Admit it. You know of at least one person that constantly calculated Thomas Vanek’s dollars-to-goals ratio during 07-08, when he made $10 million but “only” scored 36 goals. You might have sat near that guy in HSBC Arena for 41 games (I did – he was a couple rows behind me).
You might have even been that person.
The numbers on Vanek’s contract, courtesy of one Kevin Lowe, were of the sort not often seen in Buffalo – and certainly not since Dominik Hasek left town. The $10 million he received in 07-08 is the largest annual salary ever paid to a Buffalo Sabre (until Christian Ehrhoff signed his mammoth 10-year deal, that is). Fair or not, that kind of payday made Vanek a target for criticism. He didn’t score enough, he was lazy, he couldn’t handle the pressure of such a big contract. You’ve likely heard all of these arguments.
Darcy Regier and the Sabres braintrust have taken their fair share of abuse for the signing as well from fans who considered Vanek’s hefty deal a bit of an albatross. But this is one situation that was largely out of their hands.
Why You Can’t Blame The Sabres for the Thomas Vanek Contract
1) As a pending restricted free agent, Vanek wanted to see what the market would be like. Vanek knew two things after a breakout 43-goal, 84-point season in 2006-07: that the Sabres would retain his rights thanks to his RFA status, and that, while it wasn’t commonplace, he could have been presented with an offer sheet from another team. Even in a post-lockout NHL 40-goal scorers aren’t exactly commonplace, and Vanek knew that meant he was due a hefty raise – why not take a chance that someone other than the Sabres could play a role in determining what he was worth? In other words, there was zero incentive for him to sign a contract before reaching restricted free agency.
2) The uncertainty surrounding the contract statuses of Drury and Briere prevented Regier from locking up Vanek earlier. In those days, as you will likely recall, Darcy Regier did not negotiate with pending free agents during the season – resulting in Drury and Briere remaining unsigned following the 2006-07 season. In a sense, Regier was forced to hold off on extending Vanek without knowing how the economics of potential Briere/Drury contracts would have affected the team’s payroll and cap number. This in itself is not an assignment of blame to Darcy Regier, but it did prove to be a fatal mistake, because….
3) Oilers GM Kevin Lowe took advantage of the Drury/Briere situation to put the screws to Darcy Regier. That’s a slightly nicer way of saying “Kevin Lowe is an unprofessional sleazebucket”. No NHL GM can lose his team’s top three scorers without being run out of town with torches and pitchforks, and that’s exactly the situation Regier faced if Vanek became an Oiler after Daniel Briere and Chris Drury left town. Put another way: if Darcy Regier was a one-armed guy hanging from the edge of a cliff, Kevin Lowe was the one who stomped on his fingers. Regier mistakenly gave Lowe the green light to offer-sheet Vanek by telling him he’d match any offer, and Lowe circled him like a vulture until the taillights on the UFA Bus Out of Town were no longer visible before pouncing on Vanek with an inflated 7-year, $50 million contract offer. Darcy was left with no choice but to match. (As you may recall: Lowe presented another inflated offer sheet, this time to the Ducks’ Dustin Penner, shortly thereafter. This incurred the wrath of then-Anaheim GM Brian Burke, whose subsequent fire-and-brimstone speeches about the evils of RFA salary inflation and Lowe’s unprofessionalism struck fear in the hearts of every NHL GM, who collectively vowed to never again dabble in the dark arts of RFA offer sheets… or so I’ve been told. The Hockey Gods apparently agree with Burke – Lowe’s team has been dead last in the NHL two years in a row, has missed the playoffs by a mile every year since 2006-07, and hasn’t yet developed any of those high draft picks “earned” by sucking so badly into a top NHL player.)
4) In hindsight, Vanek was worth keeping over Briere and Drury. I suggested a couple weeks ago that, based on the contracts they ultimately agreed to, the Sabres may have only been able to keep one of Drury, Briere, and Vanek. If you subscribe to that notion, then comparing the careers of the three since 06-07 is a worthwhile exercise. It breaks down like this (with links to NHL.com so you can verify my math, if you choose):
- Drury: $7.05 million cap hit, 264 GP, 62 goals, 89 assists, 151 points, .572 PPG, -19
- Briere: $6.5 million cap hit, 260 GP, 102 goals, 116 assists, 218 points, .838 PPG, -5
- Vanek: $7.14 million cap hit, 306 GP, 136 goals, 118 assists, 254 points, .830 PPG, +5
Drury’s points per game ratio immediately knocks him out of the discussion (not that I expected anyone to argue that Drury was worth the money, but whatever). Vanek’s points per game are slightly less than Briere’s, but he hasn’t played less than 71 games in a season during that span; meanwhile, Briere played in only 29 games in 2008-09 thanks to multiple groin injuries. By the way, Vanek also has scored significantly more goals, boasts a better plus-minus ratio, and is six years younger than Briere. Based on these numbers, I know who I’d rather have on my roster.
