BUF initiate compliance buy out on Ehrhoff

[aliboy]

Ehrhoff left because Gillis drew a line and low-balled him. He was worth more than Bieksa and Hamhuis, and I don't blame him for not wanting to take that kind of money.

All Gillis had to do was offer him 5.5 mil on a 3 or 4 year term deal and he probably would have stayed. It was better than signing Garrison to 900k less, only to buy him out two years later.

+1

[goblix]

Ehrhoff left because Gillis drew a line and low-balled him. He was worth more than Bieksa and Hamhuis, and I don't blame him for not wanting to take that kind of money.

All Gillis had to do was offer him 5.5 mil on a 3 or 4 year term deal and he probably would have stayed. It was better than signing Garrison to 900k less, only to buy him out two years later.

so true, now he's likely worth 6-7 for 5-6 years. I think I'd rather have myers if he is available for a reasonable hockey trade

[riffraff]

Suck it the Hoff!

[stawns]

Except people do it every day, taking less money to work in a job/place that is better for them despite a higher salary somewhere else. I would do that for sure, to play in a place that had just about won the Stanley Cup, offered an established, successful role and was offering a reasonable contract (as you later corrected yourself on versus the 'low ball' statement above).

Look at what happened to him as the alternative, went to a team promising to try and spend to improve, but failed miserably in doing so. Not to knock Buffalo as a city either, but it's hardly Vancouver.

His professional career has suffered as a result and he can't get those years back. If all he wanted was to pad his retirement fund with extra millions rather than stay with a competitive hockey team coming off it's best season ever, then I can certainly blame him for that.

EDIT: and to be clear, that doesn't mean I hold a grudge against him and wouldn't want him back for that specific reason. Maybe it's better to say he should blame himself rather than any of us blaming him. He put himself in the situation he's in and if he's happier with the money than continued professional success, then so be it. You'll have to ask him if he'd do it the same all over again though.

we know, now, that things in the Canucks dressing were a mess, and it's looking like it was not such a great place to be.

[Pears]

Come on please Benning!!

[elvis15]

What I want to know is the following. It truly looks like Buffalo is intentionally stripping talent from their team in an attempt to be a bad team for the upcoming Mac David draft.

Even if this is not the case it looks like they're doing less than their best to put a competitive product on the ice.

At what point does the league step in and ask the Sabres wtf they're doing?

That'll depend largely on whether they do work to sign quality UFAs (even if they do it with overpriced contracts) or if they just take underperforming cap dumps to build up picks in order to get to the cap floor.

[SabreFan1]

Cap recapture. Buffalo is doing exactly what we should have done about the Luongo contract.

Exactly. A decent number of people here have no idea about the consequences of keeping a contract like Ehrhoff's. Hell, most people still think that he has to pass through waivers even though he has a NMC which made him immune to the waiver process.

I posted a link to an article that explains the whole thing, but *gasp* that would mean reading and comprehending something that isn't in the forum. Some of the more knowledgeable people here have tried to explain the whole thing but others aren't able to connect the dots or are just making posts without reading what has already been written.

[wallstreetamigo]

Except people do it every day, taking less money to work in a job/place that is better for them despite a higher salary somewhere else. I would do that for sure, to play in a place that had just about won the Stanley Cup, offered an established, successful role and was offering a reasonable contract (as you later corrected yourself on versus the 'low ball' statement above).

Look at what happened to him as the alternative, went to a team promising to try and spend to improve, but failed miserably in doing so. Not to knock Buffalo as a city either, but it's hardly Vancouver.

His professional career has suffered as a result and he can't get those years back. If all he wanted was to pad his retirement fund with extra millions rather than stay with a competitive hockey team coming off it's best season ever, then I can certainly blame him for that.

EDIT: and to be clear, that doesn't mean I hold a grudge against him and wouldn't want him back for that specific reason. Maybe it's better to say he should blame himself rather than any of us blaming him. He put himself in the situation he's in and if he's happier with the money than continued professional success, then so be it. You'll have to ask him if he'd do it the same all over again though.

Let's be real here. The contracts offered were not comparable at all. There is taking less to stay somewhere and then there is getting bent over by a GM who did not want to risk offending Kevin Bieksa by paying Ehrhoff a shorter deal at more money which time has sown he was absolutely worth to the Canucks. And the opportunity to be a top pairing go to guy in Buffalo as opposed to being considered one of the top 4 here is not a better scenario individually for a player.

Who says he is blaming himself for anything or is upset with his decision anyway? You don't know that. And he would have tied Garrison for the team lead last season at 33 points, so how exactly has he fallen off a cliff while guys like Bieksa, etc. have accomplished so much since he left?

