I have a pretty long history in the business world and just because you want to compare two things that have nothing to do with one another doesn’t mean the other side will listen. I understand how comps work and its been part of my daily job for over 20 years.
Once again if you want to believe your feelings matter in negotiations, the go right ahead. Im not that naive.
Feelings and business have about as much comp value as comparing 25 year old RFA goalies with 3 years of experience who you control if they play or not over the next two years to 29 year old forwards with 11 years experience that you have to bid against other teams to obtain.
One of these things is not like the others
Ok you feel all that matters are goalie comparables. If that is the case, why is it taking this long? Riddle me this, considering your many years in business. How many man-hours does it take to run through all the goalie comparables in this situation? Because last time I checked, there aren't exactly thousands of comparables out there to battle over. Every comparable notable was brought up here on a daily basis.
From a team perspective, yup, feelings don't matter as long as you are fine with all possible outcomes. If the Bruins are fine with this not working out and trading him elsewhere, than make it all about business.
For professional athletes, many with thin skin and fragile egos, yeah, it does matter. We don't see it as often in pro hockey, but we've seen many a pro athlete and team relationship go sideways because the athlete simply felt his value wasn't being respected by the team. Based off his own comments, Swayman comes across like an athlete with a bit of a thin skin. Just my opinion. This is a negotiation, it's also an exercise in managing people and egos. You can say it's just business, that's fine, but hard feelings can linger, we are seeing it now. Part of the issue started last summer with the arbitration.
It's of calling it a comp, let's call the Lindholm deal a point of contention. The message it sends to Swayman. Because he can look up Lindholm's stats the past two seasons and say to himself "what the &^%^". "You rolled out the red carpet for this guy but me you draw a hard line in the sand"? It's not like they went out and signed Sidney Crosby here. I think he has a legit beef if the true offer was 8 x 8.