Players taking a financial hit because they refused a great offer.

[Spargon]

Lindholm will probably get close to that on a 7 or 8 year deal. Klingberg has to be the biggest contract F up in NHL history. What kind of agent tells a near 30 year old player to take a 1 year deal and bet on himself over a guaranteed 8 year contract.

Especially with the hip problems.

 

[Matty Sundin]

Hall kinda screwed over by Covid. The cap was supposed to rise and he was a top prize that year. Covid and flat cap happen and he was only getting short term deals, so he took an offer with Sabres and that was a disaster. Got traded to Boston and signed decent deal when it became apparent he wasn’t the same hart trophy player and has trouble. Now he’s stuck on the hawks with only 1 year left and just missed a season with a knee injury. He’s never gonna get a long term offer again if he even plays again and he probably lost out on at least 40million dollars if Covid flat cap didn’t happen.

 

[Just Linda]

Fun fact, Peter Wallen represented both Klingberg and Elias Lindholm when they were offered, and declined, their giant offers.

 

[Schennanigans]

Just lol @ Klinberg.

 

[Oddbob]

The two players that come to mind are Elias Lindholm and John Klingberg.

Lindholm reportedly turned down 8 x $9M from the Flames.
Klingberg turned down 8 x $7M from the Stars before signing a 1 year deal with the Ducks at $7M and never got close to that money. (Oddly that turn down might help the Stars win the cup this year.)

What other ones do you remember?

You can't put Lindholm here yet, seeing as he will still get signed in July. Every year players turn down big money offers and sign in offseason.

 

[lettuceAA]

Those two aren't really comparable, Lindholm will get a deal close to that in FA, it just seemed like he didn't want to be in Calgary. I'd take a paycut of 1m a year to not live in Calgary too.

It's an 8M pay cut. If he signs somewhere warm and south I'll buy it that he just wanted out of Calgary. If not he was betting on himself and wanted more.

 

[KevinRedkey]

Jared Cowan was offered 28m over 8yrs. He ended up making less than half that the rest of his career.

 

[Hostile Offer]

Lindholm will probably get close to that on a 7 or 8 year deal. Klingberg has to be the biggest contract F up in NHL history. What kind of agent tells a near 30 year old player to take a 1 year deal and bet on himself over a guaranteed 8 year contract.

His agent didn't tell him that. He just completely misread the market as he figured Klingberg would get more on the open market than what the Stars offered. However nobody was meeting their demands and Klingberg ended up watching literally everyone getting signed ahead of him until he had no choice but to bet on himself on a one year deal and try again next summer, which again failed. It was a horrible mistake by the agent but betting on a one year deal was nowhere near the plan A there.

 

[McOilers97]

Some of the guys being mentioned frequently here (Lindholm, Hall) are fair if you look at $ only (which, is fair, but there’s more to it than that). If a player really doesn’t want to sign long-term in a situation that won’t yield playoff success (and they haven’t had much career payoff success) then that’s a big factor. Lindholm in Calgary knew their ceiling was low, and Hall I think felt the same about Arizona (and perhaps NJ too).

Klingberg’s fumble is very egregious though - can’t imagine why he felt $7m x 8 was a bad offer.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

Hall kinda screwed over by Covid. The cap was supposed to rise and he was a top prize that year. Covid and flat cap happen and he was only getting short term deals, so he took an offer with Sabres and that was a disaster. Got traded to Boston and signed decent deal when it became apparent he wasn’t the same hart trophy player and has trouble. Now he’s stuck on the hawks with only 1 year left and just missed a season with a knee injury. He’s never gonna get a long term offer again if he even plays again and he probably lost out on at least 40million dollars if Covid flat cap didn’t happen.

Hall is a fun one- I think he has just enough brain cells to wonder “what if?” until avicii plays and he loses all focus.

But like- what if he wasn’t immature and stayed in Edmonton? As for why he signed with the Sabres..
- “ah man, no one has any money, but whatever, I’ll play with Jack for a year and will stack numbers, then payday!” Jack: “my neck hurts and this place sucks. Hey, do you like Pink Floyd?”

