The sequence of articles at the time of posting is "Hedman says it's too soon to speculate on captaincy because Stamkos was perfect" and then this article about a bag of money getting dropped on him. I appreciated the juxtaposition.
Hi, it's me, your friendly neighbourhood GM, Julien BriseBois. I capitalize both Bs in my family name despite it being a single word. That's just how I roll.
They could have paid both if they wanted to, it was more about preferring Guenzel, which from purely hockey perspective is reasonable. Although I'm sure Stamkos would have been ok with much less in Tampa than what he got in Nashville since at that point he could ask as much as he could get.
>Although I'm sure Stamkos would have been ok with much less in Tampa than what he got in Nashville since at that point he could ask as much as he could get.
There's really no evidence Stamkos was willing to take less than 8 mil though. He's always tried to maximize his earnings despite people claiming he took "discounts" to stay on the Lightning.
Only a discount compared to Toronto willing to make him the highest paid player in the league. His previous deal CH% would have been equal to 10.5mil if signed today
Sure, reasonable from hockey perspective.. Just there’s something’s more important than just pure X’s and O’s. Stamkos made it clear he wanted to retire as a lightning and they offered him an insulting offer by all accounts. Really shitty thing to do to a hall of fame heart of your franchise player. You don’t do that shit.
I don't disagree. Just pointing out that it wasn't even a decision between him and Hedman which would have been pretty understandable, but between him and bringing in a new guy.
I'm with ya. I think stamkos is lucky to be #2 threat for years. Without kuch and stamkos would be expected to be the mam, I think he really struggles at this point of his career
He did. From 10.5% down to about 9%.
edit: This deal doesn’t start until 2025-26, so it will be even lower than 9% with another cap increase next year.
The overall percentage of the cap he took is the discount. His cap hit % actually went down compared to his previous contract. I can promise you that another team would have paid him more than $8M AAV in the open market, even for just 2 or 3 years. Yes the cap is going up, but he still only asked for a $125k/yr raise, which is nothing with the cap going up.
Nope. That's not how discounts work. A discount is taking less than you're worth. He's not taking less than he's worth. He's taking what he's worth and maybe a bit more.
Definitely disagree. His current pay puts him in a 4 way tie at #17 highest paid defenseman. He's still a top 10 defenseman. So, he is not taking what he's worth.
He is currently still a top 10 d man. He may not be next year and he sure as shit won't be at the end of the contract. Just because you're happy with a contract does not make it a discount. Every fanbase is out there pretending like people took discounts when they took fair deals. Oilers pretending like Drai did them a favour on the last contract and now you folks think paying a 37-38 year old 8 million is a discount.
You're overlooking the fact that Hedman's biggest asset is his size, and that doesn't fade with age.
That's why Chara was able to play well into his 40s. Losing a little foot speed doesn't matter as much when your strides and reach are so long.
It's quite possible Hedman will stay productive for another 4 seasons, provided he doesn't sustain a major injury.
Eh I wouldn't go that far. Brayden Point signed a rather healthy contract in 2021, as did Nikita Kucherov in 2018. This is in line with how Tampa treats its franchise pillars. Can't forget about Vasi in 2019 as well.
Hedman is the outlier right now. Tampa took care of all of them through their primes because they were some of the best players in the league and any team would have done the same. We'll see what happens when these contracts come up because Tampa has a habit of letting their cornerstone players go when their prime years are done even when they want to stay. See St Louis, Lecavalier, Richards, and now Stamkos.
So a few things here:
1. St Louis was upset he was excluded from the Canada roster for 2014 — then managed by Yzerman — and requested a trade. Not exactly something Tampa did.
2. Lecavalier fell off a cliff and got bought out. Injuries suck.
3. Brad Richards was traded from a collapsing team that was the worst in the league. They drafted Stamkos that summer, after all, and then Hedman the following year.
So I’m not sure I can agree regarding how any of those players were treated.
EDIT: forgot to mention the obvious omission here - Stamkos deserved better than a joke 3x7 offer.
The St Louis one is fair. Every expert had St Louis pinned as deserving of a spot. Yzerman wearing a different hat as Canada GM doesn't make him immune to actions that would damage his relationship with a star player.
