The ghost of Hossa dealt to the Coyotes

[yave1964]

  In the most absurd thing of the offseason, the Hawks moved towards clearing cap room by dealing the retired contract of Marian Hossa along with a third rounder and a couple of middling players named Oesterle and Hinostra to the Coyotes for a fifth rounder and the return of Kruger as well as a couple of lesser prospects. It allows the Coyotes to reach the cap floor and the Hawks room to search out a defenseman which has been their primary offseason target.

  I have been critical of the whole Hossa thing from the beginning, he signed a long term front loaded deal that paid him 7.9 million a year up front with an average cap hit of only 5.2 million. Last year with the cap hit remaining the same the salary dropped down to 1 million a year and lo and behind! Suddenly Hossa was too itchy to continue his career and rather than retire, he was placed on LTIR allowing the Hawks to recoup the cap hit. Hossa essentially didn't want to play for a measly one million a year for the final two years of his deal and the Hawks wiggled off the hook because Captain Itchy Pants got hives thinking of playing for such little money.

  So now his cap hit is a commodity leveraged by the Coyotes into a pick upgrade and a couple of middling players and on paper Hossa is officially a Coyote but he probably will not attend any alumni games in the future. You know, itchy sweater and all that. 

  I know, Datsyuk, Pronger, Bolland, Hell even Marc Savard had their contracts traded post tee time. Datsyuk left the Wings high and dry and was a bit of a different situation than the others and it was absurd to deal a player who walked out on the team, the others mentioned all were legit injured and were still on the hook contract wise but Hossa plain and simple got an allergic reaction to the thought of playing for so little money and hung up his skates and went to buy some gold bond for his itch. The fact that the Hawks leveraged the contract is simple ridiculous.

  This aint Hockey.

[ruxpin]

I really dislike these kinds of deals. They make a mockery of the cap system and, quite frankly, the spirit of competition. 

 

My Flyers benefitted from Pronger being traded to the Dumpster in the Desert. And I was glad for it. Like you allowed, it's slightly different than Hossa, but this should not be allowed. 

 

There was to be some sort of mechanism to give teams an emergency exit in cases like Datsyuk and Kovalchuk. And maybe there should be some sort of cap protection in cases like Pronger, so long as it's legitimate. I'm suspicious of the legitimacy of Hossa's case, so there has to be some way of protecting against embellishment to game some Pronger-type protection. 

 

How does a team like the Coyotes tell its fans with a straight face that they're even trying?  Are their fans idiots?  I understand it's small market and all, but they've become the NHL's toilet. 

 

 

[JR Ewing]

As I said in the shoutbox, it's pure salary cap circumvention. The day the Hossa contract was signed, it was obvious that it was front-loaded and structured in such a way that he would be done playing years before the deal was up. Seeing these contracts being dealt as if they're carbon credits really burns my toast.

 

@ruxpin This is a deal where I think the Coyotes can look their fans in the face, even if it's the sort of trade that I can't stand.

 

ARI gains:
-Upgrade on 4C
-Actual NHL #6 defenseman (might be more) who can move the puck.
-Moves 2 contracts they probably don’t want (Maletta, Campbell)
-Upgrades a 5th to a 3rd.

-Hossa only costs $200K annually because 80% of his remaining 3 X $1 million salary is paid by insurance.

 

[yave1964]

@ruxpin

 

  I spoke to a friend who is a Hawk fan who more or less echoed what @JR Ewing said, he isn't upset about any one part of the deal, the weight of it is decidedly in favor of the Coyotes. Oesterle, decent player, huge improvement over Campbell. Hinostroza is a solid third or fourth liner who can play any forward position ala Riley Nash and now Chicago is back on the hook for Kruger and his 2.6 million dollar salary. Throw in the pick downgrade, Chicago took a hit to move the salary out. This was a clear win for the Coyotes, to semi quote JR about the Buffalo deal a few weeks ago, it raised the floor for the Coyotes and unlike Buffalo it did not lower the ceiling.

  Now you have to think that Chicago has another iron in the fire, they have long been rumored to be in on Faulk which if this move allows them the cap room to make that happen it could be a good deal but the Canes want a top six center so it would likely cost Anisimov. I love Faulk but if the deal is even up, it would mean two middle six centers, a 6th d-man and a 3rd rounder for Faulk if you add the two trades together. That seems quite a lot to me.