Quoting: Pensfan89
Again his contract wasn’t as long or expensive lol. He’s only got 1 year left of his 3 year deal that’s paying him 3 million in salary and only a 4 million cap hit compared to the 4.85 million that Matheson has as a cap hit. Got traded to a team with a ton of cap space that just needed a filler. I bet you could ask any gm other than Rutherford in the offseason, “if you had to trade for one who would you rather trade for, Gudbranson or Matheson?” Every one says Gudbranson. Because he is cheaper in salary, in cap, and a pending UFA. Only crap teams with cap space would even possibly take MM and he has an 8 team NTC that kicks in next year making it almost impossible to trade him unless he continues to play well and doesn’t revert back to a clusterf**k.
The length wouldn’t be an issue if he didn’t have a history of being terrible and coming off a few years of being terrible. I think he needs to play well for a year or so before the length of that contract isn’t as big of an issue. But right now he is realistically a 3rd pair dman making almost 5 million in cap hit. That’s not that reasonable. Considering our top LD and number 2 LD and our number 2 RD make less (and I’m talking about Marino’s next contract not his ELC).
see our views of this are totally different. 1st he's not a 3LD. He's a 2LD, the guy is playing 24 minutes a night for the penguins and he's not falling apart. One could argue that's 1LD role putting in that much time. So 4.8 for a 2LD is not really out of the ordinary as far as contract.
2nd Matheson was trade with 2 years left on that deal to the penguins. Lets forget the flat cap part for the moment. It's not the flat cap that stopped teams from spending money, it was the revenue, and by next season not only are they looking at a new TV deal but also a return of fans. So that part shouldn't be as big of a problem. There are teams with cap space who could spend more.....if they were making money, but they aren't this year. Teams that do make money were not shy. Look at MTL. One of the bigger teams in revenue. They spent.
3rd, he hasn't had multiple bad years. He's had 1 bad year. This is the second year in a row he's been turning it around. His play last year were not horrible. his 5v5 play corsi and FF were 49%, with a bad team. He was a -3 and only getting .901 save% behind him. 7 goals and 11 Apples.
That isn't a "horrible" year. Now I'm not saying it was a great year, but it wasn't a bad year either. Truth is he's a better player than you are giving him credit for here. That shows with his play in pittsburgh.
With a little bit better play around him he's got better results. As for his NTC, I don't think that's a huge issue. He might avoid a bad situation but I'm sure he's not attached to pittsburgh where he wouldn't waive it for better taxes or nicer weather.
If he was playing awful like Jack Johnson you'd have an argument on the length or amount of that contract. But his play doesn't really make that a huge issue. Teams can and will do far worse next year in FA. Defense will be hard to find. The league is thin, 6 new starting roles, and teams already desperate for defense. It's a prime market to move a defenseman who's youngish and playing well to decent regardless of the contract length. It's not like they are trying to move a guy like Vlasic.