Silly Season

The blogger Atrios (yeah, I read political blogs, too) has a name for the political primary season. Atrios refers to the political primary season as "the silliest season" or the "very silly season." As a hockey blogger, in the post-lockout era NHL, I refer to the first day of unrestricted free agency as the "very silly season" or as the "silliest of seasons."

Honestly, looking at the contracts that were handed out today: Are these teams serious? You are committing millions of dollars over several years to players who are very good players, All-Star players, but not franchise players? The Rangers are seriously paying Scott Gomez 50 million dollars? Really? Teams are signing merely above-average defensemen at a rate of over 4 million dollars a year? Why? Are they that desperate, or do they just enjoy spending their team's entire budget?

Granted, I speak as a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. My team's youthful nucleus is probably unparalleled in the entire NHL. As such, as a Pens fan, knowing the big budget raises our children will be due in ensuing seasons, the Pens can't and shouldn't blow their entire budget now on long-term contracts for players who might catapult them from "exceptionally promising young team" to "hands-on favorite to capture the Cup."

And that's the thing that most "gets" me about these ludicrous free agent signings. I can understand the concept of going "for broke," literally and figuratively, if in going for broke, you have positioned your team as one of the top five teams in the league, a team that could be legitimately and realistically picked by prognasticators to go all the way. But I fail to understand "going for broke" when all you're doing is helping your team take a step from below average to mediocre or from mediocre to above-average. What is the point of "going for broke," so to speak? And for players playing on such teams, aside from lifetime financial security (a point not to be lightly dismissed), the point is clearly not, "I'm ready to play on a contender." To the free agents who went for broke today, just, please, spare me how you believe your new team has the best chance to win. Please be honest and please be real.

In being honest and real, it's easy to see that general managers who have permission and the ability to spend up to the cap will do just that. It's also easy to see why general managers will ink players to see these "go for broke" deals--they want to keep their jobs, and in order to keep their jobs, they have to improve their teams from year to year. Likewise, in being honest and real, I will not begrudge an athlete any salary a team wants to offer to pay him. Athletes won't play forever, and most aren't trained to do anything else, so they may as well get as much financial compensation as they can for as long as they can--that's how business in a free-market economy usually works.

But none of my understanding about players securing their financial futures and general managers securing their own jobs will alter my opinion that unrestricted NHL free agency, particularly the first day, is the most ridiculous season. In terms of the long-term health for the league, I fail to see how paying star players, but not superstars, exorbitant salaries, ensures the financial solvency and competitive balance of the NHL. I also fail to see how such salaries can be supported by a league that still lacks the television contract of three other major sports. And granted, those are my concerns as a fan. They're not the concerns of players who want to get all they're worth in a situation they deem best for them, and they're not the concern of general managers who have to do what they have to do to keep their jobs. But still--it's absolutely silly season.

Silly season makes me think Sidney Crosby, the best player in the game, would be perfectly justified to walk into Ray Shero's office tomorrow and demand 10 million dollars per year for as long as possible. I mean, really, if we're paying 7 and 8 million to players whose stats can't even compare to Crosby's? Silly season also makes me grateful that Pittsburgh defenseman Ryan Whitney was merely a restricted free agent and not yet an unrestricted free agent. Seeing what other defensemen received on the open market as UFA's, I can easily see some team yearning for an offensive defenseman offering Whitney close to 6 million per season. And, well, for as talented as he is, those kind of salaries are just ludicrous, ridiculous, and outlandish--and not so much for Whitney, a youngster with a huge upside--as for merely above-average players who will be out of the prime of their careers by the time their gargantuan contracts end.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing for the Pittsburgh fans who yearned for Penguins General Manager Ray Shero to make a first day free agent splash is the knowledge of just how talented our young players are. Our kids need more experience and will only get better by gaining more experience, but nothing is stopping our kids, here and now, from being the nucleus of a bonafide Cup contender. And for Pittsburgh fans, there's this feeling, perhaps right, that landing a player (particularly a player like Drury who even the dreamiest among us knew we'd never be able to land) could be the "one"--the player that puts this young team over the top, right here, right now, this season. And the frustrating thing for Pens fans is that, if unrestricted free agency were not the silliest of seasons, perhaps our team could have snatched that one player that would have helped to catapult our squad from young and promising to odds-on favorite to capture the Cup.

But unrestricted free agency is the silliest of seasons, and as such, it's best not to overpay long-term for players that your team isn't going to need long-term. Acknowledging that unrestricted free agency is the silliest of seasons, however, doesn't take away the minor sting that comes when you realize how much promise your team has already shown--and with the acknowledgement that even though it's better not to overpay with money you don't yet have (no new arena yet nor wanting a repeat of previous bankruptcies), still, too comes the frustrating knowledge of just how great your team might be if only NHL unrestricted free agency were not, absolutely, always, a very, very silly season.