Late Night Reader's Choice

This month's edition of Readers Choice comes from my old Lake Tamarack buddy Duker. He has the following Devils comment that he would like our reaction to:

Not to take away from Lou as a great GM, but I don't think he's got a handle at handling a salary cap based league. Rolston at $5, Salvador at almost $3, Elias at $6, and Arnott at $4.5 million those don't make sense. I won't complain about Kovy at $6.6 a year when Rolston and Salvador are getting about $8. The Devs haven't had a legitimate #1 D pairing in a long time and the farm system has yet to produce anything worth real note at D. Brian Burke consulted with Bill Pollian to understand how to work within a salary cap but I'm not quite sure what Lou has done.

Here is what our resident Devils blogger, The Crappy One, had to say...

the main problem is that lou has to outbid a bunch of dumber gms (sather comes to mind), but in doing so, positions himself as the dumbest. the salary cap was put in place to save owners from themselves, but as they've proven they're willing to spend too much for players that don't deserve it they've simply gone back to shooting themselves in the foot. on top of that, they've taken away a significant amount of leverage away from themselves and handed it to the players who can believe it's totally reasonable to expect some of the bloated salaries they have subsequently received. because they will get them which inevitably forces "role players" to play for the league minimum, which is why everyone either makes too much or barely anything. so the owners hurting themselves actually causes the players to hurt other players, to which I say Workers of the World Unite!

so was brian rolston really worth $20 million? no. should he have gotten that 4th year as someone signing a 35+ contract? no. can I blame lou for overdoing this one? yes. would I have done it if I were in his shoes? yes.

all things being equal, rolston should have received a contract in the area of $14 million/3 years (4.67 cap hit). it's easy to forget that he was coming off 3 consecutive 30+ goal seasons with the wild (he was one of their top producers), with 15, 13 and 11 power play goals in those seasons. he played at least 76 games a season dating back to 96-97 (81+ games 7 times). let's not forget that he was also really awesome at killing penalties. he was signed to provide some good secondary scoring from either wing.

it's easy to forget that something like half the league was bidding on him, to the point that tampa traded traded a third round pick at that year's draft just for his rights. but keep in mind that he lost 1/3 of his first season because of an injury that historically is a lingering one (it can take a year or more to fully recover from a high ankle sprain). then, once he returns he bounces around on all 4 lines, never really finding a legitimate shot at top 6 minutes. yet he still scored 20 goals last year. no, it's not worth $5 million, but all things considered, I'm not too bothered by it. of course you can make the argument that his age affected his injury and his injury risk and that's why he is overpaid at this point and frankly I wouldn't try to defend against that. he is overpaid and he shouldn't have received a guarantee for next year. but without some bad breaks (2 injuries and 3 coaches), I think that signing is viewed much differently. all contracts end up being a gamble to some degree and I think that all the significant facts would have supported taking the risk with rolston.

I have more thoughts on other folks, too. some of the moves have been completely indefensible, like hedberg adding $1 million more than any of the other completely serviceable backup goalies. or zubrus being overpaid by about $1 million. or colin white being overpaid by $3 million.