Confirmed with Link: Oilers sign Connor Brown to 1-year incentive laden deal ($775K caphit, potentially $3.25M in bonuses)

[TopShelfGloveSide]

Some pawns are interchangeable and don't cost 4M. Cause and effect in latest game is spelled McDavid. The game before that it was Draisaitl, before that McDavid, and so on.

Yes a team is required to win, yes a group of players rowing in concert. But some of those pieces are easily had and tend to be.

Its interested me a lot the Oilers just walked from players like Bjugstad, who they had, and in their zeal to get what they thought were better addition of Connor Brown. Realistically Bjugstad was being the topnine quality forward that people had hoped that Connor Brown would be. Bjugstad was also being very physical, strong to crease, and was playing like a bull here. He's only continued to do that.

The bird in the hand folks.

Connor brown was a way better player than Bjugstad before he got hurt.

 

[alphahelix]

Some pawns are interchangeable and don't cost 4M. Cause and effect in latest game is spelled McDavid. The game before that it was Draisaitl, before that McDavid, and so on.

Yes a team is required to win, yes a group of players rowing in concert. But some of those pieces are easily had and tend to be.

Its interested me a lot the Oilers just walked from players like Bjugstad, who they had, and in their zeal to get what they thought were better addition of Connor Brown. Realistically Bjugstad was being the topnine quality forward that people had hoped that Connor Brown would be. Bjugstad was also being very physical, strong to crease, and was playing like a bull here. He's only continued to do that.

The bird in the hand folks.

Bjugstad on an off night is still an effective RHC. Definitely would have tried to keep him. Lots of people here hated him for being played top 6 RW and only Scoring around the same as Hyman and Nuge at ES. Not exactly supposed to be his role but hey he Was just as good at it as guys getting paid 20x more, literally.

 

[alphahelix]

Connor brown was a way better player than Bjugstad before he got hurt.

Bjugstad had more goals (both for his season high and total #), more points (both in his season high and career total) more PIMs was much bigger and stronger and was a strong RH faceoff option, we paid him like 300k last year for his services and Brown ripped us a new one. Bjugstad healthier, had more success on more teams, is in the process of having a better year right now for the lowly Yotes than Brown has had for any team.

But yeah, sure… Browns a hero worth 4M +, yay Brown

 

[TopShelfGloveSide]

Bjugstad had more goals (both for his season high and total #), more points (both in his season high and career total) more PIMs was much bigger and stronger and was a strong RH faceoff option, we paid him like 300k last year for his services and Brown ripped us a new one. Bjugstad healthier, had more success on more teams, is in the process of having a better year right now for the lowly Yotes than Brown has had for any team.

But yeah, sure… Browns a hero worth 4M +, yay Brown

Lol ok. Never said anything about him being worth 4 mill or being a better goal scorer.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Connor brown was a way better player than Bjugstad before he got hurt.

Thats possible. But statistically not much separates them. I don't one can say way better.

But we weren't' getting the before injury Brown anyway.

Total career Bjugstad has scored more goals/game and Brown with more assists per game. Thats regular season. Pts somewhat similar.

Bjugstad has been much more prolific with 7G in 27 playoff games. Brown 1G in 20 games. Limited sample I realize. But the sense I have is big Bjugstad is tougher to play against in playoffs and he was here too. We'll see what Brown is like in postseason. Hopefully better.

Bjugstad had more goals (both for his season high and total #), more points (both in his season high and career total) more PIMs was much bigger and stronger and was a strong RH faceoff option, we paid him like 300k last year for his services and Brown ripped us a new one. Bjugstad healthier, had more success on more teams, is in the process of having a better year right now for the lowly Yotes than Brown has had for any team.

