the puck. More importantly, he's not shying away from high-traffic areas as much as he was early in the season.

Fleischmann is a guy who scored 52 goals and added 62 assists in 102 games for Hershey (and added 53 points in 39 playoff games), so the skill is there. The size and strength, we're told, are coming. The heart and determination? I guess we'll see.

As CapsChick said, "If he performs, he's a bargain; if not, it's a contract that is easily moved if necessary." Put another way, Flash's cap hit next year will be just over 1/10th of Tomas Vanek's. I'll take the over on him scoring 1/10th as many goals and points as the Sabres' stud.

Low-risk. Medium-reward. Good deal.

Sean Avery's Feelings Are Hurt

As you may know, the Rangers and restricted free agent Sean Avery are going to arbitration today to settle on the winger's salary for the 2007-08 season. But reading Rags' GM Glen Sather's arbitration brief, Avery may be wondering why the Blueshirts are even bothering.

In the brief, Sather refers to Avery as "a reasonably effective player as well as a detriment to the team."

Hyperbole? Sure. Though Avery certainly is prone to taking bad penalties, for a guy who had 20 points in 29 games for the Rangers and draws a ton of penalties as well, that's a bit of a slap in the face and a good example of how feelings can get hurt in what can be an ugly arbitration process.

So after the arbiter decides on terms and the two sides sign a new deal, Avery's supposed to forget the insult, put on his happy face and play his usual ultra-annoying brand of hockey?

You bet he is.

Here's a question: would any of you have a problem with your boss disparaging you semi-publicly and then paying you around $2 million for the next 10 months or so of work? I didn't think so.

Milan Jurcina And Arbitration (Or Not)

If Milan Jurcina ends up going to arbitration on Monday, perhaps GMGM can ask Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli to argue the case against Jurcina, as Chiarelli obviously didn't think much of the hulking blueliner, who he traded to D.C. for a fourth round pick this past February (a pick, by the way, that the B's later lost when Brad Stuart didn't resign with the Flames, in essence meaning that Boston traded away Jurcina for nothing). Whether or not the Caps and Jurcina actually end up in arbitration, let's take a look at the arguments for and against Jurcina getting a big pay day (relative to the $500,000 he made last year, at least).

Show me the money: Jerky played at around a 25-point, +14 pace once he arrived in Washington, and while neither number is quite Pronger-esque, only 14 NHL blueliners had both 25 points and a plus/minus rating of +14 or better (Sean Hill only had 25 points and he was on steroids). For the season (including his time in Boston), Jurcina was second (behind John Erskine) on the Caps in hits per minute of ice time. Speaking of big Slovak rearguards, in case you're wondering what Zdeno Chara's second NHL season looked like, Big Z had 2 goals, 7 assists and was -27 (Jerky had 4 goals, 8 assists and was even this past season). Oh, and Vinny Lecavalier called Jurcina one of the toughest defensemen he's had to play against.

Not so fast: While Jurcina certainly played well for the Caps, his overall numbers were still mediocre (136th in points and 124th in plus/minus). In fact, for the season, Jurcina had fewer points per minutes of ice time than every Caps blueliner (minimum 25 games played) with the exceptions of Shaone Morrisonn and Jeff Schultz (yes, even Erskine had more points per minute). Jurcina's shooting percentage has dropped from 9.38% in his rookie year to 6.90% with Boston and 4.76% with the Caps last year (still a Top 50 percentage for the year, though). Perhaps most importantly, Jurcina let Daniel Briere live after spearing him in the last game of the season. Weak.

With some of the two sides' arguments out of the way, let's look at some comparables. As Vogs notes:

One common misnomer in the process is the concept of “comparables.” Yes, both sides will present comparable players in their cases, but those comparables are looked at from the standpoint of when they signed the contract that made them comparable. In other words, you can’t just look at [the player]’s stats from 2006-07 and find other players with similar numbers and see what their earnings are.

For the purposes of comparables, “platform years” are used. A platform year is the year in which a player “earned” his subsequent contract. Anyone signing a (non-entry level and non-UFA) contract this summer for 2007-08 would have a platform year of 2006-07. So “comparable” contracts basically include those negotiated by other Group II (restricted) free agents. For the sake of comparables, the players’ age and position should also be similar, if not exact. Any comparables in the [Jurcina] case are almost certain to have 2005-06 or 2006-07 as their platform season.

That said, who fits the bill? One guy that might is Ottawa's Christoph Schubert. Schubert is about a year-and-a-half older than Jurcina, but, like Milan, has two NHL seasons under his belt. He has played in 15 more regular season games, has scored 2 more goals and tallied 10 more assists, nearly identical PIMs and a handful more shots on goal (though it should be noted that he played many nights as a forward/seventh defenseman). His career plus/minus dwarfs Jurcina's, but that has more to do with the quality of his team than the quality of his play. Schubert's versatility and how he's been used makes him an imperfect comparison, but given that he signed earlier this week for $833,333.33 per year for three years, he's worth noting.

Closer to home, when the Caps re-signed Morrisonn last July, he was six months younger than Jurcina is now, had played 23 more games, scored eight fewer goals, had seven more assists, a better career plus/minus and around the same number of PIMs. Mo resigned for two years at $900,000 per year.

Another hometown guy who's not a perfect point of reference (but who I'll still mention) is Steve Eminger. When Emmy signed his one-year deal last year, he was a year and change younger than Jerky is now, but had played in just three more games, had five fewer goals, six more assists and a much worse career plus/minus. That deal for Eminger was for one year at $993,000.

