Guys that bet on themselves and it backfired

[The Shadow]

I saw this recently and thought how bad of a money decision it was for Thomas Vanek to turn down the reported $50 million offered by the Islanders

On 4 February 2014, Vanek confirmed that he had turned down a contract extension offer from the Islanders. The contract was reportedly for seven years and $50 million, with Vanek stating that the Islanders move to Barclays Center was one of his primary reasons for leaving the team.

I know there are the common ones we hear about like Klinberg but what other ones come to mind? Guys that turned down huge offers only to make a fraction of that money back elsewhere

 

[NVious]

Me, I thought I'd do something with my life, instead I'm jestermaxxing on a Mongolian underwater basket weaving forum. I should've bet on someone else.

 

[Killakirillthethrill]

Kovalchuk left a ton of money to go to the KHL, he make bank there too, but point of the matter guy left the NHL with at the time the biggest contract in NHL history.

 

[Vikingstad]

Pretty sure lebanc had something like this happen where he took a 1 year super cheap deal instead of cashing in.

 

[BertCorbeau]

Klingberg

Man did he ever throw away security

 

[Victoire HuGo]

Zadina is the answer to this thread

 

[Brodeur]

Pretty sure lebanc had something like this happen where he took a 1 year super cheap deal instead of cashing in.

Labanc signs four-year, $18.9M deal with Sharks

Kevin Labanc signed a four-year deal with the San Jose Sharks worth $18.9 million on Saturday, an offseason after taking a team-friendly contract to help the Sharks' salary cap.

www.espn.com

Labanc still cashed in. Seemed like a handshake deal, take a team friendly 1 year deal to skirt the salary cap and then the extension later despite a down season. So instead of a 5 year, 19.9 mil deal, he got a 1 year for 1 mil deal followed by 4 years for 18.9 million.

 

[Washed Up 29YearOld]

Taylor hall bet on a 1 year deal with the Sabres to earn a bigger contract and plummeted his value that year when he could’ve just signed a huge contract somewhere else

 

[HTFN]

Klingberg

Man did he ever throw away security

First thing to come to mind, man will never see an offer like that again and lost a huge bag just to quickly become spare parts.

 

[HeussLenfoire]

Victor Oladipo and Dennis Schroeder, definitely. Not NHL-related, but man, the numbers are insane

 

[Sasha Orlov]

Me, I thought I'd do something with my life, instead I'm jestermaxxing on a Mongolian underwater basket weaving forum. I should've bet on someone else.

Bro is extremely self aware

 

[Brodeur]

Taylor hall bet on a 1 year deal with the Sabres to earn a bigger contract and plummeted his value that year when he could’ve just signed a huge contract somewhere else

Unfortunately for Hall he became UFA into the pandemic season. I thought the reason he signed the 1 year deal was that nobody had the cap space to offer him a big contract due to the flat cap.

If you believe the Devils, they never got to the point of making a formal offer to keep Hall who seemed like he had one foot out the door in 2019. Arizona offered him a somewhat tepid extension that Hall turned down.

 

[Peat]

Small fry version, but Riley Sheahan turned down 2.1m x 3 from the Pens for a one year deal at that number, only to never sign more than a 1m deal again.

 

[BLNY]

Klingberg

 

[Warden of the North]

Cody Franson and Toronto. Turned down like 20 millionish or something like that and never got anywhere close to it.

 

[FMichael]

Zadina is the answer to this thread

Looking back…As a Wings fan…What did Holland/scouts see in Zadina while playing miles away in the QMJHL that they didn’t see in Hughes 40 miles away in Ann Arbor?

 

[Mr Nogatco]

Taylor Hall

By all accounts couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy

 

[Mr Nogatco]

Labanc signs four-year, $18.9M deal with Sharks

Kevin Labanc signed a four-year deal with the San Jose Sharks worth $18.9 million on Saturday, an offseason after taking a team-friendly contract to help the Sharks' salary cap.

www.espn.com

Labanc still cashed in. Seemed like a handshake deal, take a team friendly 1 year deal to skirt the salary cap and then the extension later despite a down season. So instead of a 5 year, 19.9 mil deal, he got a 1 year for 1 mil deal followed by 4 years for 18.9 million.

Seems shady, surprised the NHL didn’t look into that.

Or at least warn other teams not to try something similar, a la their message to the rest of the league after the Caps/Avs/Orpik situation

 

[Washed Up 29YearOld]

Unfortunately for Hall he became UFA into the pandemic season. I thought the reason he signed the 1 year deal was that nobody had the cap space to offer him a big contract due to the flat cap.

If you believe the Devils, they never got to the point of making a formal offer to keep Hall who seemed like he had one foot out the door in 2019. Arizona offered him a somewhat tepid extension that Hall turned down.

oh yeah forgot it was a covid season. still that sucks for him he never really got big $$$ he would've otherwise had in normal circumstances.

 

[Brodeur]

Seems shady, surprised the NHL didn’t look into that.

