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Poor Prioritizing Will Make Cap Mess a Tough Fix for Chiarelli |
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When it comes to attending to your financial demands, some people get it and some people don't. Always taking care of the "big stuff" first is a golden rule lost on many. I had a roommate once who never showed any hint of grasping such a simple concept.
Beer, booze and all other partying essentials always pulled rank on rent money, forking over his share of the utilities and making his own car payments. It often led to beer bottles being horded in our hallway for their recycling value, our electricity, cable or heat being turned off and his desperate hope that parking a block away would successfully avoid having his car repossessed. Turns out Mr. Repo Man was smarter than he expected. After six months of far too many humid summer nights sans air conditioning and the internet, I hit the road as soon as our lease was up.
After surveying the manner in which the past two offseasons have been conducted, I tend to wonder if Bruins' General Manager Peter Chiarelli lacks a similar understanding of identifying his own priorities. After the 2008-09 season concluded, Chiarelli had two major RFAs to attend to. He elected to lock up center David Krejci, who was coming off of an impressive 73 point campaign in just his second NHL season, with a three-year deal at a respectable rate of $3.75 million per year.
As you well know, the other big name RFA was Phil Kessel, who broke out in his third pro season with a team-leading 36 goals. Chiarelli remained adamant as week-after-week passed that #81 would remain in Black and Gold. But as time went on, and word began to repeatedly leak about locker room issues and a wide gap between the Bruins' offer and Kessel's demands, Chiarelli made a handful of other moves which all but sealed the young winger's fate.
In addition to Krejci's new contract, the Bruins made the following moves before addressing the Kessel situation:
* Signed 4th line center Steve Begin to a 1-yr deal.
* Re-signed veteran forward Mark Recchi.
* Re-signed rookie defenseman Matt Hunwick with a 2-yr deal worth $1.45 mil annually.
* Re-signed 4th line winger Byron Bitz to a 2-yr deal.
* Added AHL depth with the signings of Drew Fata, Dany Sabourin, Trent Whitfield, Rob Kwiet, Zach McKelvie and Drew Larman.
* Traded Aaron Ward to the Hurricanes, bought out the returning player (Patrick Eaves).
* Bought out Peter Schaefer, demoted for the 08-09 season to Providence, taking on a cap hit of 566k in 2009-10 and 766k in 2010-11.
* Signed defenseman Derek Morris to a 1-yr, $3.5 million dollar deal.
And by the time it was all said and done, Chiarelli had effectively painted himself into a corner. Sure, maybe he never had any intention of retaining Kessel. The Bruins, who nearly shipped him to his eventual destination of Toronto on draft night, had reportedly shopped his services on a number of occasions. But, as Matt Damon's character Mike McDermott said in Rounders...always leave yourself outs. Chiarelli failed to do that, as every other GM knew he could never feasibly match an offer sheet nor make a legitimate pitch to the speedy winger.
And now we fast forward to the summer of 2010, as the Bruins are in a far greater pinch than they were in the previous offseason. While no one would argue that the likes of Dennis Seidenberg and Johnny Boychuk were of great importance this offseason, Chiarelli has still gone the route of stocking up on 4th line talent before frying the bigger fish. Whether you love Blake Wheeler, you're wishy-washy about his potential or ready, willing and able to help him pack his bags and drive him to the airport, the fact remains that leaving a player of his ilk dead last on the list of decisions seems a little foolish.
However, that's essentially exactly where we stand at this point. With word breaking from CSN's Joe Haggerty and the Globe's Kevin Dupont that Gregory Campbell is on the verge of signing a 1-yr deal worth roughly $1 million dollars (Campbell scored a total of two goals last year for $800k), the B's will now have roughly $687,000 to re-up Wheeler if they expect to remain under the cap (an obviously impossible expectation). They'll also need to bring up/sign a seventh defenseman, a player who will also kick their increasingly non-existent cap space in the family jewels. And of course there's Tyler Seguin, the second overall pick who has yet to officially become a paid employee of the B's. Something tells me that trio won't be clocking in at an average of $229,000 per year.
With Wheeler's arbitration hearing less than two weeks away, the big picture should come into focus sooner rather than later, unlike last year's debacle in which Kessel was shipped out just weeks before the season got underway. By now you're well aware of the Bruins' limited options in terms of getting back under a cap limit they will certainly be over in the next few weeks. Ryder to Providence. Savard closer to home with an organization in Ontario. A last minute miracle call from another GM inquiring about Tim Thomas. Procrastination has once again backed the B's up right against the proverbial brick wall.
It seems no matter what happens, a team looking to take another step forward toward Stanley Cup contention will be forced to shed itself of some level of talent and regretfully take one step back. Like that former roommate praying he could squeeze enough nickels out of that stack of beer bottles and make ends meet, Chiarelli likely wishes he could have gone about a few key decisions throughout his tenure in the Hub of Hockey a little differently. He must now stare the bind his inability to prioritize, his penchant for overpayments and his generosity with no-trade clauses has put him in square in the face.
Since canning Dave Lewis after the immeasurable embarrassment that the 2006-07 season was, Chiarelli has reshaped and revived an organization that was growing increasingly irrelevant in the city of Boston and across the NHL landscape. His accomplishments to date are, given how quickly the Bruins' have reasserted themselves in the Eastern Conference, truly remarkable. Unfortunately for the former Senators' assistant GM, opportunities for do-overs are few and far between. There is no turning back on signing Andy Ference for three years at a 55% raise in salary. There is no way to slice any time or money off of Tim Thomas' four-year extension.
Every general manager has their share of heralded maneuvers and horrendous hiccups. Their ability to quickly and effectively rectify their errors is paramount if they expect to arrive at work each day and find their nameplate still adhered to the outside of their office door. Chiarelli's certainly been a man of action this summer, orchestrating a key trade to bring in Nathan Horton while re-upping the highly underrated Seidenberg, former iron man Mark Stuart and a blossoming bruiser in Boychuk.
The next few weeks will truly determine if Chiarelli is worthy of earning the bacon, of having the distinction of being a supposed capologist. The Bruins are going to find someway out of this. No team has ever been forced to forfeit any NHL game due to exceeding the cap. What the roster will look like after that all shakes out is all that really matters, and an end result everyone is chomping at the bit to find out.
If the Bruins can commence the 2010-11 campaign with virtually the same roster as last year, sans Dennis Wideman but with the additions of Horton and Seguin, then Chiarelli deserves a heap of kudos. But if his aforementioned egregious errors come back to bite the B's, forcing them to trade their leading point-getter in three of the last four years, just one summer after jettisoning their leading goal scorer, a championship-starved fan-base should have every reason to be disturbed, disappointed and disenchanted with an organization they have remained faithful to through thick and thin.
The Hub of Hockey is watching, Peter, so make sure your pencils are sharpened, the paper tray in the fax machine is stocked and your cell phone is fully charged. The toughest test of your tenure in Boston has officially begun.
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