Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Avalanche Gambled And Lost

03/01/2013 at 9:13am EST

from Adrian Dater of All Things Avs,

With O’Reilly set to essentially make at least $6.5 million after next season and probably the following two (because he still has this season and three more to go before being eligible for UFA), do you think Duchene and Landeskog are going to want any less? Stastny could become UFA after next season, how much difference in salary will he accept by then from the $6.6 million he’s been making for a few years now and will continue to make next year?

What the Flames did today, essentially, was potentially blow out the Avs’ salary structure in the next couple years. The Avs let the Flames set the market for O’Reilly’s value – and they had to swallow their pride and accept it because gambling that they’d get a lottery pick with the Flames’ first-round pick this year was too poor a prospect. How awful would it have been for this team if they’d not only let O’Reilly go to Calgary, but then gotten a worse draft pick maybe thanks to his helping them out the rest of the year in the standings? It would have been a humiliating blow.

And today was humiliating enough for Avs management. They clearly gambled that nobody would break the offer sheet code that most teams live by – especially in the year after a lockout – and that they would be able to dictate to O’Reilly what his market value would be, not the other way around. Well, guess what? They lost that bet.

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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