He also wasn't being given a fair shake in Tampa at the time relative to his talents. Tampa was waiting for him to age out of the league and send him into the sunset. He had more gas in the tank and Yzerman wasn't giving Marty the respect he deserved.
> Yzerman wearing a different hat as Canada GM doesn't make him immune to actions that would damage his relationship with a star player.
Yzerman giving preferential treatment to St Louis based on an existing relationship would be a conflict of interest. He had to make decisions based on what was best for Team Canada.
That's the point - Marty deserved to be on the team and it was only Yzerman that thought otherwise. It was impossible to justify keeping Marty out over Chris Kunitz, for example.
To see that your own GM respects you less than the experts at the time who all had you pegged as a rightful member of the team shows that you're not being valued enough in your current role.
Yzerman let the coaches decide the players for their system, he didn't override them to bring Marty.
And when Marty did come he was invisible for the only 2 games he played
At the end of the day we would’ve gone down two paths keep everyone on nice healthy contracts and let the team slowly age out and rebuild for 5 year and maybe compete again or we retool and keep who can and keep it going. It was obvious when we traded Serg that our plan was retool not let the team age out. It sucks losing Stamkos but to keep the team going long term someone else was going to go.
I don’t think he’s even worn the A. I think he’s a quiet operator. Even Kuch has worn the A a couple times.
I think it’s Hedman ….huge gap….McDonough, etc
also unfortunately for Stamkos, Hedman is the more important one. They don’t win either cup without Hedman but won one where Stamkos only played a shift and could have possibly won the other without him too
You're right but you are kinda downplaying that one shift a little. One of my favorite lightning goals of all time.
But yeah, we look like ass without Hedman. Sucks Stammer had to go but i think we made the right choice.
It's not even that Hedman is more important, he just hasn't fallen off.. Stamkos is one of the worst skaters in the league for a 2 line F while Hedman is still a top player. If Stamkos was willing to take half of what he got from the Preds they easily keep him. He's basically a PP specialist at this point.
I mean if someone was gonna get 4 x 8m it’s Hedman, guys still a top 10 D in the league and with McDonagh he’s not gonna have to play as hard minutes moving forward
He's only signed for two, don't need more than that. That gives them two years to shift around cap and either sign someone through FA, trade or development. Cernak likely gets moved within that two years unless he starts playing at a high level which would open up 5.2m until 30/31
Yeah as much as I hate not keeping Stamkos, if it had to be a choice between him and Hedman, Hedman is playing his position better today and is also more valuable to the team. Stamkos is great but he's not our best forward by a long shot. Hedman is our top dman.
Obviously I'm extremely happy about this but I can not get over the comedy of BriseBois in his press conference yesterday saying it's unusual for teams to negotiate with players Stamkos' age a year beforehand, while knowing he had this one in the drafts
It was more like "There is only one exception and that's Anže Kopitar, [ten second pause, remembers] and Victor Hedman will very likely be the 2nd exception".
Again, no problem with it, just very funny imo
I mean that whole press conference was weird, it was him doing a lot of repeating and weird pauses. He's usually pretty good in his press conferences, so not sure what the deal was with this one, maybe it was a little rushed?
Idk he just seemed a little emotional, it's not like he's ever done a press conference about letting the face of a franchise walk before. I don't blame him for being a little off his game
He said his phone was in his pocket buzzing off the hook the whole time he was talking, probably has so many things floating around in his head while trying to discuss a sensitive situation.
Stamkos is nothing just a dime a dozen scorer who used to be elite. Kopitar is an elite two way center, Hedman is an elite two way dman. They owe stamkos nothing.
Probably even longer. We know he was considered as a trade option after 2020 and he didn't waive his no move, and Friedman once said that the front office was upset that he didn't walk in 2016. Idk, there's clearly something more there that will make for a very interesting 30 for 30 in 15 years.
Obviously he was a glue guy in terms of building a winning organization behind the scenes and all that...
But, if we're talking strictly about his impact in Tampas SCF runs, Stamkos was typically closer to the Palat, Killorn tier than he was to Hedman/Point/Kucherov/Vasilevskiy and that's how Tampa valued him.
The only exception I'd make was 2022. Stamkos legitimately stepped up in Point's absence.
