They rather not. Weber makes more money for a much longer time period. They don't want to be locked into another bad contract

I'd do it

no question that weber would be edmontons best d man, but for how long, he is on the backside of his career. I would not give up that much for him

my point is oilers GM has screwed you fans up so bad that you dont even know how good a trade this would be for the team

How so? this is not a good trade. So we trade Mantha who is a B level prospect, Russell who is a decent d man but 1 mill over paid, Ty Rattie who has shown success playing on Connors wing, a 1st who will be a very good player at 10OA and have his right controlled for at least 11 years, for Weber who is 32 and has 8 years left with a Cap hit of 7.8 mill?

I think maybe Bergevin screwed up some Montreal fans by having you believe that Subban for Weber is still a good deal

Don't get me wrong...I love Shea Weber...but 8 more years? I just don't see a way that you can trade Weber and get back anywhere near the value that you would if there was only 3 years left on the deal. The acquiring team would be taking on too much risk

Ok Juice, I want a best case scenario and worst case scenario about Weber. What are people afraid of exactly?

yah you trade hall(MVP) for nothing , ebs for nothing , trading draft pick for Griffith ie (barzal), sign lucic kassian, overpay flokins ,drysaddle , give away J.shultz and T.purcel , but,,, weber no worth it hahahahha your team hooped

we got something in return for our trades

Long term money has to come back in a trade for Weber, so in the Oilers case.....Lucic, only way it works for Oilers. Of course if Weber such great value the Canadians should hold onto to him, and he can help the Habs make a playoff run near the end of his contract.

In all honesty...if I was GM of the Leafs and Bergevin called and offered Weber for free....I'd have to think long and hard about accepting. It's such a tricky situation because he's a massive, rugged d-man that can solidify the core....the $7.8m is fine...it's really the 8 years of it remaining...

so, to answer your question....

Best case scenario is that Weber (who typically is healthy), averages 75+ games over the next 4 seasons and then retires before the 22-23 season when he'll be 37...that scenario also results in a big cap recapture penalty for Nashville to the tune of $6,142,857...so there's a great chance that they may trade Montreal something decent at that time, just so they can acquire the contract and try and stash him on LTIR to avoid that cap hit....that number goes up each year....if Weber retires at age 40 before the 25-26 season...Nashville gets a massive $24,571,428 cap hit. You can only imagine what they'd trade you then.

So ya...best case is he plays to the caliber of a top 4 d-man up to the age of 35/36 and then retires.

Worst case would be if he gets injured again this season or under performs...and the regression year-to-year has already begun.... Being 32 and having back-to-back injury riddled seasons with a contract that extends another 7-years at that point would be immovable.

no problem keeping weber ,the guy is solid dman .one of the best in the nhl and will be for a few more years,, every team would be better with him !,,, i just wanted to prove how dumb oilers fans are when it comes to what would help them

Ya...but in Edmonton's case it's like they dumped their girlfriend who then turned into the prom queen and they're left with nothing

For Montreal...it (could be) a situation where you hooked up with the prom queen but picked up an STD in the process....probably a cool story of how you got it but it's going to flare up for the next 8 years

OK now, give me the over-under. What are the odds of either? Which is more likely?

Before that, I'll just add some extra context in favor of my point
And keep in mind, this is not a debate on whether I agree about the trade above, simply Weber's perceived value currently. Habs aren't moving Weber because they don;t think he's good anymore, it would be because they need to rebuild and in order to do that, you have to strip the valuable assets from the team for futures. If the value for Weber isn't offered, I'm perfectly happy keeping him than losing him for nothing.


1) Some of Weber's comparables who are at least older than he is now or when they retired, who also play a similar style game: (within the past 20 years)

-Chara - 40 years old (active)
-Giordano - 34 years old (active)
-Burns - 33 years old (active)
-Pronger - 37 years old (retired but due to eye injury - best case he still had 2-3 years in him at that time)
-Blake - 40 years old (retired)

Chara doesn't look decrepit does he? Giordano and Burns look like they will be solid players for a long while despite being signed for the long time future. Pronger and Blake played into their twilight and still were prominent players at 37 and 40 respectively. Both had major injuries... Obviously an eye injury is a one an done one but Im looking previous injuries.



2) Did he really regress this year? Maybe its because I watch every Habs game that I know this but most Habs fans know this also, every time Weber was in the lineup, he was a stud. This was never Weber coming back and not being the same player as he was before. When he was with the team, he was good. It was simply that he was injured for most of the year and the team around him was playing utterly garbage while he was there.. This was his first major injury since he was 22 years old also. Not exactly something to be too worried about. Markov had back to back ACL reconstructions and was arguably just as good as before minus the natural age regression. His last injury was when he was.....you guessed it. 32 years old.


3) What exterior factors are there?

- Recapture penalty is a huge advantage. This is clearly something Poile and MB discussed and knew that when the time comes he'll have to repay MTL back to get him and it will not be for free. I would like to imagine that MB purposefully got the lesser player bye value standards because of the future gain he will get when he moves him back to Nashville. But that's just speculation.

