Ultimately that would have been best if it opened up a path to a player like Roy - not sure what was available.
Where were you the last 6 years? I'm not an NHL GM but some probably could have got a better deal. I haven't ever seen any real justification for 3m. We also could have taken him to arbitration, which probably would have been cheaper. We could have traded him in the offseason and used his money and Hakanpaa's money for a bigger fish. We could have not signed Hakanpaa and kept Liljegren for the season instead of now having neither and playing worse defensemen.
See, this is what I mean. There’s no way to know who’s right, but only one of us seems to think they know more than Treliving and Pridham. If arbitration would’ve been lower, why would they sign a guy they didn’t want to keep? That doesn’t make sense. And the two-year, $3 million contract with front-loaded payments may have actually increased his trade value by adding salary certainty and reducing the financial commitment for the acquiring team.
Your argument seems to be that all GMs are perfect, they all do exactly the moves that they should, there is no difference in negotiating ability, all players get paid exactly what they should, and nobody should ever question anything. It seems odd that this is coming out now, instead of the half decade where our GM was routinely blasted despite much less justification.
Liljegren would be our 5th best defenseman. If our coach wouldn't play our 5th best defenseman over worse defensemen, then we have a coaching issue too.
Me saying that your assessment that you could have signed Liljegren for less, even though you acknowledge we don't know what went down is pretty far from me saying that all GMs are perfect, no?
Again, I never said that I could have signed him for less. I said that Treliving signed him for too much, and that a different GM may have been able to get a better deal. And that there were multiple alternative pathways. I'm not sure why you find that so egregious. Most people in the signing thread felt like it was too much too, and I haven't seen any good argument. It's a short term RFA deal that walked him straight to UFA, and he hadn't yet shown beyond a bottom pairing defenseman. The only thing I can think of that could have raised his cost was the amount of minutes we were forced to play him last year, but that would also be Treliving's fault, because it was the result of him making the exact same mistake as Hakanpaa and signing a broken down player last year.
It’s clear we don’t see eye to eye on the Liljegren contract. You’re not saying that you could have done better, but that the GM didn’t maximize the deal. Fair enough, but experts I follow projected the contract between $2.9M and $3.6M, so it wasn’t exactly an overpay. The front-loaded structure might even have made him more appealing on the trade market. We also wanted him signed and not risk the timing and potential extra costs of arbitration.
Perhaps the projection you looked at was being inflated for the ice time he got last year, but a lot of people were upset, as RFA defensemen being paid that much have generally proven more than Liljegren had, and last year's ice time had more to do with Treliving's failure than Liljegren. It didn't seem like a deal we had to jump at, and again, it was barely frontloaded, and I'm not sure walking him straight to UFA made him more appealing on the trade market. My position isn't contradictory. A young RHD with team control does not need to have earned a 3m salary yet to be worth more than low picks and a cap dump. It's more contradictory for you to claim that he's worth a 3m salary while simultaneously claiming that he's a 6/7 defenseman that's only worth scraps in trade, and a good coach couldn't utilize him. It also doesn't seem to match your perception of him prior to the trade.
Arbitration would have factored in his TOI, which because of Treliving, was inflated beyond his quality, but they also would have factored in a lot more, and I think we panicked unnecessarily. My position isn't based on HFBoards (though I don't know why you were so surprised by a common opinion). This place wouldn't know proper contract valuation if it slapped them in the head. I've just seen how ridiculous some of these contract projection websites are, I've never seen an actual justification for the contract, and I just don't see how he's lived up to past RFA defensemen who have made that much, or how he's improved enough to more than double his price since his last signing a couple years ago. Perhaps that was just a case of Dubas being a good negotiator. But I'm not really sure how you're reconciling your three positions - that Liljegren is a #5 at best, that 3m is too much for a #5, and that Liljegren is worth 3m.
You’ll have to explain to me how Liljegren’s high ice time two years ago falls on Treliving. Lineup decisions are made by the coach, based on the roster provided by the GM. Treliving came into the role at a relatively inopportune time, so attributing last year’s roster (or coach) entirely to him doesn’t hold up.
Last year, not two. Treliving needed to get a top 4 defenseman in the offseason, and his solution was to make a similar mistake as Hakanpaa for a more critical hole, and sign a broken down player in decline in Klingberg. When he sucked and then predictably went back on LTIR, we were forced to boost Liljegren to minutes he hadn't earned or deserved.
His ice time seemed to factor into Treliving's signing, more than it likely would have in arbitration. I doubt he would have got 3m, and if so, we could have kept it to one year to lower the cost. Treliving's approach to sign him for 3m and walk him straight to UFA, and then trade him at a low after not playing him, at a time when teams have already established their rosters, did not seem to preserve trade value or work to the team's advantage. We ended up with some scraps, a cap dump, and a hole in our roster.
I already said. That "3m is too much for a #5", which you seem to agree with, and that "I've never seen an actual justification for the contract, and I just don't see how he's lived up to past RFA defensemen who have made that much, or how he's improved enough to more than double his price since his last signing a couple years ago."