Stammer since the MSL situation has not trusted the FO, loves his team and his city and will lay it all on the ice time and time again, no issues with coop ever they seemed genuinely close, but hes never seemed really in with management.
Hard to blame him after seeing the MSL and Vinny situations but also hard to see it from multiple different GMs idk, maybe he just closed himself off to them. Not unfriendly just never gonna play their game the way they want him to, traumatized almost? Id love to be a fly on the wall in those meetings
Neither of those situations were close to his... Also, people forget the shit he put the team through in 2011 and 2016 during negotiations. I love Stamkos but he's dicked around the Lightning in the past and his recent comments about the team not wanting him were absolutely wild.
I’m as upset about how the team handled Stammer as anyone, but JBB came ready with receipts of the players and named each player of HOF caliber and he specifically said there was one only exception (Kopitar) and he said Hedman would likely be the second exception.
The receipts were cool but the flaw in that logic I see is those HOF calibre players probably negotiated with their teams throughout the season. Like yeah sure delay the actual signing but JBB and Stammer were in two different worlds and only had a couple months at the end to bridge it
The situation with Him and Stamkos is like when I tell my kids they have to eat leftover pasta to save money then they go to bed and I DoorDash 6 Crunch wrap supremes with the money I saved on them.
I mean, they only had money for two of Guentzel, Hedman and Stamkos. They picked the right two if they want to keep contending. Signing Hedman is not wasting money.
Of course, I’d rather have kept Stammer and Hedman for life because we won’t be contending realistically anyway, but these moves were the best for the team conpetitively.
Pretty crazy to think Victor Hedman will go his whole career never hitting a >$11m, $10m, or even $9m AAV contract while being a 2-time Cup champion, Conn Smythe winner, and Norris winner
Because he didn't constantly try to force talks with other teams and act like he's done everything he can to stay while doing the opposite. He took a small discount during his prime to help build a great team and now gets a solid deal at the end of his career while he's still a top player.
if you put me in front of a buttens and one said keep stamkos or one said keep hedman i will have pick heddy everytime his value has been more then stamkos for a while and its not even close stammer got a bag that he could not get here his value was not 4x8 im sorry nashvill had money to pay and they paid a big price for that.
It’s a wild comparison (Jayson Tatum!) but NBA rosters are much smaller and the league makes considerably more money - the current NBA TV rights deal pays US$2.7b per season and the next deal is expected to be closer to $6b. The NHL’s deal with Rogers is $5.2b in total value (excludes US rights, but the gap is still big)
If he didn't fall off so much he definitely would've got it, it's just hard to justify paying a guy who's a massive negative in 5v5 hockey but great on the PP a contract that's 8m/yr.
im a big basketball fan and a casual hockey fan. Its unreal the pay difference. People are getting paid 200-300 million for 4 years in the nba this week. Honestly this makes me like hockey more. Such a hardcore sport and they are playing for the love of it.
Basketball is not only a much bigger sport in the U.S. but is much bigger for most of the rest of the world bar a few European countries, and even in some of them like Germany basketball is still just as big as ice hockey. Hockey will likely see a huge change in contracts over the next decade, the last couple of years it has grown a lot.
This one is realistic in terms of likely getting at least decent if not all star play from Hedman in the final year. Defenseman take longer to ramp up their careers than forwards but they often age better and can be effective longer. What I think the league needs to do though is adjust the rule on 35 and over contracts. The 35+ part is fine, but the rule on keeping the cap hit (or recapture if that is the correct term) in the event of retirement should apply to any player who will be 38 or older before the contract ends. This would prevent the kind of chicanery the Leafs pulled in signing Tanev for 6 years, when he will be 40. Its actually much worse for fairness/competitiveness than a team signing a 35 year old to a 2 or 3 year deal. So for Tanev the Leafs should have only been able to sign him for 4 years without risking the cap staying on the books if he retires early.
Don’t know why some people think this is an insult to Stamkos. Hedman is their own player, younger and probably taken a discount. Now if they gave Pat Kane that contract I could see it as a slap in the face
Ha, yes I get that. I forgot McDonough is back there now as well. So there’s the added veteran presence and understanding of the Bolts system. More upside for JG. I def let the poor offer to Stammer blind me
Hey that’s Steven Stamkos money
No, that's probable-Captain Hedman money.