But yeah, sure… Browns a hero worth 4M +, yay Brown

When one combines regular season and playoff goals Bjugstad is even more pronounced edge in scoring. The reality always was that Brown had only scored 90 goals his entire career despite being with talent on different teams. Like I'd said much earlier in thread over last number of seasons Brown has the same identical points as Alex Chiasson. That should have been sobering considering given that Chiasson was a forced peg topsix player here on a lot of nights, not somebody that arguably should've been there.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Bjugstad on an off night is still an effective RHC. Definitely would have tried to keep him. Lots of people here hated him for being played top 6 RW and only Scoring around the same as Hyman and Nuge at ES. Not exactly supposed to be his role but hey he Was just as good at it as guys getting paid 20x more, literally.

In in offseason it was an interesting look around here as people yawned at not being able to pay Bjugstad, who was proven, here, and yet salivating about paying Brown the bucks.

Bjugstad impressed me here during his tenure here. AT TDL Ekholm was the Sexy addition, but Bjugstad was very helpful here.

 

[Fourier]

Bjugstad on an off night is still an effective RHC. Definitely would have tried to keep him. Lots of people here hated him for being played top 6 RW and only Scoring around the same as Hyman and Nuge at ES. Not exactly supposed to be his role but hey he Was just as good at it as guys getting paid 20x more, literally.

I actually think a lot of people would have been happy keeping Bjugstad and that Bjugstad would have been open to staying. But he got $2.1M for two years in Arizona which is a no tax state. This kind of surprised me since he talked about wanting a chance to win so I thought he might end up signing in the $1.5M range on a better team. But in the end money and or lifestyle looks to have won out.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I actually think a lot of people would have been happy keeping Bjugstad and that Bjugstad would have been open to staying. But he got $2.1M for two years in Arizona which is a no tax state. This kind of surprised me since he talked about wanting a chance to win so I thought he might end up signing in the $1.5M range on a better team. But in the end money and or lifestyle looks to have won out.

Odd as well for a Minnesota boy that wouldn't be unfamiliar with winter.

I think Bjugstad would do well under KK as well but alas.

Holland at the time though was positing that there was no money to retain the players. It seemed likely Holland was only going to be continuing with the league minimum contracts.

Another facet is that Bjugstad would have a bigger role in Arizona on the Yotes, than here. That can be attractive to a veteran and he's very familiar there.

 

[Fourier]

Odd as well for a Minnesota boy that wouldn't be unfamiliar with winter.

I think Bjugstad would do well under KK as well but alas.

Holland at the time though was positing that there was no money to retain the players. It seemed likely Holland was only going to be continuing with the league minimum contracts.

Another facet is that Bjugstad would have a bigger role in Arizona on the Yotes, than here. That can be attractive to a veteran and he's very familiar there.

Part of the problem was the uncertainty with McLeod and Bouchard. If McLeod had gone forward with his arbitration he could have been looking at even more. That not only made it a challenge to sign other players but it also made trading him a challenge if they wanted to move on. Once he was signed it now seems clear that Bouchard was getting all the leftover beans.

 

[AM]

Some pawns are interchangeable and don't cost 4M. Cause and effect in latest game is spelled McDavid. The game before that it was Draisaitl, before that McDavid, and so on.

Yes a team is required to win, yes a group of players rowing in concert. But some of those pieces are easily had and tend to be.

Its interested me a lot the Oilers just walked from players like Bjugstad, who they had, and in their zeal to get what they thought were better addition of Connor Brown. Realistically Bjugstad was being the topnine quality forward that people had hoped that Connor Brown would be. Bjugstad was also being very physical, strong to crease, and was playing like a bull here. He's only continued to do that.

Man I hate phones....

We have already paid the bonus. A replacement would be in the $750k range.

And yes, I dont care about crystal ball comments.

I care about playing the right way leading to winning and they are doing that.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

His play is helping the team win. Why wouldn’t we play him. And yes winners are made by players having a role and executing it.

He's actually actively been helping the team lose with his team low plus minus. He has horrific even strength defensive zone coverage that tends to lead to every single line he's on getting hemmed in, to the point where he can make McDavid and Draisaitl produce like 3rd liners in their 5v5 minutes with Brown. And in the rare instance the Connor Brown line isn't being hemmed in, he usually kills the play in the offensive zone. He makes Vincent Desharnais look like Wayne Gretzky.

