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Warning unpopular opinion ahead

Jan. 21, 2020 at 1:49 p.m.
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Brace for the Storm
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A lot of you are gonna disagree with me but Weber's deal contract is fine.

Let's take a look at it shall we?

Weber is 34, 35 at the end of this season. He'll be 40 at the end of the contract. Now, I called Burns' deal an awful one cause it ends when he'll be 40 but there are a few things to consider here... SJ has a lot of long term deals (Vlasic, EK, Burns, Kane, Couture and Jones(ouch)). So Burns deal WILL hurt SJ sooner rather than later, mark my words, in 2 years. Now, MTL only has one long term deal beside Weber, that being Price's contract.

Another thing to consider here is that SJ wanted to continue contending for a cup, this season and next season... maybe even in 2 years, who know? Now, MTL, with Brook, Caufield, KK, Mete, Fleury, Poehling and Suzuki being at best 2 years away from their prime, 4 years in some cases, 5 even for some others, this team won't contend for a cup for 2 years. And with possibly Petry and Tatar leaving until the 2020 TDL, MTL won't be in a cap crunch until at least 2024, which is an amazing thing for them.


Plus, you have to remember that Weber's deal will be coming off the books EXACTLY when most of their young ore (KK, Suzuki, Caufield, Peohling, Fleury, Romanov and Brook) will be looking for significant pay raises.


And mark my words, Weber will be a top pairing d-man until 37 years old (2 seasons after this one), so MTL won't have any major troubles with him. And he'll be a top 4 d-man until the end of his career. Don't forget also his leadership and he'll be an amazing mentor for yound d-men coming up next season.


Let me know what you guys think...
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Jan. 21, 2020 at 1:54 p.m.
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weber could just stand there and be a difference. he is a leader and a pro ,got to start briging in some younger dmen though. fleury will be a top four ,not sure about romanov mite stay in russia
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Feb. 6, 2020 at 1:40 p.m.
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Quoting: KakkoForMauriceRichardAward
A lot of you are gonna disagree with me but Weber's deal contract is fine.

Let's take a look at it shall we?

Weber is 34, 35 at the end of this season. He'll be 40 at the end of the contract. Now, I called Burns' deal an awful one cause it ends when he'll be 40 but there are a few things to consider here... SJ has a lot of long term deals (Vlasic, EK, Burns, Kane, Couture and Jones(ouch)). So Burns deal WILL hurt SJ sooner rather than later, mark my words, in 2 years. Now, MTL only has one long term deal beside Weber, that being Price's contract.

Another thing to consider here is that SJ wanted to continue contending for a cup, this season and next season... maybe even in 2 years, who know? Now, MTL, with Brook, Caufield, KK, Mete, Fleury, Poehling and Suzuki being at best 2 years away from their prime, 4 years in some cases, 5 even for some others, this team won't contend for a cup for 2 years. And with possibly Petry and Tatar leaving until the 2020 TDL, MTL won't be in a cap crunch until at least 2024, which is an amazing thing for them.


Plus, you have to remember that Weber's deal will be coming off the books EXACTLY when most of their young ore (KK, Suzuki, Caufield, Peohling, Fleury, Romanov and Brook) will be looking for significant pay raises.


And mark my words, Weber will be a top pairing d-man until 37 years old (2 seasons after this one), so MTL won't have any major troubles with him. And he'll be a top 4 d-man until the end of his career. Don't forget also his leadership and he'll be an amazing mentor for yound d-men coming up next season.


Let me know what you guys think...


Yep agreed on most accounts.

You have to look deep to see why Weber's contract isn't as bad as people make it out to be and most people don't want to do that is the problem. Is it perfect? of course not but its far from some of the other albatross contracts out there. like Carey Price's for example. That contract is going to hurt the Habs wayyyyyy more than Weber's ever will.

As for Weber though:
- He doesn't have trade protection. Lots of GM's respect this guy a lot. Trading him shouldn't be that hard (Just not necessarily for the price people would want and that's fine)
- He has one of those pre-lockout contracts (If he retires early, Habs have all but ensured that Nashville will have to acquire him back to avoid a huge cap recapture penalty)
- His contract his top heavy. His cap is still high but his actual salary is low in the final 4 seasons of his contract. Many teams could use his contract to reach the cap floor 1M in salary and 7.8 in cap. That is cheap owner's wet dream.

So aside from his on ice ability, he as an asset still has value in other ways than just producing. So all the things people like to use as reasons for why his contract is bad, is based one scenario and one scenario only.

1: He becomes Brent Seabrook level bad as soon as next year. Like It makes more sense to not play him then to give him bottom pairing minutes type of bad. but has he given you any indication of this yet?Nope
2: He, despite being older and to a certain extent injury prone recently, never gets majorly injured ever again. Only normal that he'll break down more as he ages so staying 100% healthy is virtually impossible. meaning Habs have LTIR to help with cap and if health becomes bad enough, he may juts retire early.
3: He publicly states he wants to play out his contract regardless of the fact that he makes peanuts in his final seasons at his age and or is still good enough to play in the NHL. Yeah because he has sooo many incentives to put his body through all that despite not being good enough, being paid peanuts and risk getting injured again/more, etc.

That is only scenario in which the Habs are screwed. If not all 3 of those criterion are met, then there isn't a problem. Every single potential negative has a fall back that can either relieve some of the negatives or remove them altogether.

- If he gets injured: LTIR helps us and if its later in his career he may want to just hang up the skates instead which means Nashville needs to acquire him from us in order to not get dinged with the massive cap penalty.
- If he becomes Brent Seabrook level bad, will he want to continue to play out his contract in the latter stages of his career after already earning most of his money and making a fraction of his actual cap hit? Why would he? He's vet, he's a respected vet. He's done it all already. Nothing left to prove especially if he knows nobody wants him anymore.
- If publicly states he wants to finish his contract, he has to be 1) also playing badly to the point of the Habs not wanting him anymore and 2) not getting injured often so that the Habs can't even get cap relief from him, for it to negatively affect the Habs.

He may want to just straight up void his contract near the end if he's not feeling it anymore also. Its not like he needs those few extra seasons at 1M a year anymore right? He's earned a crap ton of money already. whats another 1M to someone whose earned over 100M in his career already?

As for the on ice factor, he is being hailed as a just missed out Norris candidate at 34 this year. Even if he would regress each year going forward, he's still going to provide enough on ice ability to earn his keep with the Habs. So lets say he only is worth 3-4M in a couple years based on play when he's still making 7.8M........ is that going to really going to haunt the Canadiens?
THEY CAN'T EVEN SPEND UP TO THE CAP IF THEY WANTED TO.

Too many times people project based on age solely that his contract is bad but that is yet to be seen and as for right now he's better than a lot of NHL teams best dmen. No indication that should stop next year either with the way he's playing. So if you are basing that his contract will be bad when he's 37-38, well yeah maybe he won't be as good sure but that's only a small fraction of the total contract anyway. If 11 out of those 14 years he was a Norris calibre dman, than I think we can survive with the last 3 years of him being not that great ASSUMING his play indeed falls off a cliff............ In which he may not even still be around to negatively impact the team that has him anyway.

If he had started playing horrendously already, then fine you have a point but he hasn't been bad since joining the Habs. So until then you can't exactly say his contract will be bad. There is just as much evidence to say he'll be at the very least usable for the remainder of his contract than him falling off a complete cliff.

So why do so many people say Weber's contract is bad again? Oh right because they all have crystal balls and know exactly what will happen when he's 38.... ok sure, keep telling yourself that.
 
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