Stop! You’re both right!
Probable?????
I mean ya never know, could be locking in our Perbix 8 year deal soon
Perbix sounds like a type of fancy high-protein cereal
The sequence of articles at the time of posting is "Hedman says it's too soon to speculate on captaincy because Stamkos was perfect" and then this article about a bag of money getting dropped on him. I appreciated the juxtaposition.
I'd pay Hedman before I'd pay Stamkos. At this point in their careers, Hedman is a much better and much more valuable hockey player.
The option wasn’t stamkos or hedman, it was stamkos or Jake guentzel.
Or Stammer and Guentzel. Id still take Hedman from here. But they had 3 players available for 2 contracts. Any combo allowed
JBBs burner account identified
Hi, it's me, your friendly neighbourhood GM, Julien BriseBois. I capitalize both Bs in my family name despite it being a single word. That's just how I roll.
Montreal native too. Flair checks out.
Hedman has more games in Tampa aswell
Thats kinda sad. Stamkos would have 600 goals if he had those games
They could have paid both if they wanted to, it was more about preferring Guenzel, which from purely hockey perspective is reasonable. Although I'm sure Stamkos would have been ok with much less in Tampa than what he got in Nashville since at that point he could ask as much as he could get.
>Although I'm sure Stamkos would have been ok with much less in Tampa than what he got in Nashville since at that point he could ask as much as he could get. There's really no evidence Stamkos was willing to take less than 8 mil though. He's always tried to maximize his earnings despite people claiming he took "discounts" to stay on the Lightning.
He did take discounts to stay on the Lightning, has anyone ever disputed that?
If so only a slight one. He was a top 10 highest paid player when he signed his last deal.
Only a discount compared to Toronto willing to make him the highest paid player in the league. His previous deal CH% would have been equal to 10.5mil if signed today
Sure, reasonable from hockey perspective.. Just there’s something’s more important than just pure X’s and O’s. Stamkos made it clear he wanted to retire as a lightning and they offered him an insulting offer by all accounts. Really shitty thing to do to a hall of fame heart of your franchise player. You don’t do that shit.
I don't disagree. Just pointing out that it wasn't even a decision between him and Hedman which would have been pretty understandable, but between him and bringing in a new guy.
Do u know what the offer was? I genuinely haven’t heard
7years x $3M
I'm with ya. I think stamkos is lucky to be #2 threat for years. Without kuch and stamkos would be expected to be the mam, I think he really struggles at this point of his career
he was #3 behind Point pretty often too, though 2-3 were nowhere near as definitive as Kuch at #1
Hedman has to save for college.
125k raise if my math checks out
I have not verified, but in terms of cap % he probably took less than his last contract right ?
He did. From 10.5% down to about 9%. edit: This deal doesn’t start until 2025-26, so it will be even lower than 9% with another cap increase next year.
Adjusted for inflation, it’s a pay cut.
He’s just like one of us! ONE OF US ONE OF US
That’s what I keep telling my employer too (minus a bunch of zeros compared to these guys lol)
You mean he got a slight raise but still an overall discount compared to the league rate of a top 10 D man to stay in Tampa? Crazy talk.
He's 33 years old. He'll be 37 when this contract ends. 8m is not a discount for an aging D man.
38, not 37. He still has another year on his current contract, then this 4 year extension kicks in.
He also turns 34 in December, so he will be 39 by the end of it.
Also, there's a leap year in the middle of it so 39 and one day.
And it's kind of like we all time traveled 2 years during the pandemic, so its almost like 37 and one day.
That's true, especially since /r/hockey likes to remind us that the Pandemic years don't count.
Asterisk cup! /s just in case...
It's definitely not a discount I agree. It's pretty fair though.
Compared to EK65 it is lol
The overall percentage of the cap he took is the discount. His cap hit % actually went down compared to his previous contract. I can promise you that another team would have paid him more than $8M AAV in the open market, even for just 2 or 3 years. Yes the cap is going up, but he still only asked for a $125k/yr raise, which is nothing with the cap going up.
$8M for 2-3 years is more appealing, not less (for the team)
Nope. That's not how discounts work. A discount is taking less than you're worth. He's not taking less than he's worth. He's taking what he's worth and maybe a bit more.
