Every Player in the NHL has the Same Value

[Pro Canuck]

\\

I somewhat agree Hedman + cammalerri would be good value although I think you could get more maybe carter and Coburn from Philly but the permutations and combinations are moot as it was a example of salary cap usage.

The biggest problem you face with your interesting theory is it is circular by nature. Would we win the same amount of games with the combination of hedman and cammalerri as with luongo? Over 1, 3, 5 years you would never know and you could never know. If you win a cup it could be argued that you would have won it anyway if you miss the playoffs you could argue that the higher draft choice creates more future opportunity and therefore adds value to the original trade.

There are just too many assumptions to be made.

if your Ottawa heatley for burrows or heatley for borrows and mitchell isn’t the same deal I understand your theory but your theory only works if there is a free agent available that plays the same style, minutes and game as mitchell himself and will do so at the same price for the same term for your club. But in the NHL there are 700-odd players and even if you grouped them and categorized them into type of player, salary and points you would still have a supply and demand problem on your hands because there isn’t enough to go around. Most models that are pure are built without restraints (wouldn't be pure otherwise) you have a finite amount of players that are able to play at this level and you have to disregard there preferences and assume they are willing to sign equal contracts with any team.

now having said all that and it being my second rant I had thought about posting a thread about the dropping salary cap and the opportunity it could bring if a team had thought out the process before it happened.

Let’s assume the cap drops all the way to 46 million. That leaves most of the teams in a mess with contracts that will smother them and perhaps a couple years of not being able to breathe when it comes to cap room. This will in turn allow for teams with cap space act in a predatory manor allowing teams to aquire a quality layer for a fraction of what their value should be. The ability to bury a player in the minors also allows this freedom to large market teams. But this will make cap space the biggest asset available.

Let’s say we trade Luongo, Salo, Demitra and let the Sedins and Ohlund walk well I think we all know we would suck but it’s a necessity to get a low cap hit and start drafting impact players in the top 5. One will not due you need like 5. This is the way of the new NHL see Pittsburgh, Washington, Chicago, soon L.A. these teams have lots of young cheaper talent that is what is most valuable in this market. Than a team has cap room which is the second most valuable asset you can get the veterans you need to repopulate your franchise in a couple years for a fraction of their worth because teams need the cap space. What im saying is its easier to get market value veterans than undervalued rookies so the focus should be on high end low cost talent. It can become self driving when a rookie contract is up and the player is proven you trade him for package draft picks and restock. What this thread should have been about is arbitrage. The opportunity to exploit young talent below market value, while gaining cap space at the expense of other teams. But like you always find when chasing arbitrage the risk is usually steep (hello currency and commodities trading) and many of wise men that tried to make free money ended up broke.

[Absolutego]

Every player in the NHL should have the same trade value. Hear me out.

This implies that trading Brad Richards should not get you 2 players and 2 first rounders. Neither should Joe Thornton. In a salary cap world, where the maximum salary cap of 56.7 is the same for everyone, players are fairly priced by their salary. Hence, if Joe Thornton deserves 8 million, and Alex Burrows only 2, then teams should be indifferent about having either player because if you have Burrows, you would have an extra 6 million to acquire someone else. You can only say "Joe Thornton is way better than Alex Burrows" if they are making the same salary. If they are not, then every advantage Joe Thornton has over Alex Burrows has been priced in.

This is why there is a desire to get young players from the draft. The rookie contract is the only phase of a player's career where their contract can't closely mimick their fair value. The other exceptions are players who truly deserve more than the player maximum (Sidney Crosby) and players who deserve less than the minimum salary but have to be overpriced because that's the minimum contract (Rick Rypien).

GM's should be indifferent between trading Burrows for Heatley, Luongo for Matt Cooke etc. because if you are Vancouver, you get Matt Cooke, plus $ to buy someone else. and if you are Pittsburgh, you are not actually just giving up Matt Cooke. You are also going to need to free up $5 million in salary by dumping someone like MA Fleury, or perhaps Luongo prevents you from acquiring someone else because you have a lack of money.

This is why if you can trade Luongo for anyone like Stamkos, Schenn, Hedman, etc, you do it because those rookies are not fairly priced. Thus you would essentially get a player for cheap and save a giant amount of money to sign back a Luongo type goalie. I am not factoring age of players at all here. Just the fairness of their contracts. This is because age should be factored into their contracts already. A 37 year old declining player shouldn't be making as much as a 24 year rising star in the first place. So no need to look at age. As long as two players are valued fairly, they can be traded for each other. I fail to see why if you are the opposing GM, you would ever offer a player + a prospect + 2 first rounders for a superstar. It makes no sense.

