The Sixty-Four-Million-Dollar Question: Can We Take Homer At His Word?

I like this, it’s like one of those old-school Choose Your Own Adventure books.

If you want the Flyers to do this with your roster, turn to page 34!

I think because of the way LTIR works, being 400k under the cap with Lappy on LTIR is exactly the same as being right at the cap.

If they want room for an injury callup, they need to have the cap space to fit it in, because the LTIR overage means they won’t be banking any payroll room. So I think any realistic roster needs to have 600k+ in cap space to permit calling up a Wellwood or a Rinaldo, and ideally has 850k+ to permit calling up Marshall if needed.

In other words, yes, the cap may be higher than we thought, but we also need more cap room than people were leaving, so the rosters from that contest are probably still about right.

Jay Greenberg said this today:

Asked Monday whether it was dollars or years that still could keep Ilya Bryzgalov from becoming a Flyer, Paul Holmgren said: "Both."

Yet, here is what was actually said yesterday.

Q: Could you have a deal for Bryzgalov by the end of the week?

“I guess we could. Right now we are going to talk again tomorrow. Like I said, on Friday, we know where they’re at and what they want to accomplish. I think they know where we’re at. Obviously to make a deal, there is going to have to be some sort of a compromise. It might take some time and we are going to keep looking at it.”

Q: Is the compromise in years rather than dollars or is it both?

“I would say it’s both right now.”

Random House defines compromise as “a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc., by reciprocal modification of demands.”

Ergo, compromise is not the same as rejection or impasse, as Greenberg seems to be suggesting.

This is not-so-subtle propaganda by Mr. Greenberg to get the fan base riled up into saying “WE NEED BRYZGALOV!”

1. “want to retain Leino” = at 2.5 million or less, which prolly won’t work. But we sure want to.

2. “no fire sale going on here” = no wholesale changes (ie, a few waives, some no-resigns, and maybe one trade), nothing amounting to an overhaul.

3. “It’s not a like we are in a position where we absolutely have to move cap space or move people to make cap space…” = because we haven’t yet signed Breezy or Leino or anyone other than Sestito, we are not (present tense) in such a situation….

4. Homer has been watching US politicians and learning well….

Leino at 2.5? Do we have any indication whether that is workable? I thought his hit was expected to be at minimum 3.

Don’t see how they can pull this off without dropping one of Leino, Versteeg, or Hartnell.

Nice Post Mike as usual…

one thing I disagree

Hartnell is a big body yes 6ft 2in 210lbs or so but does he stand in front of the net as the net presence in the paint, I don’t think so. I think that notion is an illusion of perception or expectation.

Even without signing Brzy I would like Hartnell moved. You can get two veteran 2 million dollar players that can provide just as much as Hartnell can on there own and not have to shelter both of them against 3rd and 4th competition nor have to put your head through the wall over another dumb minor penalty.

And to answer your question.
I certainly don’t believe we can take any GM at their word.

I’m going to start off by saying that there really isn’t anyone on the roster that I would like to be moved just so we could keep Leino (unless you finagle it by moving guys to the AHL and replacing them with dirt-cheap youngsters). Leino, let’s face it, just isn’t that good of a player individually to command a high salary. He isn’t an exceptionally good at skating, shooting, or defense. Many people claim that Carle only looks good because he plays next to Pronger, and I believe the same can be said for Leino. For the right price maybe move Versteeg to keep him, but not at the $3.5 million that I’ve read that he is looking for.

With Hartnell’s NTC, I don’t see him going anywhere, plus he provides size that this club could use some more of. Carle I hope they don’t move either for reasons that have been made before: Pronger/Timonen not getting any younger, 3rd pairing reliability, etc.