Or at least warn other teams not to try something similar, a la their message to the rest of the league after the Caps/Avs/Orpik situation

Definitely was calculated, but it kinda backfired on San Jose. The eventual Labanc extension into the pandemic flat cap definitely didn't help their situation.

And then on Labanc's side, he risked if there had been a management change and the new GM didn't honor the previous GM's handshake deal. Not the same situation but I heard that Lou was willing to give Scott Gomez an extension back in 2015 but then the Devils hired Ray Shero who wasn't interested in keeping Gomez.

I do recall one beer league buddy who was completely perplexed how Labanc got that extension after a 33 point season. I also still chuckle that more than a couple fans on the Devils board were fully behind giving Labanc an offer sheet in the summer of 2019 that would've yielded a 1st round pick.

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

Gotta be Pete Rose.

 

[Brodeur]

Looking back…As a Wings fan…What did Holland/scouts see in Zadina while playing miles away in the QMJHL that they didn’t see in Hughes 40 miles away in Ann Arbor?

In their defense, most of the public rankings had Zadina over Hughes going into the draft. Sounded like the Wings had Evan Bouchard over Hughes as well.

Kotkaniemi surges into top five of TSN Draft Ranking - TSN.ca

Finn’s strong performance at the World Under-18 Championships in April has some scouts believing he’s a potential future No. 1 centre, Bob McKenzie writes. His late push could make the top 10 of the draft more unpredictable than originally anticipated.

www.tsn.ca

From Bob McKenzie's final survey:

For example, while Zadina is still very much a consensus top-five pick, relative to the other prospects, five of 10 scouts surveyed by TSN ranked him outside their top five. Five scouts had him in the top five, including three of them at No. 3, but he had three 6’s, a 7 and a 9 as well. That’s a far cry from the mid-season polling, when all of Zadina’s marks came in between 2 and 4.

8. Quinn Hughes. The University of Michigan American freshman defenceman has a wow factor to his game. He is the first of a plethora of smart, skilled and dynamic sub-6 foot offensive blueliners in this draft. He plays a go-go-go offensive game, at times more like a rover than a defenceman. He’s fearless, not afraid to make high-risk, high-reward but also high-danger plays. Critics would say he’s not defensively sound or aware; boosters would say he doesn’t need to play much D because the puck is always on his stick. Also a late 1999 birthdate, Hughes played well for Team USA at the senior men’s World Championship

On the flip side, we often make fun of the Canadian teams who choose a bust who happened to be playing nearby. 1995 was the first draft I watched and Toronto picked a local product in Jeff Ware at #15 instead of seemingly consensus top 10 pick Petr Sykora who fell to the Devils at #18.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

Unfortunately for Hall he became UFA into the pandemic season. I thought the reason he signed the 1 year deal was that nobody had the cap space to offer him a big contract due to the flat cap.

If you believe the Devils, they never got to the point of making a formal offer to keep Hall who seemed like he had one foot out the door in 2019. Arizona offered him a somewhat tepid extension that Hall turned down.

Ya, he was a self-destructive turd until Buffalo gifted him 6.5 mil to act like an elitist prick with Jack (and somehow Bogosian) until they all f***ed off to elsewhere. He fired his agent, and I will kinda buy that his agent was blowing smoke up his ass regarding value. Can’t really tell the guy “but you’re a prick, so no one will commit.”

And the LeBanc one is funny, because I called it as soon as it happened. Sharks were cap crunched, favor to the team, and he was actually improving up until that 1 year deal. Then he cratered, glad he got paid all the same.

For an off the board pick- Tim Kennedy, Sabres. Got offered league minimum or close to it, took the Sabres to arbitration, and got awarded 200k more as a result. Sabres then just didn’t sign him, he went to the rags for a bit, then overseas. Not a perfect fit, but I find it funny, and actually liked Kennedy- but one move tanked his only real shot at the NHL.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

In their defense, most of the public rankings had Zadina over Hughes going into the draft. Sounded like the Wings had Evan Bouchard over Hughes as well.

Kotkaniemi surges into top five of TSN Draft Ranking - TSN.ca

Finn’s strong performance at the World Under-18 Championships in April has some scouts believing he’s a potential future No. 1 centre, Bob McKenzie writes. His late push could make the top 10 of the draft more unpredictable than originally anticipated.

www.tsn.ca

From Bob McKenzie's final survey:





On the flip side, we often make fun of the Canadian teams who choose a bust who happened to be playing nearby. 1995 was the first draft I watched and Toronto picked a local product in Jeff Ware at #15 instead of seemingly consensus top 10 pick Petr Sykora who fell to the Devils at #18.

As someone who doesn’t follow prospects I’ve always been baffled by how anyone thought Zadina had a good shot. It’s one of the most unremarkable parts of his game.

And it’s not just that he couldn’t get a shot off at NHL game speeds. Even when he had all the time in the world the shot was usually poorly placed and nothing special.

 

[Giant Panda]

Edit: removed information I was wrong about.