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The times, they are a-changing…. Is this “The New Age of the Offer Sheet?” |
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My good friend Kevin Allen used to poke fun at me all the time for putting out rumors about offer sheets. They really just didn’t happen and when they did happen, the other team was quick to match even if it made little economic sense for them….
The main reason we never saw offer sheets unmatched was the compensation is just ridiculous for top end players…Below is a list of the salaries offered and the compensation if the offer sheet is not matched
$1 - $1,511,701 No compensation.
$1,5111,701 - $2,290,457 1 3rd-round pick
$2,290,457 - $4,580,917 1 2nd-round pick
$4,580,917 - $6,871,374 1 1st-round pick, 1 3rd-round pick
$6,871,374 - $9,161,834 1 1st-round pick, 1 2nd-round pick, 1 3rd-round pick
$9,161,834 - $11,452,294 2 1st-round picks, 1 2nd-round pick, 1 3rd-round pick
$11,452,294 or more 4 1st-round picks
The big thing to know about that list is any offer made over $4,580,917 will result in a first and third pick. And anything in the star player range just gets way worse…up to four first round picks for the top number…
History of the offer sheet in the NHL has been very up and down…..
The first offer sheet was made in 1986, Back then, it worked VERY differently as far as compensation went. If an offer sheet was unmatched, a trade had to be worked out. This is famously how’s Scott Stevens ended up in NJ…In 1991 The Blues offer sheeted the Devil’s Brendon Shanahan and the Blues gave up Scott Steven’s as compensation.
Today, we mostly think of teams always matching. However, since 1986 there have been 40 offer sheets made….21 teams have matched and 19 teams either haven’t matched or weren’t allowed to match as the rule used to be…. And I still don’t understand the rule that did not allow teams to match. It is no longer the rule so let’s not spend any time on it. It confused me back in the 90s….
While there was a time when matching an offer was uncertain, we went from 2007 to 2019 with every offer sheet made being matched… The reason for this was team pride….and most were BUG players…. Not many were even made becausethe compensation was so high based on the chart above…
However, it’s a new era!
The last three offer sheets have not been matched…
Philip Broberg 2 years, $4.5 million
Dylan Holloway 2 years, $2.2 million
Jesperi Kotkaniemi 1 year, $6.1 million
For Broberg and Holloway, St Louis only had to send a second and a third round pick to Edmonton. Meanwhile, those guys have been killing it in St. Louis. Broberg, a defenseman, has 20 points and is a +27. Holloway, who is only 23, has 24 goals and 60 points as a Blue.
Edmonton gave up on Holloway over a 1.1M AAV and only got a third rounder back.
These two players are easily the best offer sheet wins in years, and it brings us to the question of how St. Louis did it?
The answer is pretty simple. Every team out there has players who are not being put in a position that will maximize their talents. The Blues saw this in these two players, and obviously the Oilers didn’t…
So who else is out there that could be like this? What offer sheets will come this summer?
Tomorrow, I will dig into the pending RFA‘s who I think are flying under the radar…
Who might you go for?
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