We need to all get over the Mike Gillis fallacy that all players should all accept less than what they are worth to be Canucks out of only a sense of loyalty. That is not reality. Players have the right to do what they feel is best for them as UFA's and that is what Ehrhoff did.

And to be fair, what exactly have the Canucks accomplished since Ehrhoff left that makes us believe it is in any better situation than Buffalo is? They have not been Stanley Cup competitive at all. So why are we so arrogant to think that everyone should want to play here based on an epic collapse in the Stanley Cup finals and the subsequent slide to worse than mediocrity? Yes Vancouver is a great city, but no one knows the intimate details of why Ehrhoff actually left. Maybe it was only for money. Maybe there were other factors involved though. Maybe he did not like his contract negotiations as UFA being limited by what Kevin Bieksa was getting offered because as we have seen Ehrhoff likely contributed much more to the Sedins and Edler being better players in his time here. He certainly contributed far more to what has now become a woeful PP. So his right to be a UFA should be ignored because we think it is a bad decision for him to move on? That is a ridiculous argument and typical CDC thought process.

The Canucks players have declined significantly since he left and have not had any more success than Ehrhoff has both individually and as a team. So in hindsight it sort of looks like going to Buffalo may have not been the best place to find hockey success for Ehrhoff but Vancouver likely wouldn't have been either. Unless he was a bigger part of the previous success than people think he was. Then him leaving hurt the Canucks more than it hurt him.

[R3aL]

His contract was scary, I think he legit was fooled by the owners and thought they could become contenders at the time they had Calder winner Myers pominville vanek miller some vets some good prospects and a new owner who was willing to spend money!

And gillis didn't pony up, I don't think we would have had to do as ridiculous as a deal originally to keep him.

I think signing him would be fantastic if our players were open to it, no bad blood, and it would revitalize our pp the sedins and edler for sure!

Hamuis Tanev/Bieksa

Edler Erhoff

Pretty great top 5

Then Sibisa Stanton weber corrado

Would be great

[elvis15]

Ehrhoff left because Gillis drew a line and low-balled him. He was worth more than Bieksa and Hamhuis, and I don't blame him for not wanting to take that kind of money.

All Gillis had to do was offer him 5.5 mil on a 3 or 4 year term deal and he probably would have stayed. It was better than signing Garrison to 900k less, only to buy him out two years later.

Offence generally earns more, but Hamhuis and Bieksa are hardly defence-only defencemen. The difference is they're better at other areas than Ehrhoff, so a similar amount of money at that time wasn't unreasonable.

And I'm not sure what you're talking about with Garrison, since we clearly didn't buy him out. Do you mean the trade for Ballard? Ballard was brought in to try and further build up our defensive core, a year prior to moving Ehrhoff prior to free agency, so it wasn't completely apparent it wouldn't work out.

But we could have dumped Ballard somehow and given some extra to Ehrhoff, it just depends on how much 'extra' Ehrhoff wanted since we don't really know how far Ehrhoff and the Canucks were apart. If he didn't want to accept something reasonable, how would it have affected our cap and ability to sign/re-sign other players going forward?

we know, now, that things in the Canucks dressing were a mess, and it's looking like it was not such a great place to be.

But were they? The team was successful, and apart from players wanting more, like Hodgson and his camp, was there any great discord at that time? Or was Ehrhoff part of the problem?

[Butters Stoch]

He's managed to put up some decent numbers considering he played for a team with non existent offence in recent years but he doesn't seem like the right fit for our rebuilding team when we need younger guys like Corrado and Stanton to get more ice time.

[Canucks35]

My initial reaction was no effin way. I'd love to have hoff back

[stawns]

He's managed to put up some decent numbers considering he played for a team with non existent offence in recent years but he doesn't seem like the right fit for our rebuilding team when we need younger guys like Corrado and Stanton to get more ice time.

He's managed to put up some decent numbers considering he played for a team with non existent offence in recent years but he doesn't seem like the right fit for our rebuilding team when we need younger guys like Corrado and Stanton to get more ice time.

After yesterday, no one should have any doubt that this rebuild is happening in Jr and in Utica. There is now a solid core 0f 22-26 year olds to bridge the gap until Horvat, Shink, gaunce, Fox, cassels, Virtanen have had sufficient time to develop their pro games. There will be youth in the lineup, but it will be Kass, Ley, Bonino, Tanev, Lack, Mathias and Jensen. The rest will be 2-3 years away.

edit: Corrado will likely have a season of up and down between Utica and vancouver, then as a 6/7 dman next year.

[Pears]

Tanev++ for Myers

Hamhuis - Myers

Edler - Ehrhoff

Sbisa - Bieksa

Myers is the type of monster on the back end we need in the Pacific.

