Here's something to show how much of an albatross Bolland's contract really is.
Bolland is a good player. He's almost a mirror image of one of our former players in Marcel Goc. They're perfect third line center. Bolland is slightly more physical.
We got Bolland for $5.5 million per year.
Pittsburgh got Goc for $1.2 million per year.
Bad.
That's a terrible comparison. Bolland has more career points in over 200 less games played. And as much as I like Goc, where the hell was he last year.
Bolland has scored just over a .5 clip over his career with a slew of injuries. Including likely debilitating back injuries early in his career. He is an injury risk for sure but last years injury was a freak accident. Bolland has also scored much closer to a point per game in playoffs. Scoring many important goals. He is a better pker than Goc, considering we were last in the league last year, with Goc at the helm.
Also comparing to Vrbata's contract is kind of dumb, since he is 5 years older, and exiting his prime years. Last year he scored 51 in 80 games, which Is certainly achievable by Bolland, to go along with the other skills he brings.
I do agree that Bollands contract is an over payment, and very risky. But it's not as crazy as people are making it out to be. The cap is going up, Bolland is only 28, he is a great 2 way player with a proven track record in the playoffs.
Why Panthers needed him? Our pk was last in the league, and it would have been stupid for us to run out 4 centers that are all under 24 years old, this will push Bjugstad and Barkov, if injury or sophomore slumps hit either of them we would have been screwed.
It was an over payment but the leafs offered only 2 million less and that's the player Dale Tallon wanted.
I'm still hoping Dale can swing a deal for a good scoring winger, which definitely could happen with all the prospects we have and future draft picks that we can afford to lose. We get that one 1st line winger and we are set for the season, I'm fine with defense, as I really want gudbranson, kulikov and petrovic to have an opportunity this year to break out.
I'm also happy that ownership is spending again!
And I agree with the above post that we live and die by our prospects, much like any other team in the nhl. If Barkov, huberdeau, gudbranson, ekblad, kulikov, bjugstad, etc don't progress neither does the team. The good thing about spending money, is that we don't need all of our prospects to progress, just some of them.