Now that we are well into the forth day of bidding, there have been a couple of things apparent to GM Khoo. "I was telling another GM that this seems to be one huge game of chicken. Who will up the ante or be the first to back off." There were definitely some bids that caught Khoo by surprise. Most notably were:
1) Pronger ($6M+ and counting):
I don't think there is any question to the impact that he can have on a team, but that type of money just doesn't make sense to me. Maybe because I'm new and I have lots of things to learn, but it seems that could hurt a team down the road. As I'm told, there were very few teams that spent more than they brought in last year and I believe nobody is anywhere near the cap of $35M. With an offer like this, it means that you're spending between 20-25% of your team budget on one player. I don't know of a situation where that has actually worked. Take a look at TB and their big 3. Although they are great players, they don't have depth and now always squeak into the playoffs ever since they spent 40% of their budget on them. I also look at Jagr in his WAS days and Federov in CLB. Maybe I'm completely off base but I'd love to see how the team that ends up with Prongs manage everyone.
2) Miller ($4.5M):
I made a pitch for him at $2.25M and was subsequently outbid at $2.5M. But then last night, the stakes were raised by $2M in one shot to $4.5M. What was interesting about this is not the price, but who made the offer. As I understand the situation from an RHL insider, REA actually had Miller and could've resigned Miller at $1.5M last season, although he was unrated to hang onto him. Maybe the REA GM had some remorse? But this one is more understandable since Miller is an RFA and could be a franchise goalie. A case of pay now and see the huge benefits later. IMO, there's no doubt that Miller is the real deal.
A conference call early this morning with ROV GM Steve Stringer yielded the following insight: "Lesson #1 of the RHL auction: nobody** gets out of the auction under-valued.**by 'nobody' I really only mean 1 or 2 players at most that seem to slide through at a reasonable price. Everyone else is overbid, but such is the nature of competition. "
Just some thoughts from a rookie GM trying to find his way.
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2 comments:
#1 - agree
#2 - agree, although I thought that was quite the jump. Good on the REA though for not playing games and jumping right to the point.
The auction is no place to build a team. No one of any quality ever really escapes undervalued. It's the place to fill specific holes and round out the roster numbers.
The auction is like dieting, all these methods of attack, but only the strong willed gets their guy
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