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Offer Sheet Coming?!?

July 3, 2019, 12:25 PM ET [26 Comments]
Thomas Townsend
Columbus Blue Jackets Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The first offer sheet in years was signed by Aho and the Canadians. It had front loaded bonuses and a contract that took Aho right up to UFA years. This isn't a contract that a team would usually want to agree to unless they were stealing a player out from under another team, which is what offer sheets are meant to do. Because of the nature of snaking away another teams player, offer sheets are used sparingly. The cost (in draft pick compensation) is also not usually friendly to the GM/team signing the player. Not to mention the bridge that is now burned between MTL and CAR. Some will say it is completely legal under the rules, others will say that in a gentlemen's league offer sheets are low-brow.

Many writers and experts out there think there are more offer sheets to come. As guys like Trouba, Connor, Marner, Laine, Tkachuk, Provorov, Rantanen, Point and even our own Werenski remain unsigned there is an offer sheet opportunity.

For those of you who may not know all the rules of the NHL offer sheet to a restricted free agent, here is a brief crash course. First, I'm not going to get into who has what rights as a free agent (UFA) vs. a restricted free agent (RFA) and at what year an RFA could qualify for arbitration and the such. Just understand that if a player is an RFA they cannot sign with just any team, their current team 'owns the right' to sign them.

It is easier to explain this with an example. We will use Columbus and Werenski, whom they have not yet signed. And lets say that STL wants to sign him. They can offer him a contract that HE has to sign. You see the first hurdle here is that the player must sign the contract with a new team and not the team that could potentially match that offer...but we will get into that in just a second.

Depending on the average salary per year of the contract the team signing the player away has to compensate the team that owns the player rights with draft picks. Most (if not all) of the guys listed above would sign for an amount that would result in a 1st, 2nd & 3rd; Two 1st, a 2nd, & a 3rd; or Four 1st Round draft picks as compensation. That is a high price to pay. Back to our example, Werenski signs with STL for $7.5M per year. That would result in 1st, 2nd and 3rd Round picks going to the CBJ. Here is the catch, they must be your teams picks and must be in the next draft. STL still owns all their picks in 2020 so this would work. But most teams have traded at least one of those picks away and thus could not qualify an offer sheet.

There is the opportunity for a team to match the offer. In this case if Werenski signed a deal with STL, the Blue Jackets have 7 days in order to match the offer and claim the player for the same contract. This means Columbus would not be able to negotiate a deal, they could only take the deal that STL and Werenski agreed to. Thus putting the player-team-relationship in peril. But if you want to keep the player, you accept the contact another team signed him to.

If there is no match, compensation is exchanged and the player goes to the new team, in this case Werenski goes to STL. STL give Columbus their 1st, 2nd and 3rd Round picks in 2020 and the transaction is completed. This deal is not favorable to CBJ because it would be expected that the Stanley Cup Champion Blues with a newly acquired Werenski have a good shot at the playoffs and a very low draft pick selection. Great for the Blues as there isn't much risk that those picks end up being very high and could stand to sacrifice for a year.

But lets look at a guy like Marner. He is set to make $11M+ per year and any team signing him to an offer sheet would have to give up their next 4 first round picks. Without a working crystal ball teams don't know if they are giving up lottery picks or a pick in the high 20s each season. Now a guy who has a bright career ahead of him is assured that he will not get any help from young guys entering the league, because the team he just signed with doesn't have a first round draft pick until he is at least half way through that contract.

Are there any offer sheets coming? Not any real ones. I even argue that MTL's offer sheet wasn't a real offer. It just made CAR sign to terms they would not ideally have signed to on their own. It also probably pissed them off and thus ruined any relationship between the teams for years to come.

I will give this to MTL, they made a very calculated move. While they would have to give up a 1st, 2nd and 3rd in 2020 as well as a 1st in 2021, they had just acquired CHI's 2nd in 2020 and 3rd in 2021. If they plan on being a playoff team, and with Aho I think they get over the hump, the compensation would have likely been marginal. Souring one relationship, while there are 29 (soon to be 30) other teams to deal with isn't life threatening.

Should the Jackets play the offer sheet game? With that many high end RFAs and very few UFAs left, maybe. There is a lot of offensive fire power in this group of RFAs, which is what CBJ is going to need to compete next year. The prospect pool that the Jackets have now is good (not great) and could withstand another year with little coming in the form of draft picks. But, here is the problem...going 'all-in' at the trade deadline. How does that impact offer sheets you may ask. Here's how, Columbus traded away needed draft picks to compensate for the offer sheet transaction to be completed. The 2020 2nd round pick is owned by Ottawa (Ryan Dzingel deal) as well as the 3rd round pick (Ian Cole deal in 2018). Further, CBJ may not be able to offer sheet next year either because the Dzingel deal gave Ottawa the 2nd rounder in 2021 too.

There is one caveat here, the Jackets do own their next 4 first round picks since Duchene signed in NSH. That means they could offer sheet a guy like Marner and compensate with those picks. That would be unwise to say the least as TOR would likely match, Marner would not likely sign with CBJ and he may not be worth $11M+ per year anyway. To be honest, I'm not sure any of the guys on that list are worth $11M+ per year and four round 1 draft picks. Which is once again, why we don't see offer sheets very often.

Thanks for reading.
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