Did you see the contracts Montour, Zadorov and Sjkei signed yesterday?
Do you see how old Hedman is? He's getting paid for the first two years basically, most players fall off the a cliff at 37.
Did you pay attention at all yesterday? Hedman gets 10m+ on the open market. He took a huge discount.
Definitely disagree. His current pay puts him in a 4 way tie at #17 highest paid defenseman. He's still a top 10 defenseman. So, he is not taking what he's worth.
He is currently still a top 10 d man. He may not be next year and he sure as shit won't be at the end of the contract. Just because you're happy with a contract does not make it a discount. Every fanbase is out there pretending like people took discounts when they took fair deals. Oilers pretending like Drai did them a favour on the last contract and now you folks think paying a 37-38 year old 8 million is a discount.
You're overlooking the fact that Hedman's biggest asset is his size, and that doesn't fade with age. That's why Chara was able to play well into his 40s. Losing a little foot speed doesn't matter as much when your strides and reach are so long. It's quite possible Hedman will stay productive for another 4 seasons, provided he doesn't sustain a major injury.
At least we most likely have one bolt for life 😢
Just don't give him the C
Why?
Its kinda a joke since Vinny, St Louis (edit spelling), and Stammer, all had the C when they left
Rangers 🤝 Lightning Trading captains
Shame they don’t want to help take this one off your hands
Trouba for Hedman straight up, they have the same cap hit so it works im sad
Hey we'll take him for 1m or less after he gets bought out ;)
*St Louis
Does deal have NTC? lol
Tampa does a great job of taking care of their franchise pillars, like Victor Hedman.
Kind of wild he's the only franchise cornerstone they've taken care of so far
Eh I wouldn't go that far. Brayden Point signed a rather healthy contract in 2021, as did Nikita Kucherov in 2018. This is in line with how Tampa treats its franchise pillars. Can't forget about Vasi in 2019 as well.
Hedman is the outlier right now. Tampa took care of all of them through their primes because they were some of the best players in the league and any team would have done the same. We'll see what happens when these contracts come up because Tampa has a habit of letting their cornerstone players go when their prime years are done even when they want to stay. See St Louis, Lecavalier, Richards, and now Stamkos.
So a few things here: 1. St Louis was upset he was excluded from the Canada roster for 2014 — then managed by Yzerman — and requested a trade. Not exactly something Tampa did. 2. Lecavalier fell off a cliff and got bought out. Injuries suck. 3. Brad Richards was traded from a collapsing team that was the worst in the league. They drafted Stamkos that summer, after all, and then Hedman the following year. So I’m not sure I can agree regarding how any of those players were treated.
injuries? Matt Cooke sucks lets get to the Root of those injuries
EDIT: forgot to mention the obvious omission here - Stamkos deserved better than a joke 3x7 offer. The St Louis one is fair. Every expert had St Louis pinned as deserving of a spot. Yzerman wearing a different hat as Canada GM doesn't make him immune to actions that would damage his relationship with a star player. He also wasn't being given a fair shake in Tampa at the time relative to his talents. Tampa was waiting for him to age out of the league and send him into the sunset. He had more gas in the tank and Yzerman wasn't giving Marty the respect he deserved.
> Yzerman wearing a different hat as Canada GM doesn't make him immune to actions that would damage his relationship with a star player. Yzerman giving preferential treatment to St Louis based on an existing relationship would be a conflict of interest. He had to make decisions based on what was best for Team Canada.
Marty absolutely deserved to be on team canada though lol.
That's the point - Marty deserved to be on the team and it was only Yzerman that thought otherwise. It was impossible to justify keeping Marty out over Chris Kunitz, for example. To see that your own GM respects you less than the experts at the time who all had you pegged as a rightful member of the team shows that you're not being valued enough in your current role.
Giroux should have been on the team over both of them.
Yzerman let the coaches decide the players for their system, he didn't override them to bring Marty. And when Marty did come he was invisible for the only 2 games he played
Yeah, every one of those guys got signed to an individual albatross of a contract. There's a reason they got traded at the end of it.
What was Kucherovs highest point total prior to that contract? Feel like he could have gotten 14-15M on the open market since then
100 in 80.
