Burns was absolutely worth it in the first 4 years of the deal and absolutely not worth it in the last 4 years of the deal, which was the prevailing thought the day it was signed
This isn't revisionist history, it was pretty obvious when we signed a 32 year old to an 8 year contract that the back half would get ugly and those concerns bore out
I was just saying that between him, Vlasic, Couture and Karlsson his was the only one that WASN'T an overpay on day one, but it still had the problems I've been pointing to in this thread with the big contract after a bridge where you're paying premium dollars at the end when the player is already in decline due to age
yes. These kind of deals are the only way to keep 30+ year olds, just like the Draisaitl deal.
The key to not getting destroyed by these kind of deals is simple:
1. The cap keeps rising. The biggest mistake people make is judging year 6 by the price in year one. an AAV of 14M in year one is really only the equivalent of 9M in year 5, and 7m in year 8 if the cap keeps rising 3M per year. In short, it means by year 8, the team have over 20M more in cap space and that 14M deal is not nearly the albatross...
2. slow aging. If you sign the deal at 32, and by 34 the guy is completely useless, then it bites. However, if you get 4 good years and 4 weak years, its not that bad.
Older guys should be the drains on your cap, but they also add vet presence, leadership, and experience, something that may not show up in stats, but does in wins. It shows the younger guys how to work hard, how to win, how to be professional. So I don't mind these kind of deals.
For those deals I mentioned, the sharks got very unlucky. The cap didnt rise due to the COVID. Cooch got this weird disease. EK65 got hurt. A bunch of things went wrong for them. At the time of signings (2017-19), the sharks were among the best teams in the league, and the signings were known to be risky in the latter halves, but still have good value through around 2022, long eough to continue to cycle in younger guys...
DW knew that burns,cooch, and pickles would be bad deals around now, but look at the future of the team in 2019:
meier 21, Hertl 24, Lebanc 22, Donskoi 26, Sorensen 26, kane 27, Dillon 27, Goodrow 25, Jones 28, Cooch 29, karlsson 28. Burns was 32, pickles 31.
This was a winning core that had just come within 2 wins of another SCF appearance without marleau and with a nearly finished jumbo. It was transition time to these guys to carry the mantle and it sure looked like they would. In that context, if DW does NOT resign cooch, burns, and pickles, he is gutting the core, losing all vet leadership, and such a move would be strange. And, to keep those guys, especially at reasonable cap hits, required giving term as none would have stayed for a 2 or 3 year deal.
In hindsight, the next year the sharks stunk, covid hit, and all went down the toilet, but how anyone could see that coming after a season inches from the stanley cup final after the most dramatic and exciting playoff series win in decades is beyond me. This is why I don't buy the argument that they were bad deals AT THE TIME. The young core was very much still in place and entering its prime: hertl, meier, lebanc, kane, couture, donskoi.... these were very good players all in their 20s., so it made absolutely ZERO sense to tear the whole thing down by not keeping your leading scorer [burns] and your top line C [cooch] as well as your best shutdown Dman [pickles].
To tear it down and purposely stink in that context is ridiculous.