Edited Sep. 14, 2016 at 2:39 p.m.
Quoting: palhal
Marco: Actually Vegas is family friendly city, no state taxes also. Montreal is the worse NHL city for taxes, although most players are "corporations" so it isn't a big effect. Young American families adjusting to the the French culture and mandatory French schooling, not so appealing to Americans. Europeans are much more adaptable to any city in North America.
"Throw money at their problems". Wouldn't one guy (Weber) whose cap hit is over 10% of the total, be throwing money around?
Vegas isn't going to win the Cup in first few years, but they could establish a great base with good ELC signing and in the next summer or two add UFAs.
IMO there are going to "lots" of high priced players available in the expansion draft. The Vegans are going to have to manage their cap wisely. Also they just can't draft 30 NHLers and then send some of these guys to the minors after training camp, cause they might be picked up waivers. They will have to draft a core of guys that are still waiver exempt and will fill the roster in the following years.
Have you been to LV palhal? I have. I don't know how one can construe that it would be a family friendly place to live. Fine maybe not as bad as some places in N.A but definitely not one of the better places. Taxes are definitely a problem in Montreal but fortunately for MTL that can be combated by simply paying the player more then the market value to make up for it. Also according to CapFreindly, Toronto and Ottawa are worse. Not too mention that some big American teams are pretty close to what it is in Montreal and it doesn't hurt their chances at landing a player? Montreal is the most english place in all of Quebec palhal. An english person can live a normal life here with only the most basic french like Oui, non et merci. The private schools in the west end are bilingual friendly. The construction is by far the hardest part about Montreal not the language.
Sure Montreal might not be the most appealing to American players but the qualities that MTL does offer, Las Vegas does not. Any player not American will play anywhere but if given the opportunity they'd much rather choose a team with some history or that is more competitive if its for the same price. Plus its not like we've never had American players come here recently. Of recent memory Gionta, Cole, Montoya, etc all chose Montreal over American teams.
And then throw on top of that there are 30 other teams bidding for a players service. Not just MTL. Hmm choose Las Vegas or New York, Tampa, Anaheim, Chicago, etc Who would you choose?
Weber would be their best player for a long time until some of their high draft picks come of age and are ready to step in. They'll need vets though to take the brunt of the work load in order to teach them at their pace. Unlike in Edmonton where every 1st rounder became the teams best player at that position almost right away. That didn't turn out very well did it?
You quoted me about "Throwing money at their problems" out of context palhal, the quote is "Your under the presumption that LV will be able to just throw money at any of their problems." Which by this i mean just because LV has 10 millions in cap space, doesn't mean they will be able to sign the best players. They have to accept going to Las Vegas and LV has to outbid the other teams also. How many big name UFA's have chosen Arizona or Nashville over the years? (Ones that were on the free agent market already)
You are under the presumption that every team operates like Toronto can. "we need to be as perfect with our signings as possible because we want to make sure we're making the best decision from the group". When is reality other teams are ecstatic just to get that asset in the first place. Spend that money more wisely? Most teams can't spend that money on wise choices even if they wanted to! What does a team like LV whose unknown and probably going to be somewhat bad for the first little while going to do to beat out the other teams?
Establish a good base with ELC? Of course they will but they also have to spend enough money to reach the cap right? So what they are going to do? Spend that extra money on bargain bin UFA's and over pay them instead? They'd rather spend 7M on 3 average 3rd liners then 7M on one all star? Are you kidding me? How many quality UFA's are they realistically going to get? Shattenkirk, Marchand, Oshie and Thornton? Come on man. They'd be lucky to even be in the running with one of those guys and even if one of them was contemplating it, LV would have to overpay to get them anyway. Once again that is if one of them was willing.
LV will not take on players with bad contracts who are bad also. They have so many options. They'll take the overpriced guys who can actually play still but if you think the likes of Voracek, Weber and Ryan are going to be those guys your wrong. Every team will have a couple bad contract players and some AHL'ers available for picking. LV won't be "forced" to take a LUPUL off the Leafs hands because they are desperate... if that is their only best option they'll take an AHL'er whose on a cheap contract. There are too many teams that will be forced to leave a decent player exposed that should be the consensus player taken by LV when the time comes. In MTL that could be a guy like Beaulieu for example. Not a star but a capable player. They aren't going to take Emelin just because he's available and he's the player with the most street cred left unexposed....
Thennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn we haven't even got to the fact that LV is a business. They need to put butts in the seats in order to sell tickets (Maybe not the first year due to hype), if they have a chance to put an all star in their lineup like a Weber, believe me they will. Anyways its not even the point, MTL will never give Weber away for nothing unless his game completely implodes. The guy is a pro, he'll adapt and be a minimum of "good" player for the duration of his contract. He'll be overpaid by year 5 for sure but will be very good for those first 5. If anything by then he'll be bought out. Hopefully an amnesty buy out period will happen with the next lockout. That's if he's really that bad by that time.
It drives me nuts how much of a bad rap this guy gets. A team like LV who has no base of quality players yet, loads of cap space to spend on players, not a single big name to help sell tickets, no player capable of putting up Weber like numbers, is not going to lose a chance at a guy like Weber if he were available.
Yes every team has to be smart about their cap or they could end up in trouble but these teams that we are referring to are teams that have spent big money on guys like Dustin Brown, Girardi, Clarkson, etc etc. Not guys like Weber and also made numerous lower big money signings on guys not worth their money. Weber right now is still better than 90% percent of the dmen in the league at least. You don't scoff at that, even if it is because his contract is long. You deal with that when the time comes but for the time being, enjoy the ride.