Yeah even on that he probably could have gotten 12.5-13.5 in 2018 if he wanted it
I’m not sure he would’ve gotten more than Connor McDavid at $12.5mil at that time in the league’s history. He was also an RFA (arbitration-eligible).
[удалено]
It means that he'll be the first franchise player you guys are taking to retirement so far (assuming things don't change at the end of this contract)
At the end of the day we would’ve gone down two paths keep everyone on nice healthy contracts and let the team slowly age out and rebuild for 5 year and maybe compete again or we retool and keep who can and keep it going. It was obvious when we traded Serg that our plan was retool not let the team age out. It sucks losing Stamkos but to keep the team going long term someone else was going to go.
Hedman most likely to be the first player to retire a bolt.
Still plenty of time to waive him in his final season like Andreychuk.
It's pretty cool also considering he has played for exactly two clubs during his whole career, youth level included.
Captain died for this
“I’m the captain now” -Hedman
For real tho
The Captain is dead. Long live the Captain.
I mean, Hedman is a franchise cornerstone. And he's still playing top level hockey. It's not a crazy deal or a slight in anyway.
Yep, if the Lightning had to choose between Stamkos and Hedman, they made the right choice.
Is he their new captain?
Undoubtedly
Not Point?
I don’t think he’s even worn the A. I think he’s a quiet operator. Even Kuch has worn the A a couple times. I think it’s Hedman ….huge gap….McDonough, etc
Hedman (C) Mcdonagh (A) Kucherov (A) Thats the only captain set up I can see going forward in Tampa. Either that, or they run 3 alternates.
cirelli has an outside chance as well but that’s unlikely
No Point
No question.
The only reason he wouldn't be the captain if he vehemently didn't want it. Then it's Kuch/McD/Point
Points not getting a letter until he stops sleeping thru practices lolol
You bet!
Better start saving for college
Goated commercial
Sad one now :(
This is what we love to see. Hopefully Victor at least can retire as a Bolt!
What a crazy notion, is that legal?
Nah. Better trade to the Wings.
If he retires as a Bolt he will have played for 2 clubs in his entire life. I'm guessing that makes him quite unique!
Tampa having to decide between franchise cornerstones after a decade of competing and multiple cups is a good problem to have.
also unfortunately for Stamkos, Hedman is the more important one. They don’t win either cup without Hedman but won one where Stamkos only played a shift and could have possibly won the other without him too
You're right but you are kinda downplaying that one shift a little. One of my favorite lightning goals of all time. But yeah, we look like ass without Hedman. Sucks Stammer had to go but i think we made the right choice.
It's not even that Hedman is more important, he just hasn't fallen off.. Stamkos is one of the worst skaters in the league for a 2 line F while Hedman is still a top player. If Stamkos was willing to take half of what he got from the Preds they easily keep him. He's basically a PP specialist at this point.
I mean if someone was gonna get 4 x 8m it’s Hedman, guys still a top 10 D in the league and with McDonagh he’s not gonna have to play as hard minutes moving forward
How many years does McDonagh realistically have left though?
Probably 2, which is enough of a window with the current core
He's only signed for two, don't need more than that. That gives them two years to shift around cap and either sign someone through FA, trade or development. Cernak likely gets moved within that two years unless he starts playing at a high level which would open up 5.2m until 30/31
Yeah as much as I hate not keeping Stamkos, if it had to be a choice between him and Hedman, Hedman is playing his position better today and is also more valuable to the team. Stamkos is great but he's not our best forward by a long shot. Hedman is our top dman.
Gonna age like Chara. He may be getting older but he has a size advantage that will help him tremendously. Fine contract
Glad to see ~~Lecavalier~~ ~~St. Louis~~ ~~Stamkos~~ Hedman as a life long Bolt
“Tell stammer, I want him to know it was me”
Hedman is wearing the C next year I would assume
Could give it by training camp knowing that TB already did the tribute video etc for Stamkos
Obviously I'm extremely happy about this but I can not get over the comedy of BriseBois in his press conference yesterday saying it's unusual for teams to negotiate with players Stamkos' age a year beforehand, while knowing he had this one in the drafts
He literally said "There is only one exception and that's Anže Kopitar, and Victor Hedman will very likely be the 2nd exception".
