Jump to content

Gorges files for Arbitration, signs 1-year, $2.5M contract


ForumGhost

Recommended Posts

I doubt it. Gautier just didn't want long terms for two players with blown knees. If Gorges is healthy and plays well, he will be re-signed.

Hope so. Love the guy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 50
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

One thing you can say about Gauthier is that he likes to have a lot of options. I think it is clear that next year someone is walking away from the Habs. I am thinking Kosty. With all these players to sign, someone will be going unless the CBA opens up a lot of room.

Barring a Gomez trade, I could see Kosty or Gorges walking. The other ufa are easy signs or just let them go. The rest of the prolific players are RFA. Kosty has been paid and played like a top sixer for a few years. I know that he is streaky but I think he earns his cash for the most part. Two one year contracts in a row may make him decide to head to Washington or somewhere. It will be interesting to see hiw things unfold.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing you can say about Gauthier is that he likes to have a lot of options. I think it is clear that next year someone is walking away from the Habs. I am thinking Kosty. With all these players to sign, someone will be going unless the CBA opens up a lot of room.

Barring a Gomez trade, I could see Kosty or Gorges walking. The other ufa are easy signs or just let them go. The rest of the prolific players are RFA. Kosty has been paid and played like a top sixer for a few years. I know that he is streaky but I think he earns his cash for the most part. Two one year contracts in a row may make him decide to head to Washington or somewhere. It will be interesting to see hiw things unfold.

I have a question, is there a reason Montreal seems to hesitate to signing players to long term contracts? Maybe it is just me but players like Georges seem to be worth the risk and it could mean savings in the long run to sign such a player to a few years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a question, is there a reason Montreal seems to hesitate to signing players to long term contracts? Maybe it is just me but players like Georges seem to be worth the risk and it could mean savings in the long run to sign such a player to a few years.

They've signed plenty of guys to long-term deals in recent years (since the 2009 offseason), Gionta, Cammalleri, Spacek, Plekanec, Markov, Cole, even Moen. They all got 3+ years. I wouldn't say they're hesitant to sign them at all, they're just being selective and lately have opted to use the benefits of short-term deals more often than not. There were drawbacks to going long-term with Gorges here, I'm actually going to play devil's advocate and write a column on that since the overwhelming response has been that there were no risks in giving him one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Only in Montreal could a stay at home defenseman signing a one year deal be a controversy or a major discussion point.

I like Gorges, but I liked Mike Lalor too. I liked Kevin Haller. I liked Lyle Odelein.

Next subject.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It was a no win situation for Guthier, sign long term, have the 'he has had knee surgery' crew come out bemoaning another long contract to a injury returnee, 1 year deal and the 'we never sign RFA longterm' crew comes out and voices their displeasure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It was a no win situation for Guthier, sign long term, have the 'he has had knee surgery' crew come out bemoaning another long contract to a injury returnee, 1 year deal and the 'we never sign RFA longterm' crew comes out and voices their displeasure.

Actually, Gorges is the beneficiary of the millstone contract still on the books.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Only in Montreal could a stay at home defenseman signing a one year deal be a controversy or a major discussion point.

Really?

It's been 3 days and it seems most people have moved on. There were 16 posts here between the announcement and your post, and no one seems outraged or even particularly interested.

Hell, most of the posts appear to be on the debate of long term contracts.

Where is the controversy or the major discussion? Another forum?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not sure what ya mean here.

You have a glaring example of what happens if you don't get it right. On the top of that you can argue that you don't have the flexibity remaining, therefore a one year contract is all you can risk.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This summer, Josh Gorges trained with Shea Weber, Luke Schenn, Dany Heatley et Scott Hannan. Can't really hurt...

Maybe Shea Weber can give him shooting tips :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Really?

It's been 3 days and it seems most people have moved on. There were 16 posts here between the announcement and your post, and no one seems outraged or even particularly interested.

Hell, most of the posts appear to be on the debate of long term contracts.

Where is the controversy or the major discussion? Another forum?

Media. Check the Gazette, Barpu (or whatever his name is), Engels, etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Media. Check the Gazette, Barpu (or whatever his name is), Engels, etc.

Them and most fans as well though not here were up in arms, our posters are a lot more rational. The Gorges article I threw together on the main page was solely due to all the negativity surrounding the fact it was a one year deal, I felt obliged to try and show the other side of the story.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Media. Check the Gazette, Barpu (or whatever his name is), Engels, etc.