 

[AM]

So, don’t like Vinny either huh? I’m more worried about Kane than brown.

 

[Fishy McScales]

Bjugstad on an off night is still an effective RHC. Definitely would have tried to keep him. Lots of people here hated him for being played top 6 RW and only Scoring around the same as Hyman and Nuge at ES. Not exactly supposed to be his role but hey he Was just as good at it as guys getting paid 20x more, literally.

I think they definitely tried to keep him but alas he priced himself away.

Would you have liked a contract structured like Brown's, though, even with a smaller bonus?

 

[alphahelix]

Connor Brown on the drop ep 22 , 13 minute mark said:

"It was a difficult process, I wasn't sure how it was going to transpire as far as what kind of term and what kind of situation I was going to get into... When it became obvious that it was gonna be a short term deal, then I wanted to be in the best possible place that I could be and with the best team, and this is what I viewed as that"

So in other words, longer term deals ultimately were not on the table for Connor Brown. Just wanted to key in on that, being that idiots like Seravalli did go on the record saying there *might* be as much as 12M dollars, 3+ year terms, that kind of crap that even the dumbest GM's wouldn't have done. He didn't choose EDM over a long-term deal and leave millions and millions on the table as some have suggested, the long=term deals ultimately either didn't materialize or were retracted and then EDM was the best fit among short term deals (and possibly the highest $ too for all we know).

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

So, don’t like Vinny either huh? I’m more worried about Kane than brown.

Ah yes, the player who's on pace for 35 goals and 60 points and leads the team in hits is who we should be worried about, not the player who's on pace to be less productive than Tobias Reider while being dead last on the team in hits per game. As for Vinny, I have mixed feelings about him but I can tell you I like him significantly more than Connor Brown.

 

[fuswald]

After scoring precisely 0 goals throughout the rest of the season and throughout the postseason: Game 7, SCF, Overtime...

Connor Brown.

And somehow it will be disallowed

 

[AM]

Ah yes, the player who's on pace for 35 goals and 60 points and leads the team in hits is who we should be worried about, not the player who's on pace to be less productive than Tobias Reider while being dead last on the team in hits per game. As for Vinny, I have mixed feelings about him but I can tell you I like him significantly more than Connor Brown.

I didn’t say you should be worried. Still and all he doesn’t look to happy. Seems to me that if the sport was just about adding up points he would be though.

 

[Fourier]

Connor Brown on the drop ep 22 , 13 minute mark said:

"It was a difficult process, I wasn't sure how it was going to transpire as far as what kind of term and what kind of situation I was going to get into... When it became obvious that it was gonna be a short term deal, then I wanted to be in the best possible place that I could be and with the best team, and this is what I viewed as that"

So in other words, longer term deals ultimately were not on the table for Connor Brown. Just wanted to key in on that, being that idiots like Seravalli did go on the record saying there *might* be as much as 12M dollars, 3+ year terms, that kind of crap that even the dumbest GM's wouldn't have done. He didn't choose EDM over a long-term deal and leave millions and millions on the table as some have suggested, the long=term deals ultimately either didn't materialize or were retracted and then EDM was the best fit among short term deals (and possibly the highest $ too for all we know).

It seems the ``credible'' reports were indeed not accurate. I am glad that yoyu posted this to set the record straight.

 

[alphahelix]

It seems the ``credible'' reports were indeed not accurate. I am glad that yoyu posted this to set the record straight.

I suspect based on the language that everyone has used that there were discussions of possible long term deals with at least one team but they ultimately didn’t materialize.

 

[Sanderson]

In in offseason it was an interesting look around here as people yawned at not being able to pay Bjugstad, who was proven, here, and yet salivating about paying Brown the bucks.

Bjugstad impressed me here during his tenure here. AT TDL Ekholm was the Sexy addition, but Bjugstad was very helpful here.

