Bonus Babies Alive and Well in the NHL

Bonus Babies Alive and Well in the NHL
By Jim Iovino, Ace Reporter

Bonus: something in addition to what is expected or strictly due: as a) money or an equivalent given in addition to an employee's usual compensation. b) a premium (as of stock) given by a corporation to a purchaser of its securities, to a promoter, or to an employee. c) a government payment to war veterans. d) a sum in excess of salary given an athlete for signing with a team
Only the sports world could get its own definition for words in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. But then again, the sports world could sometimes be considered farther away from the reality than a good sci-fi flick.
Signing bonuses are all the rage in sports these days. Want a free agent really bad? Give him a ton of money up front so his old team can't match it. While this might sound close to reality, the numbers are truly mind-boggling.
Take a new job in the real world, some might call it "the working world", and you might get a $5,000 signing bonus. Supposedly this should be used to cover the cost of moving. Take a new job in the National Hockey League, and the signing bonus is a lot higher. Joe Sakic, who was signed to an offer sheet by the New York Rangers, would have received a $15 million signing bonus. Forget about the bill from U-Haul for moving from Denver to Broadway, Sakic could have bought the entire fleet of moving vans for that amount of money.
Sakic, who was a Group II free agent, was eventually retained by the Colorado Avalanche. Thanks to some creative financing, the Avs were able to match the three-year, $21 million offer the Rangers threw Sakic's way, including the $15 million up front.
The contract offer to Sakic is just one example of the tricky tactics teams are using in an attempt to get the restricted free agents they want instead of having the old teams match those offers. Is it legal? Sure is. Is it looked upon kindly by the rest of the league? By most teams, no.
The exploitation of small market teams in the league is very concerning. While the small market teams struggle to develop talented players, their major market rivals just hover up above like vultures. They wait for the small market teams' prized possessions to become available through free agency then they pounce upon them and snatch them up before the small market franchises know what hit them.

The Rangers, who lost Mark Messier earlier in the off-season to free agency, went after Sakic because they thought the Avalanche was strapped for cash. As it turned out, they were. Colorado was already paying big bucks to Peter Forsberg and Patrick Roy, and without a new arena, the team was losing money.
So the Rangers tried their luck with Sakic. They offered the superstar center a ludicrous contract that would pay him $17 million in the first year, then $2 million the next two seasons. That meant the Avs would have to come up with a lot of money really fast. The Rangers didn't think Colorado could do it. The Avs proved the Rangers wrong.
By closing a deal on a new arena and a new cable contract, the Avalanche was able to match the offer.
The Tampa Bay Lightning, another of the league's small market franchises, weren't as lucky in their quest to match an offer to the pride of their organization, Chris Gratton.
Gratton, who like Sakic was a Group II free agent, was signed to an offer sheet by the Philadelphia Flyers. The Flyers, fresh off of a full season in a brand new arena, had plenty of cash to throw in Gratton's direction. Philadelphia offered the 22-year old a $16.5 million offer for five years. The deal included a $9 million signing bonus.
The Lightning had no funds to match the offer. But what is a team like the Lightning going to do this season when they lose their best player and receive just four draft picks in return? How can a small market team survive when something like this happens?
Tampa Bay found that there's not much it can do. But to his credit, general manager Phil Esposito got a little creative. He talked the Flyers into reacquiring the four picks in exchange for two players - Mikael Renberg and Karl Dykhuis.
The trade staved off total annihilation of the Lightning for now, but how long can the exodus of players from small market teams to large market teams continue?
There are many things wrong with the mentality of the large signing bonuses given to free agents. The obvious inflation of salaries is killing small market teams. Everyone knows this is the case, but if the large markets continue to exploit this, there's no way a majority of the teams in the league can stay competitive. Sooner or later, the smaller markets like Edmonton will become nothing more than farm teams for the larger franchises.
Even if every team was on an even level, the increase in money shelled out to players just isn't paying off. If you're giving tremendous amounts of money to an unproven player like Mattias Ohlund, who the Toronto Maple Leafs offered $10 million for five years (including an outrageous $7.5 million signing bonus), what are established players going to command? Steve Duchesne will be a free agent after this season. It would be reasonable for someone like him to look at an offer like the one Ohlund received and say he deserves more. Of course he does. He has paid his dues in the league for years and should command a lot more respect (and money) than a rookie like Ohlund.
It is just like the NHL to start doing something like this. The owners complain that they don't have enough money to constantly feed the expanding salaries, but yet there they are every year making more and more outrageous offers.
When will the insanity stop? No one knows. But as long as there's some fool out there willing to shell out millions of dollars for an NHL franchise, then spend even more money on talent that might or might not help their team win a Stanley Cup, you can be sure free agency will flourish.
As a matter of fact, if the big-spending ways of teams continue, the sports world might soon get its own definition for another word.
Sucker.