Basu has written three articles on Gorges over the last week. The post wasn't directed at this board, but the fact that people are discussing

a 4-6th defenseman at all and why we needed to get him signed for more than one year.

Who cares. This team played great without Gorges and Markov and took the Stanley Cup Champions to Game 7 OT.

I understand the value of individuals, but there aren't many players who aren't replaceable and Gorges is a good player, great character, but totally replaceable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Basu has written three articles on Gorges over the last week. The post wasn't directed at this board, but the fact that people are discussing

a 4-6th defenseman at all and why we needed to get him signed for more than one year.

Who cares. This team played great without Gorges and Markov and took the Stanley Cup Champions to Game 7 OT.

I understand the value of individuals, but there aren't many players who aren't replaceable and Gorges is a good player, great character, but totally replaceable.

I don't disagaree that Gorges is replaceable given his skill level.

However, I do have the following issues with the habs constantly signing their RFA's to 1 year deals - particularly before their UFA year.

1) Bad asset management. Streit walked (reportedly was willing to sign for $2.5M as late as November in his UFA year), Souray walked (should have been moved when he was having his career year) and now there is potential that Gorges will walk for nothing (as well as AK46).

2) Replacing departures by giving up draft picks. To compound the loss of an asset for nothing, they end up giving up draft picks to replace their lack of depth. In the past couple of years we have given up a 2nd rounder for Wiz (worth it) and Schneider (total waste of a pick). I think they also included a pick in the deal that brought Sopel over from Atlanta.

3) you end up paying a lot more for the player by signing them when they become a UFA. After Pleks horrible year, I was one of the few on this site that said the habs should sign him long-term and repeated that when he got off to his hot start in 2009-2010. Most on this site wanted to move the "little girl". If you are going to get good value for a player who has shown to have a good work ethic and high skill - you sign him long-term when his value is low.

There have been a lot of people criticizing the Flyers for the long-term deals they sign their players to. However, at least they didn't let Jeff Carter or Mike Richards walk as UFA's and did very well by not only getting very high picks for them, they also picked up stud prospects. When I suggested a few years ago, why not just sign your assets long term and you can always trade them later, one of the responses was that you can't sign and trade players, because players will not want to play for the habs in the future. The Flyers have been doing this for years without any issues attracting players - they signed Roenick and then moved him shortly thereafter to LA get Forsburg, this was despite Roenick having a NTC. They also moved Gagne and his NTC to Tampa, as well as a couple of other players that they signed as UFA's or to contract extentions. Recently Richards and Carter were signed to so-called immovable contracts and I think Holgrom hit a home run (particularly with the Richards move) and got a much better return then they probably would have had they moved Richards or Carter with only a year remaining on their deals.

The habs have a habit of letting assets walk with no return. They keep signing their own assets on one year deals and then overpay UFA's both in dollars (which i guess is part of the cost of doing business in a tax black hole that is Quebec), as well is in term - almost every UFA they signed, they offered one or two extra years then the player was getting elsewhere. Yet they aren't willing to pay for their home developed talent (so far Markov and Pleks have been the exceptions). This summer, I hated letting Pouliot go - particularly now when we do have $5M in cap space. Its even worse that he went to Boston. I can't tell you how pissed I'll be if he finally breaks out in Boston!!! Not only did they get nothing for Lats, they may have provided Boston another young offensive player.

The other issue I do have with not signing a guy like Gorges long-term s that he is a heart and soul character guy. Good teams have guys like Gorges around for a long time. Detroit had Draper and Maltby around foreover. They are as necessary to the success of a team as a Price or Subban are. What were Gainey, Risebrough, Houle, Tremblay when theywere in Montreal. 3rd & 4th liners. But they were essential cogs to the Habs 70's machine. You need to have a consistency with guys that are character/leadership/role players. Gorges is one of those guys and I see Ryan White becoming one of those guys that I hope are around for another 5-7 years. Can their skill set be replaced? Definitely. Can their character and the intangibles that they bring be replaced? That is harder to answer. Draper and Maltby were guys that Detroit could easily have replaced much more cheaply over the years, but would their replacements have brought the same intangibles that are so necessary for team chemistry for a franchise to succeed?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't disagaree that Gorges is replaceable given his skill level.

However, I do have the following issues with the habs constantly signing their RFA's to 1 year deals - particularly before their UFA year.

1) Bad asset management. Streit walked, Souray walked and now there is potential that Gorges will walk for nothing.

