Recent commentary from Laforge casts aspersions on Smyth's character. mc79hockey covers it well. I cannot honestly say at what time the Edmonton hockey media gave away their integrity to the EIG but it is getting to be impossible to refute.
The hard part for me is that I used to really liked Matheson. Grew up with the guy.
HOF my ass.
Anyways. What REALLY caught my eye was the little gem regarding the teams salary budget salary - namely holding back 10% DELIBERATELY so as to spend it later if they felt they were close and needed to bring in some big salaries in order to make a real run at the Cup.
Seems prudent. Using the $44 million cap for 2006/07 the number is $4.4 million. Cool.
Thinking about it a little, and knowing that:
- the value of cap space rises in a linear fashion just as
- the cost of assuming a salary falls in a linear fashion
I figure the amount of salary that $4.4 million can buy at differing points in the season is:
Game
01 = 4.4 million
20 = 5.8 million
41 = 8.8 million
60 = 16.4 million
80 = 180.4 million
hrmmmm.
Oh.
I see the problem.
THEY NEED TO BUY SOME F&*%#NG CALCULATORS!
Un-freakin-believable that Laforge can spew a line like that and it is accepted at face value. Heck - he'll probably get credit for thinking 'smart'.
For a team that CAN spend to the salary cap, per the following chart, saving any more than 5% is just an exercise in saving money.
Game
01 = 2.2 million
20 = 2.9 million
41 = 4.4 million
60 = 8.2 million
Being able to add $8.2 million of salary cap space is lots - even if there is no salary headed the other way. Being able to add $18.4 million is more than HALF of the level of the cap floor - a team that needs to add that kind of salary was never competitive to begin with.
Which brings us right to our Oilers.
The team had, even with prudence in mind, enough cash to bring in a guy like Markov or Eaton as an UFA or even make a trade for a guy like Matvichuk or Lukowich. For the team not to do so, knowing how weak they were on defense, is indefensible.
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Have a great evening everyone.
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1 comment:
Good post man. I agree, the excuse that they are only spending 10% to the cap so that they can add 20M dollars worth of salary at the deadline is pretty much retarded. 5% seems like a much more plausible number.
One thing though, and this doesn't really take away from anything you are saying, but salary is calculated by day, not by game.
EG at this years trade deadline teams could add:
Trade Deadline (41 Days Remaining):
41 divided by 187 x 100 = 21.9%
100 divided by 21.9 = 4.57
So a team could add 4.57 x yearly salary.
Also, while 10% is certainly too great of a number, the budget can shift quite a bit during a season. If X player gets injured, and their contract is not insured (Horcoff and Hemsky's are not, and I believe Moreau's is) then the minor league replacement salary (450k-945k) is on the books for the duration of the call up.
Anyways, 2.4M (5% of the yearly salary if the cap is 48M) would have translated into (2.4 x 4.57) nearly 11M dollars at this years deadline. More than enough to add whoever the hell the Oilers would have wanted.
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