Although it defeats the purpose for trading for a player’s rights, I’d rather see what the market is on players to avoid overpaying, either in FA or by trade. That has happened too many times for my liking in the recent past (Leighton, Versteeg, Hartnell, Timonen to name a few) and we inevitably find ourselves complaining about it. This is why I really don’t want to see them go out and pay Bryzgalov a $6 million per year contract and see Vokoun sign for less. I honestly don’t see much of a difference in these two other than the obvious age difference. That still doesn’t include what will happen to Bob who I think we don’t want to see go.

one day it’s good news, the next it is bad news. I’m nervous about all this

I’m going to start off by saying that there really isn’t anyone on the roster that I would like to be moved just so we could keep Leino.

I think we all agree with this. My reason for posting these rosters (and writing this post in the first place) is because Homer said he wanted to – and believed that he COULD – sign both Bryzgalov and Leino. So if he does that, these are the kinds of rosters we’d be looking at.

Honestly, my ideal Flyers team (assuming Bryzgalov signs) does not have Leino on it. It looks more like this:

CAPGEEK.COM CAP CALCULATOR

FORWARDS
Joel Ward ($1.750m) / Daniel Briere ($6.500m) / Kris Versteeg ($3.083m)
James Van Riemsdyk ($1.654m) / Claude Giroux ($3.750m) / Jeff Carter ($5.272m)
Andreas Nodl ($0.975m) / Mike Richards ($5.750m) / Eric Wellwood ($0.580m)
Darroll Powe ($0.850m) / Blair Betts ($0.700m) / Ben Holmstrom ($0.750m)
Jody Shelley ($1.100m)

DEFENSEMEN
Matt Carle ($3.437m) / Chris Pronger ($4.921m)
Andrej Meszaros ($4.000m) / Braydon Coburn ($3.200m)
Kimmo Timonen ($6.333m) / Erik Gustafsson ($0.900m)
Oskars Bartulis ($0.600m)

GOALTENDERS
Ilya Bryzgalov ($5.250m) / Sergei Bobrovsky ($1.750m)

CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(these totals are compiled without the bonus cushion)
SALARY CAP: $64,000,000; CAP PAYROLL: $63,107,488; BONUSES: $1,825,000
CAP SPACE (22-man roster): $892,512

Losing Shelley would be nice too, but I don’t see that happening.

Just as a reminder, here’s why I wrote this:

“There are some players that we have, Ville Leino, that [are] unrestricted and we want to keep in our mix… We are going to continue to try and sign Ilya [Bryzgalov], obviously, and continue to try and sign Ville [Leino], then we will see. It’s not like we are caught between a rock and a hard place right now.” – Paul Holmgren

Folks, this is all about what Holmgren wants, not what I want. Do I want the Flyers to sign Bryzgalov for a reasonable price? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Do I “want to keep Leino in the mix” if we sign Bryzgalov – especially since he’s expendable (as has been proven time and again)? No thank you.

My ideal roster would have Sestito in place of Shelley, but seeing as how that’s not bloody likely, here is the team I would love to see in October. Please note the absence of Ville Leino:

CAPGEEK.COM CAP CALCULATOR

FORWARDS
Joel Ward ($2.000m) / Daniel Briere ($6.500m) / Kris Versteeg ($3.083m)
James Van Riemsdyk ($1.654m) / Claude Giroux ($3.750m) / Jeff Carter ($5.272m)
Eric Wellwood ($0.580m) / Mike Richards ($5.750m) / Andreas Nodl ($0.975m)
Ben Holmstrom ($0.750m) / Blair Betts ($0.700m) / Darroll Powe ($0.850m)
Jody Shelley ($1.100m)

DEFENSEMEN
Matt Carle ($3.437m) / Chris Pronger ($4.921m)
Andrej Meszaros ($4.000m) / Braydon Coburn ($3.200m)
Kimmo Timonen ($6.333m) / Erik Gustafsson ($0.900m)
Oskars Bartulis ($0.600m)

GOALTENDERS
Ilya Bryzgalov ($5.250m) / Sergei Bobrovsky ($1.750m)

CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(these totals are compiled without the bonus cushion)
SALARY CAP: $64,000,000; CAP PAYROLL: $63,357,488; BONUSES: $1,825,000
CAP SPACE (22-man roster): $642,512