Last week, we wrote about the likelihood of offer sheets being extended to restricted free agent goalies this summer. The Globe and Mail’s James Mirtle reported a number of league executives he’d spoken to were speculating that general managers like Tampa Bay’s Steve Yzerman and Toronto’s Brian Burke could force, say, Vancouver to match a big proposal for 26-year-old rising star Cory Schneider.
Today, however, the Tampa Bay Times reports that Yzerman isn’t a huge fan of offer sheets.
“The only way a team doesn’t match the offer is if you grossly overpay the player,” Yzerman told the Times. “That’s why I don’t like it. If you do a contract for the right value of a player, chances are the other team is just going to match it.”
In the case of the Canucks, it would take a massive offer to let Schneider go for compensatory draft picks.
Under the current CBA, RFA compensation works like this:
$1,034,249 annual cap hit or less: No compensation
$1,034,249 — $1,567,043: Third-round pick
$1,567,043 — $3,134,088: Second-round pick
$3,134,088 — $4,701,131: First and third-round pick
$4,701,131 — $6,268,175: First, second and third-round pick
$6,268,175 — $7,835,219: Two first-round picks, a second and third
$7,835,219 and higher: Four first-round picks
Of course, much of a team’s decision to match or not depends on term. For Schneider, even an offer like five years and $30 million would probably be matched, regardless of the Canucks’ cap situation. The compensation just isn’t enough for a contender like Vancouver. So a good, young goalie gets overpaid by a couple of million per season. A team with deep pockets can deal with that.
Maybe the Canucks would let Schneider walk if the offer was north of $6,268,175, but would Yzerman make it?