Dusting off the keyboard to comment on CRACK SMOKIN' GMs

It's been awhile, but I thought the recent spate of insane free agent spending required a response... I'm not quite sane but have to be considerably more in tune to the gray squigglies filling my cranium than many of the current NHL General Managers. I'll roll some doozies by increasing levels of stupidity using the dumbass scale... (each asterisk represents an ass... which part of the ass is up for interpretation)

* Jeff Finger to Toronto for 4 years at 3.75million
This one came rather late in the day and wasn't a name I was looking for so I almost blew by it. Maybe that's what Cliff Fletcher thought as well. Servicable defensivemen are a staple in the NHL and Finger is one of them. Staples don't get paid 3.75million a year, especially when you're already trying to shed 20 mil in d-man money. Nutty.

** Kristian Huselius to Columbus for 4 years at 4.75 million
Scott Howson has somehow managed to move Zherdev, an enigmatic (translation -- "Flaky") winger making 2.5 million out of dodge and replace him with Huselius, a mercurial (translation -- "Flaky and streaky as a 6 year old boys underwear") making 4.75 million all within 6 hours. Is this someone liking the Devil they don't know more than the one they already do? At least he tried to address his gaping scoring hole... he's got that going for him, which is nice.

*** Michael Ryder to Boston for 3 years at 4 million
Did I pull a Rip Van Winkle and miss Ryder's reemergence as a player that mattered to his team? In 2008, he was in the doghouse, a healthy scratch, injured, tradebait and carried the worst plus/minus of any Canadien's winger... now he's getting 4 million beans.

******* Wade Redden to NYRangers for 6 years at 6.5 million
I've written before than Glen Sather is akin to a crackpipe smokin' junkie that can't help himself when it comes to signing players to lucrative and ludicrous deals. It turns out he was sleeping off a nasty full season bender and just woke up June 30th. He jumped outta the gutter and hit the pipe again hard signing Redden to a stupendous 6.5 million clams which is way more than I'd pay Jagr just to leave Washington. Circa 2001-2003, Redden was the man. For the next 6 years, maybe he'll forget that he was pretty invisible on a Stanley Cup contender and regain that top flight form... maybe Jagr will apologize to Ted Leonsis and return all that money he stole... maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and crap a wad of money that I can use to pay my mortgage. Of the three, I'd bet on Wade regaining his form but I'd only use the poop money (a.k.a ficticious Ranger money).

There's many others that bear commenting but its more of the same lunatic headlines "Underperforming Past Star Gets Crazy Money Because GM is Dipshit"... How else would a rational person explain Bobby Holik (2.5m), Brian Campbell (7.1m), Stillman (3.5m), Commodore (3.75m).

Ron Hainsey at 4.5m and Finger are examples of GMs banking on potential and locking up the best available at this very moment... which is like going to the Sav-a-Center to stock up and buy a case of Heineken to last you for the next month and finding out they're out of Heineken but they have plenty of Schaeffer Light. "Well at least," you start, "Schaeffer's cheap!"

"Wrong", the beer purveyor yells back. "I just raised my prices to $100 dollars a case."

"That's ludicrous," you hiss at the sweaty bastard selling you the beer who looks remarkably like superagent Steve Bartlett. "That crap is normally only $15 per case".

The Bartlett doppleganger replies, "Today's a special day and today it's $100 per case. If you don't like it you can try the guy down the street, but he's only got Iron City Light at $250."

"This is robbery," you mutter and you hand him $2000 for 15 cases thinking that you're getting a bulk discount because the Barletter thinks you're cute.

Then you get home and try to find space in your garage to put this garbage (your salary cap planning is blown to hell), your friends laugh at you for poor taste in beverages (the media ridicules your moves), and your wife (the fans) threatens immediate divorce.

Playing with the 2008-2009 Roster

I built a spreadsheet with Excel and imported it into Google Spreadsheets to help calculate the 2008-2009 opening night roster and it's cost. Currently, the Capitals have 14 people signed for next season. This number does not reflect UFAs (currently with Caps and those not) and RFAs.

Directions to use the spreadsheet:

1. Choose to "Edit this spreadsheet" by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page (permissions should be open)
2. To add a player to roster place a "1" next to their name in the "On Roster" column
3. If you're adding an RFA or UFA, be sure to give them a salary that they're worth for next season.
4. Be sure the Roster total number equals between 20 and 23 with rightful position totals represented
5. Keep the salary cap as low as possible AND get the best team

Giving Green a conservative bump to $5.5m and keeping Huet at around $5m, I'm getting a number around $54m which is awfully darn close to the expected salary cap. Will GM be spending that high or will assets need to be "shifted"? It should make for an interesting off-season.

Have fun.

(Thanks to NHLSCAP for the salary data).