[DeNiro]

Offence generally earns more, but Hamhuis and Bieksa are hardly defence-only defencemen. The difference is they're better at other areas than Ehrhoff, so a similar amount of money at that time wasn't unreasonable.

And I'm not sure what you're talking about with Garrison, since we clearly didn't buy him out. Do you mean the trade for Ballard? Ballard was brought in to try and further build up our defensive core, a year prior to moving Ehrhoff prior to free agency, so it wasn't completely apparent it wouldn't work out.

Contracts are based on point totals for the most part. That contract was not reasonable for a 50 point defenseman. All Gillis had to do was up it by a mil and Ehrhoff likely would have remained a Canuck. But Gillis let his ego get in the way, like he did on many occasions.

I meant to say we dumped Garrison, not bought him out. Slipped into my head.

[Dragonfruits]

Contracts are based on point totals for the most part. That contract was not reasonable for a 50 point defenseman. All Gillis had to do was up it by a mil and Ehrhoff likely would have remained a Canuck. But Gillis let his ego get in the way, like he did on many occasions.

I meant to say we dumped Garrison, not bought him out. Slipped into my head.

if he was really worth that kind of money then he would of had more than 3 years at 40 or more points 2 being with the Canucks 1 with the Sharks the rest of his career he spent 30 points or less

[Patrick Kane]

Ehrhoff just collected 22m over 3 years, averaging 7.3m per year... He will collect .857m per year for the next 14 years.

Canucks were probably offering 4.5-5m at the time. He made an extra 6.9m-8.4m over those 3 years, which is HUGE.

Now at 31, still has 3-4 good years ahead of him, considering the way he plays, will probably sign with...

Colorado. Need a top 4 guy who can run the PP.

San Jose. Bring him back, and he can play with Burns, Braun or Demers.

Detroit. They have ALWAYS wanted him, he would be a nice fit there.

Or he will just go to the highest bidder again.

[wallstreetamigo]

Offence generally earns more, but Hamhuis and Bieksa are hardly defence-only defencemen. The difference is they're better at other areas than Ehrhoff, so a similar amount of money at that time wasn't unreasonable.

And I'm not sure what you're talking about with Garrison, since we clearly didn't buy him out. Do you mean the trade for Ballard? Ballard was brought in to try and further build up our defensive core, a year prior to moving Ehrhoff prior to free agency, so it wasn't completely apparent it wouldn't work out.

But we could have dumped Ballard somehow and given some extra to Ehrhoff, it just depends on how much 'extra' Ehrhoff wanted since we don't really know how far Ehrhoff and the Canucks were apart. If he didn't want to accept something reasonable, how would it have affected our cap and ability to sign/re-sign other players going forward?

But were they? The team was successful, and apart from players wanting more, like Hodgson and his camp, was there any great discord at that time? Or was Ehrhoff part of the problem?

Considering how the core of the team has been largely the same and their results have plummeted, maybe Ehrhoff helped make some of those players better like they helped make him better.

He signed a long term deal at a 4 million cap hit. I am willing to bet 5 to 5.5 mil on a shorter contract say 4 or 5 years would have been enough to get it done. Of course, that is all speculation but the reality is that Gillis did not want to pay him anywhere near the going rate

And honestly other than fighting and somewhat sporadic physical play what is Bieksa really better at than Ehrhoff? Not offense. Not defense. Not helping the PP. Not fitting in with the Sedins offensively. Hamhuis is better defensively but he was also signed a few years earlier as a UFA. Inflation in salaries alone should have pointed to Ehrhoff making more. They are all different types of players. But Ehrhoff's offensive game was more valuable than Bieksa's type of game at the time. And only made more so over time by Tanev growing into a good shut down partner for Hamhuis.

Gillis should have traded or bought out Ballard and kept Ehrhoff. Because everyone but Gillis knew that despite his claims to the contrary Ballard was never going to be given any chance to replace Ehrhoff even though skill wise he was probably the closest on the team at the time to having the same type of skillset, speed, and puck moving ability. But that hole in the lineup has directly contributed to the offensive issues with the Canucks.

I am not saying get Ehrhoff or don't. But it looks like we have a GM who plays the percentages and Ehrhoff is the only puck moving dman available who the Canucks know fits both with the offensive style of the Sedins and pairs well with Edler. That is a high percentage play to help Edler especially find his game again. Worth a discussion for sure.

[DeNiro]

if he was really worth that kind of money then he would of had more than 3 years at 40 or more points 2 being with the Canucks 1 with the Sharks the rest of his career he spent 30 points or less

Except contracts are generally based on what you did the previous season, not the previous 3 seasons. See Garrison.

[Noseforthenet]

I would take him and package Stanton, Tanev, and Hansen for a top 6 forward. We need the defense to skate the puck into the offensive zone again!!!