That sounds like revisionis history to me.

Bjugstad was okay in Edmonton, but that's about it. It became blindingly obvious that the Oilers would not have the necessary capspace to keep him, not with Bouchard and McLeod needing new contracts. The team had to get creative to rid itself from Yamamoto's caphit to be able to sign those two in the first place. It's perfectly understandable that people were fine with letting Bjugstad go, because there were higher priorities (Bouchard and McLeod) and no matter how you slice it, Bjugstad would not be available for league minimum, and that was all that was available. Opening up more capspace was unrealistic. Trading Campbell wouldn't have happened, and trading someone like Kulak may have opened up enough capspace to keep Bjugstadt, but would have weakened the defense and thus simply shifted the hole from one place to another.

At the start of free agency, there were basically three options in regard to signing UFAs:

1) not sign anyone, hope that the young guns can do the job
A fine move if it works out, but guaranteed to cause people shouting from the rooftops about how the GM failed to give the team the necessary depth, as it "should have been obvious" that you can't count on all young players to get it done right away

2) sign player(s) to normal league minimum contracts
You'd get barely useful players, like it has happened way too often in the past. You can't expect them to deliver much, and everyone will complain why management thought they could achieve anything with these sort of players being counted on

3) be bold and try something unconventional
Brown was a very good two-way winger who managed to deliver quite a bit of offense in the past even while playing mostly with average linemates. There was no way you would get such a player at league minimum, but since he missed most of last season with an injury, you could give him performance bonuses. This move had by far the highest upside in terms of helping the team contend this season out of all three options. Albeit at the risk of him being completely out of shape due to his injury. Something that turned out to be true, but it's not like that this was a given.

You can't exactly clamor for a GM to try and win it all, and then complain when he actually tries a bold move to do just that and it doesn't work out. It's hypocritical.
Maybe you could have gone with bonuses adding up to 3m instead of 4m, or tried to go with some higher thresholds to trigger the bonuses, but the move itself was exactly the one you try to make when you are dead-set on winning.

 

[Fourier]

I suspect based on the language that everyone has used that there were discussions of possible long term deals with at least one team but they ultimately didn’t materialize.

That is my guess as well.

 

[Drivesaitl]

That sounds like revisionis history to me.

Bjugstad was okay in Edmonton, but that's about it. It became blindingly obvious that the Oilers would not have the necessary capspace to keep him, not with Bouchard and McLeod needing new contracts. The team had to get creative to rid itself from Yamamoto's caphit to be able to sign those two in the first place. It's perfectly understandable that people were fine with letting Bjugstad go, because there were higher priorities (Bouchard and McLeod) and no matter how you slice it, Bjugstad would not be available for league minimum, and that was all that was available. Opening up more capspace was unrealistic. Trading Campbell wouldn't have happened, and trading someone like Kulak may have opened up enough capspace to keep Bjugstadt, but would have weakened the defense and thus simply shifted the hole from one place to another.

At the start of free agency, there were basically three options in regard to signing UFAs:

1) not sign anyone, hope that the young guns can do the job
A fine move if it works out, but guaranteed to cause people shouting from the rooftops about how the GM failed to give the team the necessary depth, as it "should have been obvious" that you can't count on all young players to get it done right away

2) sign player(s) to normal league minimum contracts
You'd get barely useful players, like it has happened way too often in the past. You can't expect them to deliver much, and everyone will complain why management thought they could achieve anything with these sort of players being counted on

3) be bold and try something unconventional
Brown was a very good two-way winger who managed to deliver quite a bit of offense in the past even while playing mostly with average linemates. There was no way you would get such a player at league minimum, but since he missed most of last season with an injury, you could give him performance bonuses. This move had by far the highest upside in terms of helping the team contend this season out of all three options. Albeit at the risk of him being completely out of shape due to his injury. Something that turned out to be true, but it's not like that this was a given.