2) Replacing departures by giving up draft picks. To compound the loss of an asset for nothing, they end up giving up draft picks to replace their lack of depth. In the past couple of years we have given up a 2nd rounder for Wiz (worth it) and Schneider (total waste of a pick). I think they also included a pick in the deal that brought Sopel over from Atlanta.

3) you end up paying a lot more for the player by signing them when they become a UFA. After Pleks horrible year, I was one of the few on this site that said the habs should sign him long-term and repeated that when he got off to his hot start in 2009-2010. Most on this site wanted to move the "little girl". If you are going to get good value for a player who has shown to have a good work ethic and high skill - you sign him long-term when his value is low.

There have been a lot of people criticizing the Flyers for the long-term deals they sign their players to. However, at least they didn't let Jeff Carter or Mike Richards walk as UFA's and did very well by not only getting very high picks for them, they also picked up stud prospects. When I suggested a few years ago, why not just sign your assets long term and you can always trade them later, one of the responses was that you can't sign and trade players, because players will not want to play for the habs in the future. The Flyers have been doing this for years without any issues attracting players - they signed Roenick and then moved him shortly thereafter to LA get Forsburg, this was despite Roenick having a NTC. They also moved Gagne and his NTC to Tampa, as well as a couple of other players that they signed as UFA's or to contract extentions. Recently Richards and Carter were signed to so-called immovable contracts and I think Holgrom hit a home run (particularly with the Richards move) and got a much better return then they probably would have had they moved Richards or Carter with only a year remaining on their deals.

The habs have a habit of letting assets walk with no return. They keep signing their own assets on one year deals and then overpay UFA's both in dollars (which i guess is part of the cost of doing business in a tax black hole that is Quebec), as well is in term - almost every UFA they signed, they offered one or two extra years then the player was getting elsewhere. Yet they aren't willing to pay for their home developed talent (so far Markov and Pleks have been the exceptions). This summer, I hated letting Pouliot go - particularly now when we do have $5M in cap space. Its even worse that he went to Boston. I can't tell you how pissed I'll be if he finally breaks out in Boston!!! Not only did they get nothing for Lats, they may have provided Boston another young offensive player.

The other issue I do have with not signing a guy like Gorges long-term s that he is a heart and soul character guy. Good teams have guys like Gorges around for a long time. Detroit had Draper and Maltby around foreover. They are as necessary to the success of a team as a Price or Subban are. What were Bob Gainey, Risebrough, Houle, Tremblay when the were in Montreal. A 3rd & 4th liners. But they were essential cogs to the Habs 70's machine. You need to have a consistency with guys that are character/leadership/role players. Gorges is one of those guys and I see Ryan White becoming one of those guys that I hope are around for another 5-7 years. Can their skill set be replaced? Definitely. Can their character and the intangibles that they bring be replaced? That is harder to answer. Draper and Maltby were guys that Detroit could easily have replaced much more cheaply over the years, but would their replacements have brought the same intangibles that are so necessary for team chemistry for a franchise to succeed?

Just when I thought we would succumb to the summer doldrums with nothing to talk about! Bravo Habs29Retired

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Habs29 makes a good case, but he overstates it. You can certainly trade guys, but it gets very difficult if they are signed to bloated contracts. Imagine if we'd locked Higgins in long-term at $4.5 mil, or Komisarek at the rate Toronto did. These are very different cases than Carter and Richards; and the idea that RFAs are going to lock themselves in at cut-rate prices is just implausible. If you're a Higgins, projecting yourself as a 40/40 man, you're going to expect a contract that at least roughly reflects that projection. I may be missing something, but I haven't read anywhere that Gorges was willing to sign a long-term deal for super cheap. Presumably he wanted what he felt was roughly full value over the term of the contract. In this case, the financial gains to the club of locking him up are not gigantic, so they might as well keep him on the cheap for one more season. The only risk is that you lose his loyalty. But he keeps saying over and over that he wants to stay here. So Gauthier may have gambled wisely that Gorges will not decamp as a UFA if we make him a fair offer.

The real analogy with Carter/Richards on our team is not Gorges, but rather Subban/Price. If Gauthier declines to lock those guys up, then Habs29's argument will be fully vindicated. (And note, in this vein, that the two guys from the Gainey era that we have locked up - Pleks and Markov - were by far the best players from that decade. Excepting Streit, a massive error by any measure, and Ribeiro, who was traded rather than let go as a UFA, you can argue that the Habs actually did a rather good job of identifying the keepers and letting the schmucks walk).