Someone below tried to counter my post by writing the following:

Anyone wanna trade me their Lamborghini Diablo for a Toyota Corolla? They have equal value because you will save gas, insurance and maintenance money on the Corolla - every advantage Joe Thornton Lamborghini Diablo has over Alex Burrows Toyota Corolla has been priced in.

He/She clearly is making the wrong analogy. In a cap environment, everyone is able to spend up to 56.7... yes not all owners want to, but everyone is capable of spending to this amount. Which means using your argument, the person driving the Corolla has the same amount of cash as the person driving the Lamborghini. Hence, yea I will switch the Lamborghini for the Corolla. Use the extra cash to buy myself a Bentley. DO YOU GET IT?????? If you are just getting the Corolla back... with no cash.... then of course no trade. The real question is .. would you trade a Lamborghini for a Corolla + 250,000?

[oceanchild]

This is about arbitrage. Here's my question though.

Why would you go through 5 years of losing.. to accumulate those draft picks.. and hope you get lucky with the lottery and hope that you draft well.... and hope your fans are ok with losing and hope that the revenue doesn't just plummet.........................when you can exploit this inefficient trade market?

Like instead of letting Luongo, Ohlund, Sedin walk and then purposely trying to be a crapty team to get the draft picks that you want.... why wouldn't you trade these guys to all those irrational GM's who are offering Versteeg, Mason, Hedman etc... so that you can instantly NEXT year be a contender like Pittsburgh. Like why tank like Pittsburgh when you run the risk of the NYI of not drafting well etc.

The point of the thread is not to promote the trade of Luongo for Matt Cooke. It is hopefully getting people to realize that in reality, Luongo is only worth Matt Cooke. So let's get out there while we can, and get these amazing young players. Otherwise Pittsburgh is going to win this year. Chicago the next year. St. Louis the following year. Phoenix after that. Like wtf? Let's take all their young players right NOW by trading them our all stars

[Hallzy]

Buddy, learn how to read. I specifically said players who are in their rookie contract and outperforming their pay are the exceptions to this theory. They are not free market players because their pay is capped. Hence I would trade Luongo for Mason immediately. And no, I don't think Mason is the better goalie. It's because I can use the money to get Mike Cammaleri / Marian Gaborik

Marian Gaborik + Steve Mason > Roberto Luongo.

[>you]

That premium has already been placed....

That's why more talented players make more than less talented players.... The extra cap space you get... allows you to get the talent back.....

[Claude Feig]

i dont know about same value

[RYAN-SMITH]

Burrows should be able to fetch you the following:

Thornton

Lecavalier

Heatley

Iginla

etc etc.

-----------------------------------------

Thornotn, Lecavalier, Heatley, Iginla etc etc should not be able to fetch their teams:

Corey Schneider.

That would be highway robbery if they could get Schneider because they would save all this money to just immediately sign Hossa / Gaborik / Sedin etc. Plus they got a top prospect.

-----------------------------------------

Now you might ask... ok Pro Canuck you can't possibly be smarter than every GM in the league.....

I think a lot of GM's don't get this. But I do think that some understand this theory. What is restricting this from actually happening is that the GM's just like your politicians answer to their constituents (in this case the owner and the fans). The fans don't understand this and all fans in Vancouver would be jumping out of their chair if we could get Heatley for just Schneider ... so that's why the trades are still the way they are. Also, GM's have a short-term focus because their contracts are such. That is why even if they know this theory is correct, it may be difficult to act on it.

In any case, while Luongo for Cooke may have been used to make a point, at the end of the day, the ridiculous superstar trades have to stop.

[leo_61]

Its easy to understand it all comes to ..Supply and demand.

The owners supply what the fans what to see and makes them a profit.

There is a limited market to choose from so the demand becomes higher with of course means higher cost and a chance of greater returns.

The elite players cost more to bring in the fans and the fans pay to see them.

I,m not a caps fan or pens fan but i myself would pay to see Crosby and Ov play just to say i seen them and i belive most hockey fans would jump at the chance.

When it,s all said and done this is still a Bus. and the Bus, is to make money.

[Claude Feig]

if you go by same value does that mean rypien is the same value as crosby or ovechkin?