- His contract is front loaded. Weber for all intensive purposes has a FIVE year contract, not an 8 year. The last 3 years are 1M dollar in salary. If you are Shea Weber, given all the miles you've played and injury potential like concussions, etc, are you risking that for 1M dollars a year? Ask Hossa. That's a big "no". He's made his money already. Weber is retiring early before that contract is up barring of course, he's lighting it up still, playing great hockey and in perfect health. If that's the case, its a win/win, is it not? That would still be a scenario i think he'll decide to walk away from given his age, etc.

- In addition to being front loaded, its a great contract for a team that wants a low salary player with a high cap hit. Arizona has shown that they were willing to add a player like Datsyuk and Bolland simply for the cap hit advantage, you'd be hard pressed not to think one team in the future might not be interested in that.

- Is Weber's game his skating? Its not. His game is his poise and positioning with a bullet shot. Both things he can continue to do as he ages. Chara hasn't lost his shot as he aged.... Hasn't forgot how to defend against faster players now that he is 40... Weber can continue to give the things hes good at even if he ages. He'll decline naturally as any player will but will it be top 2 dman to bottom pairing/7th dman within a 5 year span? Weber is a documented true professional and will continue to train to keep himself in shape and be capable of delivering while he still playing. I don't think anyone doubts that.

- If he continues to deteriorate, that would mean he'll be injured more often. Meaning you'll be afforded LTIR to recoup some of that cap space if needed. So this is a remedy for any worries about that.

- Finally, worst comes to worst, at the next lockout, use a compliance buyout. By that time most of his salary will be paid out already and there won't be any cap hit affected. Last ditch effort resolved. There has been a compliance buyout every year there has been a lockout so there is no reason to think there won't be one again.




So lets look at the factors people bring up again:

"His contract is tooo long!" - 5 years is too long for calibre dman like him? The last 3 years really offer no options to get rid of the contract or recoup the cap? Burns, Suter, Giordano, Vlasic, Keith, etc all have contracts taking them into late 30 and aren't being talked about like Weber. Why is Weber being singled out here? Who I remind you is younger than all those guys.

"He's declining" - Sure any player over a certain age will decline, that's normal. But right now? Easily Montreal's best dman since arriving and still producing at 0.56 ppg which puts him where Byfuglien, Ekman-Larsson, Ristolainen are this year. (and arguably better defensively than anyone of those guys)

"No one wants to be stuck with contract" - In this day and age, there is always a way. Every time we said "No one will ever move that player", there was always something. Lucic is the biggest dud and he's more than likely going to be moved. That was with players who we all agreed were bad players at that time. Weber has been and continues to be a top pairing dman. You are telling me one of the numerous Gms around the league wouldn't take a chance on one of the most consistent and reliable players in the league in Weber? Maybe you and I might not think so but we're handicapping the odds an NHL GM might trade for him.



So I ask again, what is the over under/odds of both extremes? IMHO and based off previous data and comparables, there is 1-10% chance the worst possible scenario happens with Weber. He declines terribly, plays out his contract until he's 41, etc etc. There is a 60-70% chance the best case scenario happens. He plays the next 5 years at top level/solid ability, decides to retire when his contract becomes 1M/year or shortly after , he's traded back to Nashville for picks and prospects. etc etc.

What are the odds its somewhere in between both and If that is indeed the future for him, what options does that team have with Weber? Simple answer. PLENTY. People are worried about the worst case scenario. Whats really more likely though? You talk about risk, the risk factor is much lower

Let me start by saying that I don’t think this is a discussion where someone is right or wrong...just a solid conversation on opinions.

Your points are certainly valid, I just simply disagree that other GMs look at Weber as a low risk addition.

I get equally as frustrated with leaf fans who want to make a lot of big adds now and just assumed you can trade away a Marleau next year to make it work. So making assumptions that he’ll retire when the salary plummets or will be easy to trade to a cap floor team, or will play like a top 4 into his late 30s/early 40s...while I think could be true, is not how I would personally make business decisions. There’s inherent risk that has to be evaluated against the potential reward.

There’s also the assumption that Weber will be good for the next few years, at least, before declining. Which I agree with. In this scenario, do the Oilers see themselves as knocking on the door to a championship while Weber will be impactful? That adds to the risk....but is also why I get why Montreal would look to deal him...if they don’t think they’ll be competing for a cup then they’re better off moving out all their vets. There’s probably a team willing to take on the risk but I don’t think GMs will be lining up unless there’s some salary retention or money going back the other way.

My argument would be that, generally speaking, the three most valuable assets for a team are:

1. Superstars
2. High draft picks/blue chip prospects
3. Cap space.

While I think Weber is still very good, I wouldn’t say he has ‘super star’ status right now. And so I don’t see a GM sacrificing high picks/prospects and taking on that cap hit/term.

Again, just my opinion.

Aren't all trades risk taking? Do you know the player your getting will perform? No. You have to gauge risk and look and all the possible scenarios if worst comes to worst. There is however also the flip side to this, you get a solid dman for a long time. I mean that is a possibility too.

Secondly, not taking this trade into consideration. I said that previously. Just the perceived value of Weber based on his contract.

Other factors like retention and whatnot are plausible also. Once again, this is not a "See, Weber is worth a lot and we're gonna get a superstar in return for him". This is "people are over exaggerating his value in a negative way".