Also, Gauthier apparently had some real concerns about Gorges's knee. Surely that is a legitimate issue. If he had locked up Gorges to a six-year deal at (say) $3.8 mil only to have damaged goods, the howls around here would never cease - and rightly so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Habs29 makes a good case, but he overstates it. You can certainly trade guys, but it gets very difficult if they are signed to bloated contracts. Imagine if we'd locked Higgins in long-term at $4.5 mil, or Komisarek at the rate Toronto did. These are very different cases than Carter and Richards; and the idea that RFAs are going to lock themselves in at cut-rate prices is just implausible. If you're a Higgins, projecting yourself as a 40/40 man, you're going to expect a contract that at least roughly reflects that projection. I may be missing something, but I haven't read anywhere that Gorges was willing to sign a long-term deal for super cheap. Presumably he wanted what he felt was roughly full value over the term of the contract. In this case, the financial gains to the club of locking him up are not gigantic, so they might as well keep him on the cheap for one more season. The only risk is that you lose his loyalty. But he keeps saying over and over that he wants to stay here. So Gauthier may have gambled wisely that Gorges will not decamp as a UFA if we make him a fair offer.

The real analogy with Carter/Richards on our team is not Gorges, but rather Subban/Price. If Gauthier declines to lock those guys up, then Habs29's argument will be fully vindicated. (And note, in this vein, that the two guys from the Gainey era that we have locked up - Pleks and Markov - were by far the best players from that decade. Excepting Streit, a massive error by any measure, and Ribeiro, who was traded rather than let go as a UFA, you can argue that the Habs actually did a rather good job of identifying the keepers and letting the schmucks walk).

Also, Gauthier apparently had some real concerns about Gorges's knee. Surely that is a legitimate issue. If he had locked up Gorges to a six-year deal at (say) $3.8 mil only to have damaged goods, the howls around here would never cease - and rightly so.

RFA's are not going to lock themselves up at cut rate prices, but for longer term deals, they are willing to take significantly less money then they could get on the open market. Carter could have become a UFA had he not signed long term with Philly at what I would call a cut rate salary of around $5.5M (don't know the exact number), but he could have easily gotten $7M+ if he waited to become a UFA. Richards and Carter both took significantly less to resign long-term with the flyers then they could have gotten on the open market. If Gorges wants $3.8M long term, the habs should trade him as soon as he displays he is healthy. I think the habs had some leverage and if Gorges was willing to sign for under $3M for a longer term deal commitment from the habs (5-6 year), I would have resigned him. Wiz had what 3 knee operations and that hasn't effected him. Gorges is a defensive Dman it should be even less of an issue.

If you look at the number of assets we got little to know return over the last 5 years it is absolutely ridiculous - Ribeiro (hated him from day one, but the return was horrible), SK74 (was mis-handled from day one and hated to lose him), Ryder (Didn't like him and he should have been moved, - particularly in his last year, when Carbo wasn't even playing him anyways, but I would have moved him ealrlier, when he insisted on 1 year deals), Souray (should have been moved when he was putting up career numbers, he wasn't anything more then a pylon with a hard shot), Lats (I liked Pouliot as a pick-up, but Lats had better numbers up to that point), Pouliot (I think this is a guy the habs really are going to regret letting go - particularly after he signed with our biggest rival), Streit (that was a major blunder, should have been resigned), Higgins (I'd take his salary over Gomer any day of the week - I don't think it would have taken much to resign him long-term, when it become apparent he wasn't going to be a 40-40 guy - I'd take him back today as a 3rd line player and also suggested him as an option last year, before the Canucks picked him up for nothing), Lapierre (I hated him - if he was black like Subban, he would have attracted a lot more criticism then he already does - only it would be warranted in Laps case, but the return we got was just plain stupid - he should have been moved after our run to the Semis in 2009-2010), Hainsey (stupid calling up a guy you knew would be claimed). As far as Komi goes, there was NO way I'd been willing to pay him the $4.5M he got, but I think he could have been signed earlier for under $3.5M for a long-term deal and even today, that contract could have been moved.

Given the stupid contracts given out to UFA's this summer, I think gorges and AK46 are goners next year, but could have been signed much more affordably prior to July 1 this year. I also think you are wrong about how hard it is to move a bad contract. THe fact that Florida took Campbell's $7M contract proves that and the fact that both Richard and Carter long-term contracts were moved dispells the myth that long-term contracts are immovable. You also have to keep in mind that Gainey was willing to take on Vinny's stupid 11 or 12 year deal, in which we reportedly would have given up Pleks, Subban and Price.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.




×
×
  • Create New...