You can't exactly clamor for a GM to try and win it all, and then complain when he actually tries a bold move to do just that and it doesn't work out. It's hypocritical.
Maybe you could have gone with bonuses adding up to 3m instead of 4m, or tried to go with some higher thresholds to trigger the bonuses, but the move itself was exactly the one you try to make when you are dead-set on winning.

1) I was opposed to the acquisition at outset, which anybody could see in the thread. So not revisionist.

2)The Oilers primary need was a goalie. Thats what a lot of posters wanted.

3) In no way is Connor Brown some big hit for the fences add. Thats been the primary difference in what posters are saying. Brown offensively is indistinguishable from Bjugstad, indistinguishable even from Alex Chiasson who we had here. If anything Bjugstad is the higher goal scorer and did score goals here, and did in playoffs.

4)Brown played up and down the lineup in Ottawa, Toronto. Its not like he got all his pts playing bottom. In anycase Brown has only ever scored 90 NHL goals. Thats across 7 seasons in which he played extensively. He doesn't even track 15 goals/season. His 200ft play hasn't been great in years. GA ramping up considering opposition and his supposed role.

I don't get the bolded at all because Connor Brown addressed zero needs that the team had. We had a plethora of league minimum contracts that could play bottom minutes and even some pk. Going for this player was bold only in that it was dumb to target a player that had missed a complete season due to serious knee injury. People were attracted to the contract being "imaginative" but that shouldn't be the reason to do the deal. Only what the player adds on ice.

 

[alphahelix]

That sounds like revisionis history to me.

Bjugstad was okay in Edmonton, but that's about it. It became blindingly obvious that the Oilers would not have the necessary capspace to keep him, not with Bouchard and McLeod needing new contracts. The team had to get creative to rid itself from Yamamoto's caphit to be able to sign those two in the first place. It's perfectly understandable that people were fine with letting Bjugstad go, because there were higher priorities (Bouchard and McLeod) and no matter how you slice it, Bjugstad would not be available for league minimum, and that was all that was available. Opening up more capspace was unrealistic. Trading Campbell wouldn't have happened, and trading someone like Kulak may have opened up enough capspace to keep Bjugstadt, but would have weakened the defense and thus simply shifted the hole from one place to another.

At the start of free agency, there were basically three options in regard to signing UFAs:

1) not sign anyone, hope that the young guns can do the job
A fine move if it works out, but guaranteed to cause people shouting from the rooftops about how the GM failed to give the team the necessary depth, as it "should have been obvious" that you can't count on all young players to get it done right away

2) sign player(s) to normal league minimum contracts
You'd get barely useful players, like it has happened way too often in the past. You can't expect them to deliver much, and everyone will complain why management thought they could achieve anything with these sort of players being counted on

3) be bold and try something unconventional
Brown was a very good two-way winger who managed to deliver quite a bit of offense in the past even while playing mostly with average linemates. There was no way you would get such a player at league minimum, but since he missed most of last season with an injury, you could give him performance bonuses. This move had by far the highest upside in terms of helping the team contend this season out of all three options. Albeit at the risk of him being completely out of shape due to his injury. Something that turned out to be true, but it's not like that this was a given.

You can't exactly clamor for a GM to try and win it all, and then complain when he actually tries a bold move to do just that and it doesn't work out. It's hypocritical.
Maybe you could have gone with bonuses adding up to 3m instead of 4m, or tried to go with some higher thresholds to trigger the bonuses, but the move itself was exactly the one you try to make when you are dead-set on winning.

Pacioretty signed a way lower risk bonus laden deal with the Caps and although he just played his first game with them I have a feeling he’ll be out scoring Brown this season.

There were options out there, with Brown being one of the riskiest and least sensible given our window (3M cap hit for nothing next year is tremendous). Hell, Danton Heinen signed for league min way after the dust had settled on all these deals.

