Montreal offer sheets Aho [update: Canes match]

[ZBBM]

I think Carolina's response is pretty solid proof positive that this was not a good attempt to "thread a needle" when within minutes of the offer sheet their social media guy has license to joke around saying they're matching.

Honestly, if the Canes didn't match whether because they couldn't afford the initial outlay for the signing bonus or because they were willing, either for the compensation or belief that Aho wasn't worth this deal, to lose their best player a year after they finally breathed a little bit of life into their fanbase then they may as well have announced they weren't matching just after they announced they were folding the team.

Again, before the fact nobody knew for sure what their reaction would be. That they came right out and matched doesn't mean it wasn't worth taking a shot at it. Seems to me the signing bonus leverage was potentially high enough to make it worth a try. In the end, all it cost Bergevin was some Twitter snark and 7 days of waiting.  During which nothing happened on the OS front, as things turned out.

 

[Kin]

Again, before the fact nobody knew for sure what their reaction would be. That they came right out and matched doesn't mean it wasn't worth taking a shot at it. Seems to me the signing bonus leverage was potentially high enough to make it worth a try. In the end, all it cost Bergevin was some Twitter snark and 7 days of waiting.  During which nothing happened on the OS front, as things turned out.

I think you can make a pretty educated guess that it wouldn't have worked.

Like I said. It's like buying a lottery ticket. Is it financially ruinous to pay the few bucks? No. Is it maybe worth it just for the thrill of gambling? If that's your bag, sure. But it's not a smart investment either.

 

[ZBBM]

Again, before the fact nobody knew for sure what their reaction would be. That they came right out and matched doesn't mean it wasn't worth taking a shot at it. Seems to me the signing bonus leverage was potentially high enough to make it worth a try. In the end, all it cost Bergevin was some Twitter snark and 7 days of waiting.  During which nothing happened on the OS front, as things turned out.

I think you can make a pretty educated guess that it wouldn't have worked.

Like I said. It's like buying a lottery ticket. Is it financially ruinous to pay the few bucks? No. Is it maybe worth it just for the thrill of gambling? If that's your bag, sure. But it's not a smart investment either.

I'm trying to put myself in Bergevin's shoes and, while the odds of his being successful weren't real high, I don't think they were as low as hitting the lottery.  Whatever the case may be, the costs to him were low.  And, hard though it may be for us fans of their arch-rival to acknowledge, he did demonstrate to the Habs  fanbase that he's willing to buck the GM Buddies Network to try to improve the team.

 

[Bates]

Again, before the fact nobody knew for sure what their reaction would be. That they came right out and matched doesn't mean it wasn't worth taking a shot at it. Seems to me the signing bonus leverage was potentially high enough to make it worth a try. In the end, all it cost Bergevin was some Twitter snark and 7 days of waiting.  During which nothing happened on the OS front, as things turned out.

I think you can make a pretty educated guess that it wouldn't have worked.

Like I said. It's like buying a lottery ticket. Is it financially ruinous to pay the few bucks? No. Is it maybe worth it just for the thrill of gambling? If that's your bag, sure. But it's not a smart investment either.

I'm trying to put myself in Bergevin's shoes and, while the odds of his being successful weren't real high, I don't think they were as low as hitting the lottery.  Whatever the case may be, the costs to him were low.  And, hard though it may be for us fans of their arch-rival to acknowledge, he did demonstrate to the Habs  fanbase that he's willing to buck the GM Buddies Network to try to improve the team.

I think you give too much credit for the "try" by Bergevin. This was a comparison to one of us bidding $500K on a penthouse that's asking $2 million. You are not getting an NHL RFA with a reasonable or maybe even low contract offer. 

 

[ZBBM]

BTW, and this is totally incidental to the discussion, my impression here where I live, which has a sizable low-income population who have very few income opps on the horizon, is that people who play the lottery do it both for the little frisson you get from buying a ticket, but as much because they really hope they win.  When you don't have much, and are very aware that you likely never will have just by working harder, then blowing a couple bucks a week on the lottery may make sense to you.

And it does happen.  A local woman here hit for $1-2M a few years ago, and was able build a nice but really modest house for herself and one for her her son.  Got themselves out of mobile homes.  Sure, it doesn't make sense on a purely rational level.  But when you're poor, sometimes all you have to lean on are emotional hopes.

 

[ZBBM]

Again, before the fact nobody knew for sure what their reaction would be. That they came right out and matched doesn't mean it wasn't worth taking a shot at it. Seems to me the signing bonus leverage was potentially high enough to make it worth a try. In the end, all it cost Bergevin was some Twitter snark and 7 days of waiting.  During which nothing happened on the OS front, as things turned out.

I think you can make a pretty educated guess that it wouldn't have worked.

Like I said. It's like buying a lottery ticket. Is it financially ruinous to pay the few bucks? No. Is it maybe worth it just for the thrill of gambling? If that's your bag, sure. But it's not a smart investment either.

I'm trying to put myself in Bergevin's shoes and, while the odds of his being successful weren't real high, I don't think they were as low as hitting the lottery.  Whatever the case may be, the costs to him were low.  And, hard though it may be for us fans of their arch-rival to acknowledge, he did demonstrate to the Habs  fanbase that he's willing to buck the GM Buddies Network to try to improve the team.

I think you give too much credit for the "try" by Bergevin. This was a comparison to one of us bidding $500K on a penthouse that's asking $2 million. You are not getting an NHL RFA with a reasonable or maybe even low contract offer.

I'm not giving him a ton of credit.  But he deserves some.  That's all.

 

[Kin]

I'm trying to put myself in Bergevin's shoes and, while the odds of his being successful weren't real high, I don't think they were as low as hitting the lottery.  Whatever the case may be, the costs to him were low.  And, hard though it may be for us fans of their arch-rival to acknowledge, he did demonstrate to the Habs  fanbase that he's willing to buck the GM Buddies Network to try to improve the team.

I can't speak for Habs fans but if I were one I'd be a lot less interested in a GM's willingness to try to improve the team than I would be his capacity to actually get it done.

And I really think the "odds" of him succeeding were zero but the lottery thing was a metaphor about how we should be reacting to the offersheet and it's wisdom, not a comparison of probability.

 

[Kin]

BTW, and this is totally incidental to the discussion, my impression here where I live, which has a sizable low-income population who have very few income opps on the horizon, is that people who play the lottery do it both for the little frisson you get from buying a ticket, but as much because they really hope they win.  When you don't have much, and are very aware that you likely never will have just by working harder, then blowing a couple bucks a week on the lottery may make sense to you.

And it does happen.  A local woman here hit for $1-2M a few years ago, and was able build a nice but really modest house for herself and one for her her son.  Got themselves out of mobile homes.  Sure, it doesn't make sense on a purely rational level.  But when you're poor, sometimes all you have to lean on are emotional hopes.

Right. That was the point of the metaphor. If someone wants to play the lottery just so they can have fun thinking about what they'd do if they won, I'm not going to criticize them too heavily for it. We all waste money on fun.  But I'm also not going to pretend it's a productive use of their money. 

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

Montreal's offer sheet to Aho was the managerial equivalent of Jason Blake speeding down the wing and taking an unscreened shot from inside the blue line.