Want more comparables? Of course you do. But I don't have an intern, so you'll get snapshots of a few of last year's somewhat similar blueliner signings:

• Mike Commodore (career stats prior to signing in July, 2006): Three years older than Jurcina is now, 26 more games played, six fewer goals, three more assists, far more PIMs, same plus/minus, two more Cup Finals appearances. Signed for... two years at $1.25m per.
• Branislav Mezei (career stats prior to signing in July, 2006): Two years older than Jurcina is now, 17 more games played, three fewer goals, one more assist, far more PIMs, similar plus/minus. Signed for... two years at $850,000 per.
• Tim Gleason (career stats prior to signing in September, 2006): Same age as Jurcina is now, four more games played, eight fewer goals, 13 more assists, identical PIMs, worse plus/minus. Signed for... two years at $1.175m per.
• Mike Komisarek (career stats prior to signing in July, 2006): Same age as Jurcina is now, 17 more games played, eight fewer goals, four fewer assists, worse plus/minus, more PIMs. Signed for... one year at $946,827.
• Fedor Tyutin (career stats prior to signing in August, 2006): One year younger than Jurcina is now, 19 fewer games played, two fewer goals, 11 more assists, worse plus/minus, fewer PIMs. Signed for... two years at $987,500 per.
• Brooks Orpik (career stats prior to signing in July, 2006): Two years older than Jurcina is now, 28 more games played, seven fewer goals, three more assists, far worse plus/minus, far more PIMs. Signed for... two years at $1,037,500 per.
• Christian Backman (career stats prior to signing in July, 2006): Two years older than Jurcina is now, one more game played, one more goal scored, 12 more assists, far worse plus/minus, far fewer PIMS. Signed for... three years at $2.3m per (overpay much?).
  

You can pick and choose who you think the real comparables in that group are, but the point is that you see a pretty clear range developing, and the middle of that range is probably right around $950,000, give or take a nice sports car.

At this point, this post has dragged on long enough and it's time for some of your thoughts. Given that Brooks Laich is still the only case to actually go to arbitration (16 have settled prior to the hearing), do you think that Jurcina's will? Whether it does or not, what do you think is a fair deal for the guy?

Take Your Pick

Keeping in mind that hockey is played at both ends of the ice, which blueliner would you rather have for the coming season (stats are 2006-07 numbers - click on the Player tag to see who it is if you can't figure it out)?

Player A (31 years old): 81 games played, 26 goals, 38 assists, -28, 135 PIMs, 101 hits, 149 blocked shots, 85 giveaways, 62 takeaways.

Player B (30 years old): 78 games played, 6 goals, 38 assists, -1, 74 PIMs, 61 hits, 170 blocked shots, 58 giveaways, 50 takeaways.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, over the past five NHL seasons, Player B has out-pointed Player A by 18 points and has the better plus/minus rating by 38.

Reasonable minds certainly could differ as to who was more valuable to his team last year (though Player B's sqaud made the playoffs while Player A's team did not) and who will be more valuable going forward, but when you consider that Player B signed a 4-year deal for $14 million and Player A signed a 5-year deal for $27 million, can those reasonable minds really still differ?

Making Restricted Free Agency Work For You

Here's a question - given the contract extension that Sidney Crosby just signed and depending on how negotiations go, could it conceivably make any sense to buck the conventional wisdom, not seek a similar extension for Alex Ovechkin and actually allow him to become a Restricted Free Agent?

Here's the background: Crosby signed a 5-year deal for $9m per year - $1.06 million less than the maximum salary (i.e. 20% of the salary cap). At the end of those five years, Crosby will become an unrestricted free agent (due to years accrued in the League) and can go to the highest bidder. Assuming some growth in League revenues over the next six years (Crosby's extension doesn't kick in for another year), it's not unrealistic to think that the maximum salary will be in the $12-$15 million range. To me, the length of Crosby's deal says "I want the chance to get out of Pittsburgh, if I choose to, almost as soon as possible. I'll take a little discount now in order to become a free agent sooner."

You can't blame him for wanting to maximize his profits and opportunities, and you'd think that Alex Ovechkin would be in a similar boat. What if during the Ovechkin negotiations the dollars become less important and the length of the contract becomes the sticking point (which will almost certainly be the case) - Ovechkin wanting free agency sooner, the Caps wanting to sign their superstar to a long-term deal (hey, if Danny Briere is worth signing for 8 years, you'd think Ovechkin would be worth signing for longer).

Here's the theory: allow Ovechkin to become an RFA next summer and match whatever ridiculous offer sheet is thrown his way. Say the cap goes up another $4.7 million next year - a not unreasonable assumption. The maximum salary would then be $11 million per year, and someone would likely offer that to AO for, say, 10 years (the assumption is that any offer made to an RFA would be in the best interest of the offeror and not just an effort to jack up the market price or push the other team closer to the salary cap, so it would be at least marginally sane). If that was the case, the Caps could simply match the offer and while they'd be paying $2 million more per year for the first five years of the contract than if they'd signed him to a Crosby-like extension, they'd a) have him locked up for an additional five years and b) likely be saving more than $2m per year in the out-years. The one caveat is that a new CBA will be in place (god-willing) before the 2011-12 season, and that may change the assumptions on which this theory rests.

Of course, I wouldn't suggest this strategy with just any player (Alex Semin, for example). But this isn't just any player - this is Alex Ovechkin. And I'd love to see AO signed to a longer-term deal via more traditional methods. But maybe there's a point at which the chance to lock him up long-term at what will likely eventually be below-market price is worth the risk to make sure he can't leave town in five short years (or sooner) .

This theory is just that - a theory. It's a very high-risk/high-reward proposition, and not the kind that people in positions of responsibility would ever seriously consider (long-term deals haven't necessarily worked out in the Caps' favor in the past - one in particular comes to mind). Furthermore, it doesn't take into account how something like this might impact the player/franchise relationship. But you can see how, on paper, it at least raises an interesting question, no?