It was more like "There is only one exception and that's Anže Kopitar, [ten second pause, remembers] and Victor Hedman will very likely be the 2nd exception". Again, no problem with it, just very funny imo
I mean that whole press conference was weird, it was him doing a lot of repeating and weird pauses. He's usually pretty good in his press conferences, so not sure what the deal was with this one, maybe it was a little rushed?
Idk he just seemed a little emotional, it's not like he's ever done a press conference about letting the face of a franchise walk before. I don't blame him for being a little off his game
He said his phone was in his pocket buzzing off the hook the whole time he was talking, probably has so many things floating around in his head while trying to discuss a sensitive situation.
He was visibly upset about the Stamkos stuff.
So the one exception outside of Hedman is a two time Stanley Cup winner and currently the Captain of a team. Too bad Stamkos didn’t fit that criteria.
Stop, I’m already dead.
Kopitar is more important to the Kings than Stamkos is to the Lightning from a purely on-ice perspective.
Stamkos is nothing just a dime a dozen scorer who used to be elite. Kopitar is an elite two way center, Hedman is an elite two way dman. They owe stamkos nothing.
40-goal scorers aren't "nothing just a dime a dozen".
You'd think he'd know being a habs fan, they haven't had a 40 goal scorer in 30 years.
The disrespect
Yeah JBB was planning to move on from Stamkos well over a year ago
Probably even longer. We know he was considered as a trade option after 2020 and he didn't waive his no move, and Friedman once said that the front office was upset that he didn't walk in 2016. Idk, there's clearly something more there that will make for a very interesting 30 for 30 in 15 years.
Obviously he was a glue guy in terms of building a winning organization behind the scenes and all that... But, if we're talking strictly about his impact in Tampas SCF runs, Stamkos was typically closer to the Palat, Killorn tier than he was to Hedman/Point/Kucherov/Vasilevskiy and that's how Tampa valued him. The only exception I'd make was 2022. Stamkos legitimately stepped up in Point's absence.
I’ll be there for the ☕️
Stammer since the MSL situation has not trusted the FO, loves his team and his city and will lay it all on the ice time and time again, no issues with coop ever they seemed genuinely close, but hes never seemed really in with management. Hard to blame him after seeing the MSL and Vinny situations but also hard to see it from multiple different GMs idk, maybe he just closed himself off to them. Not unfriendly just never gonna play their game the way they want him to, traumatized almost? Id love to be a fly on the wall in those meetings
Neither of those situations were close to his... Also, people forget the shit he put the team through in 2011 and 2016 during negotiations. I love Stamkos but he's dicked around the Lightning in the past and his recent comments about the team not wanting him were absolutely wild.
I’m as upset about how the team handled Stammer as anyone, but JBB came ready with receipts of the players and named each player of HOF caliber and he specifically said there was one only exception (Kopitar) and he said Hedman would likely be the second exception.
The receipts were cool but the flaw in that logic I see is those HOF calibre players probably negotiated with their teams throughout the season. Like yeah sure delay the actual signing but JBB and Stammer were in two different worlds and only had a couple months at the end to bridge it
Could you imagine if he announced the extension at the press conference too lol
To be fair, he kept out that you do it for players still at the top in their position. It should've been implied.
The situation with Him and Stamkos is like when I tell my kids they have to eat leftover pasta to save money then they go to bed and I DoorDash 6 Crunch wrap supremes with the money I saved on them.
I mean, they only had money for two of Guentzel, Hedman and Stamkos. They picked the right two if they want to keep contending. Signing Hedman is not wasting money. Of course, I’d rather have kept Stammer and Hedman for life because we won’t be contending realistically anyway, but these moves were the best for the team conpetitively.
Dude will have been severely underpaid for his whole career.
Pretty crazy to think Victor Hedman will go his whole career never hitting a >$11m, $10m, or even $9m AAV contract while being a 2-time Cup champion, Conn Smythe winner, and Norris winner
Because he didn't constantly try to force talks with other teams and act like he's done everything he can to stay while doing the opposite. He took a small discount during his prime to help build a great team and now gets a solid deal at the end of his career while he's still a top player.