 

[Seanaconda]

I believe Vanek was offered a lot of money to play shotgun on the isles to Tavares but he was obsessed with Minnesota his entire career for some reason

 

[Brodeur]

I believe Vanek was offered a lot of money to play shotgun on the isles to Tavares but he was obsessed with Minnesota his entire career for some reason

He did meet his wife while they were both in college and I think she's a local. He made plenty of money from his offer sheet contract, so I can only imagine they made a collective decision to take less to go home.

 

[63 others]

barrie? didnt the avs offer hin like 6 mio a year? he overvalued himself, messed up in toronto snd all went downhill

 

[Guttersniped]

I think Cody Franson turned down something in the ballpark of 4x4 from Toronto and it never got better from there for him.

Franson turned down 3 years/ 4.4m, from the team he wanted to play for, because his agent told him he could do better in free agency.

He then sat unsigned until Sept 10 when he got 2 years/ 3.325m from Buffalo. He only got a 1 year/1m deal from Chicago after that.

Loading…

www.nytimes.com

 

[OrrNumber4]

John Tavares turned down an 8x13M from the Sharks

7x13*

 

[Hockeyholic]

Not NHL but this one is so f***ing bad it just has to be mentioned

Dennis Schroder turned down a 4 year 84 million dollar deal from the Lakers, he only got 5.6m on a 1 year deal after that and then returned to the Lakers at 2.9m

That has got to be the absolute worst of all time

Few things popped into my head:

1. One of the dumbest financial decisions ever.

2. Why was he even offered that in the first place? He appeared to be just a guy. Not some great player.

 

[HanSolo]

Kariya is always an interesting one to me. He was making 10m a year for 3 years in Anaheim. After the 03 cup final run, he demanded that Anaheim make a qualifying offer of at least 10 m. Bryan Murray couldn't justify another year of 10m with Anaheim's internal budget which was something like 40m. So Anaheim let him go after offering to pay him well but at a reduced salary on a multi year contract (can't find the exact sum of the offer but I think I'd heard it was something like 8.5m to 9m for 6 years).

Kariya ended up taking like 1.2 million from Colorado to try to play for an Avalanche super team with Selanne (who claims to have wanted to return to Anaheim but Kariya insisted that they join up literally anywhere else). The idea behind Colorado was clearly a cup chase given how stacked their roster already was.

The irony is neither guy ended up with a cup in Colorado. Kariya went to Nashville for two years making 4.5m a year, while Teemu went back to Anaheim and won a cup.

If Kariya had just followed Teemu back to Anaheim, the Ducks still would have had Niedermayer come to Anaheim to play with his brother, they still would've had the assets to trade for Pronger, they still would have had Giguere on top of Getzlaf and Perry starting to come into their own in the 06-07 season (Kariya's last year in the NHL) and Burke still would've chased an all out approach to win a cup quickly after being hired as GM.

So, if Kariya had just signed the extended deal the Ducks offered him in the first place, he would've still made very good money and very likely would have retired with a cup ring. Instead he took a massive pay cut to try to join a super team which backfired.

 

[carjackmalone]

Sundin refused vancouvers 10 million per year offer

 

[LeProspector]

Didn’t Ryan Dzingel mess up in Ottawa?

 

[viper0220]

The Calgary Flames dodged a huge bullet with Lindholm.

 

[Peasy]

Not really the same thing, but Landeskog was getting hard balled for re-signing cheaper which he eventually caved, but now its looking like his entire career might be over.

 

[Bond]

And lost $20M by doing it. Not trying to debate Lindholm etc. Everyone can agree he won't sign for what he was offered by Calgary. Wondering which other guys played the waiting game, and lost.

The Flames final offer was the Schiefele deal. The 9 mil came from Friedman (ie Lindholm’s ask to stay in Calgary)

 

[ForsbergForever]

Does this one count?

Panarin turned down $96 million (8x12m) for less money $81.5 and less term (albeit, just one year)

Which team offered him that? I remember hearing MacKinnon made a big push for him. I think 1 year/$12M was mentioned at the time.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

In 2019, Ben Hutton apparently turned down a contract offer of around $3 million x 3 years from Montreal (who went on to offer a similar contract to Ben Chiarot). He ended up signing later in the off-season with LA for $1.5 million x 1 year.

 

[notsocommonsense]

Sundin refused vancouvers 10 million per year offer

*Chose to retire