The truth is it was indecision that hurt us the most. Anyone can understand the temptation of “keeping the band together” as much as possible after a strong season, but if you look at the players in our pipeline and the way contracts were lining up, a big multi-player deal was likely the most appropriate action. We knew we had a mess brewing with Broberg blocked on LD, we knew we had some large contracts coming up, guys like Foegele have never quite been worth their dollars. We should have moved multiple players to save cap, extended Bouch to a longer contract, promoted Broberg and Lavoie, and gotten deep in the market for proven dynamic bottom 6ers like Heinen to replace expensive guys up top.

Next year should have been viewed as equally important to this year, if not more so. It obviously wasn’t, and we obviously prioritized expensive high risk player when low risk effective options were available- and we failed to sign longer term deals on core pieces again.

Oh, and Campbell should have 10000% been bought out, I never would have signed him and would have had him down in the A for Pickard by December last year but hey as the saying goes…. you lose some, you lose some more.
Thats the Oilers version anyway.

 

[alphahelix]

I think they definitely tried to keep him but alas he priced himself away.

Would you have liked a contract structured like Brown's, though, even with a smaller bonus?

A contract like Browns for Brown?

I don’t mind the contract type in general, but any large sum put against next years cap seems extremely shortsighted, as next Year should represent just-as-important of a cup-window year for us as this year. If you look at Pacioretty’s deal, maybe that would have been more palatable (splitting the small cost over 2 years instead of a big cost in the 2nd year)

If Brown took a deal where we could reasonably afford to sign him next year and still be paying him ~3M or less total (including this years bonus and next years salary) , it might be more palatable. But not even having a player to fill the slot and paying over 3M for the privilege of having a bottom 6 player this year is almost unfathomable.

On “The Drop” there is a phone conversation where you only see Holland’s side of it, and the player/agent are never named. It sounds to me based on the hints that the player was probably Bjugstad. The agent is telling Ken that he has a 2 year offer elsewhere for more than the Oilers are offering for 1 year. Ken tells him it’s a good deal and congratulatons go take it. The agent appears to be trying to get Ken to come up to a 2nd year, even if its at the low value Ken previously offered (sounds like its low 1.x M, he just says “i dont have any more money”)

Anyway, if we just assume that this is Bjugstad we’re talking about, I can’t understand why Ken wouldn’t have made it a 2 year offer. The agent was just looking for something to take back to his player. Obviously the player wanted to be here. Ken didn’t budge.

Bjugstad is a good player Worth a 2 year deal, if we hadn’t tossed this bonus laden deal to Brown this would have been a no brainer.

 

[guymez]

Pacioretty signed a way lower risk bonus laden deal with the Caps and although he just played his first game with them I have a feeling he’ll be out scoring Brown this season.

There were options out there, with Brown being one of the riskiest and least sensible given our window (3M cap hit for nothing next year is tremendous). Hell, Danton Heinen signed for league min way after the dust had settled on all these deals.

The truth is it was indecision that hurt us the most. Anyone can understand the temptation of “keeping the band together” as much as possible after a strong season, but if you look at the players in our pipeline and the way contracts were lining up, a big multi-player deal was likely the most appropriate action. We knew we had a mess brewing with Broberg blocked on LD, we knew we had some large contracts coming up, guys like Foegele have never quite been worth their dollars. We should have moved multiple players to save cap, extended Bouch to a longer contract, promoted Broberg and Lavoie, and gotten deep in the market for proven dynamic bottom 6ers like Heinen to replace expensive guys up top.

Next year should have been viewed as equally important to this year, if not more so. It obviously wasn’t, and we obviously prioritized expensive high risk player when low risk effective options were available- and we failed to sign longer term deals on core pieces again.

Oh, and Campbell should have 10000% been bought out, I never would have signed him and would have had him down in the A for Pickard by December last year but hey as the saying goes…. you lose some, you lose some more.
Thats the Oilers version anyway.

Pacioretty is a terrible comparison. He is 35 years old and coming off of his 2nd Achilles surgery.
Its a no brainer that is is going to get a way lower risk (from a teams perspective) contract.