The list of potential targets for offer sheets next summer grew smaller on Friday when the Ottawa Senators announced the signing of center Jason Spezza to a contract extension.
Spezza, who was eligible for restricted free agent status in July, received a seven-year contract worth $49 million, or $7 million per season against the Senators salary cap.
TSN.ca breaks down the deal as follows:
For the first three seasons (2008-09 to 2010-11) Spezza receives $4 million in base salary with a $4 million signing bonus.
For the next two seasons (2011-12 to 2012-13) he’ll receive $6 million in base salary with a $2 million signing bonus.
He’ll receive $5 million in 2013-14 and $4 million in 2014-15.
The site also reports that, like linemate Dany Heatley, Spezza’s new contract also comes with provisions for a no-trade clause.
Some might question if Spezza is worthy of this contract, as the deal is close in dollars per season to Heatley’s new $7.5 million per season contract, but Spezza’s numbers over the past two seasons are comparable to Heatley’s. Indeed, they might’ve been similar had Spezza not missed an average of 15 games per season in that period to injury.
The bottom line is the Senators weren’t going to break up one of the best offensive “one-two punches” in the NHL. Spezza and Heatley power the Sens offensive attack and with both now in their prime should continue to do so over the next five or six years.
With this signing the Senators have now committed over $41 million in salaries for next season for 12 players. Assuming the salary cap increases to $52 million for 2008-09 that’ll leave just over $10 million to fill out the rest of their roster.
Three key players to re-sign will be defenseman Wade Redden and checking forward Chris Kelly, both eligible for unrestricted free agency in 2008, and defenseman Andrej Meszaros, like Spezza eligible for RFA status.
Kelly might accept a raise from his current $1.262 million to between $2-$2.5 million per, while Meszaros could be in line for around $3 million per, a figure a rival team might be willing to pay via offer sheet should the Senators balk.
The big question is Redden, who’s earning $6.5 million this season. Senators GM Bryan Murray claims he wants to retain Redden but unless he’s willing to accept a pay cut that doesn’t seem possible. Even if Murray were to trade Martin Gerber and his $3.7 million per season salary between now and next July that still might not free up enough to retain Redden, re-sign Kelly and Meszaros and still flesh out the roster for 2009-10.
Ottawa will have quite the financial juggling act this coming summer after all those big contracts.
Just to expand on Lyle's calculations, the Sens have 13 full-time players under contract past this year for a total cap hit of $42.313 million: 7 forwards (Heatley, Spezza, Alfredsson, Fisher, Neil, McAmmond and Foligno), 4 defensemen (Phillips, Corvo, Volchenkov and Schubert) and 2 goalies (Gerber and Emery).
The upcoming RFA/UFA players include 6 forwards (Kelly, Vermette, Eaves, Donovan, Robitaille and McGrattan) and 3 defensemen (Redding, Meszaros and Richardson). The CURRENT contracts of these 9 full-time players who become RFA/UFA next season total $13.22. If these players all re-sign WITHOUT A RAISE, the Sens are on the hook for a $55.5 million payroll. They have to hope for a 10 percent raise in the salary cap just to ice the CURRENT team with NO SALARY INCREASES. Clearly that won't happen.
Then you've got 5 part-time kids whose potential cap hit could collectively be as high as $3.227. The Sens get into injury trouble, the budget problem gets even worse.
What does this all mean? The math is pretty simple: Pushing Redden and Emery/Gerber out the door cuts $9.7 to $10.2 in payroll and puts the Sens back into the low $50 million range.
Last edited by Matt_McCallum on November 2nd at 12:07 PM.
There's no question now is both a really good time and really bad time to be an opposition GM to the Sens. Good because if you've interest in any of those RFA's, they will be very hard pressed to do a darn thing about it while still addressing whatever needs they may have themselves. Bad because Heatley and Spezza have led the Sens to a dominant record to open this season and show no signs of slowing, even with Spezza's recent injury bug. Nobody in their right mind would think that the Sens could either allow Spezza to walk or not sign him to comparable money to Heatley. Matt's equation seems accurate to me, and Ottawa has shown they have zero problem building from within quite successfully.
Redden is obviously a goner; even if he wanted to take a hometown discount, he won't when he sees someone bowling him over with Souray money to ply his craft for them. As for booing Briere (or anyone else), look..it's always comforting to have someone to despise on the other team, regardless of validity or accuracy. Makes it more fun.
1) In our opinion Heatley's worth exceeds Spezza's. Heatley's new contract is a big discount while the Sens appear to have paid above the market value of Spezza.
2) He puts up good numbers. Certainly is immensely talented, but every time we've see him play(especially in last year's Finals) he seems to be a 'perimeter player', and shys away from contact
3) Not sure we'd build our franchise around a guy like that. Instead spending that 7 mil on 2-3 good players.
trade Redden. With Meszaros and Volchenkov in the wings trade him for a younger version for less $$. Package him with Kelly a center Vancouver seems to need.
Maybe to Vancouver for Bourdon?
They had to keep both of these guys....they are the francise. They dont' have a vezina goalie or an allstar dman to build around. They are a high octane offense with 2 solid goalies (TRADE EMERY) and a decent blueline. If I was in charge of the sens, I'd package or just plane ship out emery, redden, kelly, eaves and maybe even mezarors. Get rid of the players who are going to ask for big rases or aren't willing to either play for the same or even take a cut to keep the team together. These players have to realize that they aren't the "main guys" in ottawa and if they want to play for a contender (In my eyes its between ottawa and philly in the east) they're going to have to do what it takes to stay with the tallent.
The return on some of the players mentioned, especially emery, reddin and mezaros should be good enough to fill some holes and provide some youth and depth at the same time.
Spezza was a great signing; he would have gotten more as a free agent, and he's worth it. I don't think they'll be in bad salary cap shape.
Matt counted 13 F, 7 D & 2 G that added to $55.5M at current salaries.
First they don't retain one of their goalies; Either one saves over 2.5M over a backup.
Redden is taking a pay cut. He stays for less or he leaves and gets less as a free agent. He's not getting $6.5M from anybody (not even Edmonton). Either way it's not a big loss. If they sign Meszaros with the 4 they have under contract, they still have (one of?) the best D in the league.
I'm Lyle Richardson, also known as Spector, Foxsports.com 's "Prince of Pucks".,which is based on the fact I live in Prince Edward Island, Canada and I couldn't think of a better byline. I've been an NHL hockey commentator since 1998 on my website, Spector's Hockey, and I'm a contributing writer for Foxsports.com , The Hockey News and Eishockey News. I'm also a regular on The Faceoff Hockey Show and a frequent guest on "The Late Crew" on The Team 1200 Ottawa.