[Russ]

I like my corolla though

[Claude Feig]

what^^^???^

[f_off_bwagonners]

This thread should be re-titled,

'I have no idea wtf I'm talking about WHEN talking about sports - and other sad tales'.

~ or ~

'How to over-complicate trivial crap - the meltdown'.

[AK-47]

no thanks

A+ for effort, no doubt, you seem to put alot of thought and executed your points well and effectively

C- for ideology, seriously? Joe Thornton for Alex Burrows... I hope you made this as joke

[Claude Feig]

lol

[Mr.Plow]

no thanks

A+ for effort, no doubt, you seem to put alot of thought and executed your points well and effectively

C- for ideology, seriously? Joe Thornton for Alex Burrows... I hope you made this as joke

[BionicBunny]

couldn't have said it better.

[Reverend Mayhem]

It's all too financial-based. The GM will be using the leftover money anyways, if he wants a shot to win. Because say these deals happen, very unlikely but these are examples.

Your way:

To WSH

Luongo (6.5)

(frees up 2.5 M)

To VAN

Ovechkin (9.0)

Now Vancouver really needs a goalie to replace Luongo and Schneider just blew out his knee and is out for 9 months , what do we do? Might as well do this.

----------------------------------

Actual Way:

To WSH

Luongo(6.5)

1st round pick

To VAN

Ovechkin (9.0)

Varlamov (0.85)

Not saying this will happen, because I would never do this deal on each side, well maybe if I was VAN , but it seems more convienent to do it the current way. I found what you were trying to get across is very confusing and elaborate.

[c00kies]

I sort of agree, but it depends on what type of player too (A superstar PWF is much rarer than a Superstar PLY). So what the OP is getting at is; if we were to trade the Sedins (after we signed them to 6 million contracts) to the NYI for the 1st overall pick, we would save around 11 million to replace them and still have Tavares. We could then (possibly) get Cammalleri and Gabby to replace them (bad idea). So it would be Gabby, Cammalleri and Tavares for the Sedins. I guess we could also (after trading the Sedins) upgrade via trade. So it could be Raymond and a pick for Hossa (7.5 million), and Bieksa (with a miracle of stuff) for Lidstrom (7 million) with the money saved.

He could also be saying that every deal is like a chain. Trade the Sedins to NYI for pick. Sign Cammalleri with money saved up, then trade him and others for Malkin (I like dreaming). Then say we sign others and end up over the Salary Cap, we would then trade Luongo for Fleury. So it was like the Sedins, Cammalleri, all the others and Luongo for Malkin, Tavares, Fleury and the other signed guys.

Anyway, the OP does have a point; that the Value of a player can go down and up with there cap hit. A 3 million dollar Malkin is worth more than a 9 million dollar Ovechkin because of the cap, even though they are even (or OV slightly better) players.

[Linden16Mclean1fan]

Respectively, I must say that you have misunderstood my post. I never said no player is better than another player. Of course Mattias Ohlund is 3x the player that Shane Obrien is. I am just saying that their salaries already factor in this fact. Mattias makes 3.5 and Obrien makes 1. GM's should be indifferent between the two players. This is because, I can take Obrien and then sign another defenceman to fill the void that was created by Ohlund leaving. When you trade 1 player paid a lot (Heatley) for 1 player paid very little (Burrows), I am not making the statement that one player can only be worth one player. In fact, the team getting Burrows would indeed be able to get another 1, 2, or 3 players depending on how they wish to allocate the extra cap space that they got. Again, your concerns have been factored in.

Next, your argument about the team with the most rookies winning is again flawed. I am speaking specifically about rookies that if they were on the free agent market would make more money than the rookie cap allows. In the case of Hansen, this doesn't apply since whether he was a rookie or not, he would make the same roughly 1 million dollars. I am speaking of those players in a rookie contract such as Jack Johnson, Versteeg, Steve Mason, ALex Edler this year. If you had a team of rookies that are of greater values than their rookie contracts, you would field a lineup that would be incredible. Because all of them would be of great "value". By doing this, you can fill 20 out of the 23 man roster and still have 15 million left of cap space. This you can use to sign a Heatley and a Bowmeester. Now tell me that you wouldn't compete for a cup.

Reply away.

[SteveCanuck16]

You're doing all this assuming that a team can simply go out and grab another $6 million player. There are a limited number of players as talented as Joe Thornton, Dany Heatley, etc. and that is why they are far more valuable than guys like Burrows. Supply and demand.