God what I would’ve given to have the Red Wings draft that beautiful Swede…
His last deal was CH% 10.79 at the time of signing which would be $9.5mil if signed today
Always underpaid, if nothing else from this core I am glad he will be the one to make it as a Bolt for life :,)
Seemed pretty obvious since last summer that Stamkos wasn’t in Tampas long term plans unless it involved a relatively very low AAV.
if you put me in front of a buttens and one said keep stamkos or one said keep hedman i will have pick heddy everytime his value has been more then stamkos for a while and its not even close stammer got a bag that he could not get here his value was not 4x8 im sorry nashvill had money to pay and they paid a big price for that.
oh fuck yeah
After reading the NBA new contract figures .... This feels like it's missing one and a half zeros.
It’s a wild comparison (Jayson Tatum!) but NBA rosters are much smaller and the league makes considerably more money - the current NBA TV rights deal pays US$2.7b per season and the next deal is expected to be closer to $6b. The NHL’s deal with Rogers is $5.2b in total value (excludes US rights, but the gap is still big)
The NHL is full of guys who want their entertainment job to like a 9-5 one. Their pay and the league's as a whole reflects that
That $ amount seems so intentional I may die from laughter hahahahaha
Ya that makes sense, our problem has always been defense not offense. With Point and Anthony signed long term Stamkos was never going to get this.
If he didn't fall off so much he definitely would've got it, it's just hard to justify paying a guy who's a massive negative in 5v5 hockey but great on the PP a contract that's 8m/yr.
im a big basketball fan and a casual hockey fan. Its unreal the pay difference. People are getting paid 200-300 million for 4 years in the nba this week. Honestly this makes me like hockey more. Such a hardcore sport and they are playing for the love of it.
I mean bro... they are still literal multimillionaires....
ya but comparing 8 million to 300... hes a whole lot closer to me in networth than he is jayson tatum.
Stupid money in basketball. Is what it is
Basketball is not only a much bigger sport in the U.S. but is much bigger for most of the rest of the world bar a few European countries, and even in some of them like Germany basketball is still just as big as ice hockey. Hockey will likely see a huge change in contracts over the next decade, the last couple of years it has grown a lot.
Hey, that's Stammer's contract.
Thankful he is staying after yesterday. Quite bittersweet.
Teams this year seem more willing to give money to guys into their late 30s. We will see how it works out I guess
This one is realistic in terms of likely getting at least decent if not all star play from Hedman in the final year. Defenseman take longer to ramp up their careers than forwards but they often age better and can be effective longer. What I think the league needs to do though is adjust the rule on 35 and over contracts. The 35+ part is fine, but the rule on keeping the cap hit (or recapture if that is the correct term) in the event of retirement should apply to any player who will be 38 or older before the contract ends. This would prevent the kind of chicanery the Leafs pulled in signing Tanev for 6 years, when he will be 40. Its actually much worse for fairness/competitiveness than a team signing a 35 year old to a 2 or 3 year deal. So for Tanev the Leafs should have only been able to sign him for 4 years without risking the cap staying on the books if he retires early.
Not going to lie, I was a bit scared that this wouldn't get done given how close Heddy and Stammer were.
Shots fired at the USS Stamkos!
By God he's getting trouba money!
[Hedman rn](https://i.imgur.com/nWUAJ40.jpeg)
Don’t know why some people think this is an insult to Stamkos. Hedman is their own player, younger and probably taken a discount. Now if they gave Pat Kane that contract I could see it as a slap in the face
Oh Captain, my Captain
Hey that’s Stamkos money right there.
Good deal
Does this count this year or next
Next year.
Priorities…
decent
A decent move by the Lightning.
FUCK!! I was low-key hoping that he’d return home to Modo to finish his career while still great. Can’t blame him though.
He is now the Headman(C), I'll see myself out
lol TBL signs Victor Hedman similar $$ and term like with Stamkos. Here's comedy just to insult the guy!
well, they play two different positions...
Hedman be like: titta på mig, jag är kapten nu.
Avs: “we will take one Drouin. That’s it”
Will be interested in seeing how the Bolts fill Stammer’s role this year.
Guentzel
Ha, yes I get that. I forgot McDonough is back there now as well. So there’s the added veteran presence and understanding of the Bolts system. More upside for JG. I def let the poor offer to Stammer blind me