5) $7.1 million wasn’t actually that outrageous for a 43-goal scorer. Let’s take the top 10 goal scorers from 2006-07 (seriously, Jason Blake is on that list?) and observe their cap hits then and now, with links to the wonderful Capgeek (or other sites as necessary) for reference:
- Vincent LeCavalier: 52 goals, cap hit in 06-07 $6.875 million, current cap hit (as of 2009-10) $7.72 million
- Dany Heatley: 50 goals, cap hit in 06-07 $4.5 million, current cap hit (as of 08-09) $7.5 million
- Teemu Selanne: 48 goals, cap hit in 06-07 $3.75 million, current cap hit (as of 2010-11) $4.5 milion (also worth noting: $2.625 million cap hit in 2008-09 and 2009-10; was making between $5.45 million and $9.5 million from 1999-2000 to 2003-04)
- Alex Ovechkin: 46 goals, cap hit in 06-07 $3.83 million, current cap hit (as of 2008-09) $9.54 million
- Martin St. Louis: 43 goals, cap hit in 06-07 $5.25 million, current cap hit $5.25 million
- Marian Hossa: 43 goals, cap hit in 06-07 $6 million, current cap hit (as of 2009-10) $5.275 million
- Thomas Vanek: 43 goals, cap hit in 06-07 $942,400, current cap hit (as of 2007-08) $7.14 million
- Ilya Kovalchuk: 42 goals, cap hit in 06-07 $6.389 million, current cap hit (as of 2010-11) $6.67 million
- Simon Gagne: 41 goals, cap hit in 06-07 $5.25 million, current cap hit (as of 2011-12) $3.5 million
- Jason Blake: 40 goals, cap hit in 06-07 $1.56 million, current cap hit (as of 2007-08) $4 million
Established goal-scorers (LeCavalier, St. Louis, Hossa, Kovalchuk, Gagne) were already making $5 million or more. LeCavalier’s cap hit is now higher than Vanek’s; Hossa and Kovalchuk’s current cap hits are only lower due to the assumption that they’ll be playing until age 90 for a million a year. Ovechkin was still on his rookie deal and Heatley, being damaged goods when he came to Ottawa from Atlanta, was in the second year of a modest contract; both players now have a higher cap hit than Vanek. Selanne was criminally underpaid at the time, but in part because of injuries, age, and an annual flirtation with retirement. Jason Blake is a complete aberration, having never approached 40 goals before or after 2006-07, and thus is not worthy of being in this discussion.
So $7.14 million, while a bit on the high side, isn’t unreasonable. And, although it’s a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, there are certainly more lamentable cap hits than Vanek’s. Scott Gomez? Brian Campbell? Ouch. (And that list doesn’t even count Chris Drury’s recently bought out $7.05 million hit.)
6) The compensatory draft picks, while tempting, weren’t worth losing Vanek. Under the CBA, the Sabres would have received Edmonton’s next four first-round draft picks had they declined to match the offer sheet. It’s easy to presume, as John Grigg of the Hockey News did last summer, that this means Taylor Hall, Magnus Paajarvi, and Jordan Eberle would have been Sabres. Grigg’s secondary presumption is that Thomas Vanek wouldn’t have made the Oilers a better team, and if that’s the case, then why do you offer him $50 million? While those are three pretty darn good players with great potential, they never would have been Sabres because Edmonton certainly wouldn’t have been drafting as high. Besides, I submit that having Thomas Vanek for the last four years trumps any contribution that those players have made to the Edmonton Oilers thus far.
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Certainly, mistakes were made by Regier and Co. As I’ve previously suggested, this whole mess is probably avoided if the Sabres had gotten Drury and/or Briere under contract before Vanek became an RFA. But when Lowe offered Vanek $50 million, that became a moot point – all that mattered was that Regier had to keep Vanek.
In hindsight, although Vanek has frustrated a lot of people at times, I think he’s been worth it in comparison to his peers, and most definitely in comparison to “the two that got away”. And that, ultimately, is why you can’t blame the Sabres for matching the offer sheet.
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Mike also writes about the Sabres at Roll the Highlight Film. You can follow him on Twitter at @mtracz.
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