The first part of the Ryan O'Reilly situation is this: the Calgary Flames offered a two-year $10 million contract to O'Reilly and the Colorado Avalanche took a couple of hours to match it.
The Flames were ridiculed for over-paying to get O'Reilly in their line-up, but if that's the case why did Colorado match? These are exactly the kinds of tough decisions teams should make within their own budget structure. If Calgary has the room under the cap and sees this guy as a $5 million a year player and Colorado doesn't then you let him go and take your draft picks as compensation. It's really not that hard a choice. The Avalanche are 13th in the Western Conference and aren't likely to go up much higher in the standings with O'Reilly on the roster for the rest of the season. Up until this weekend, the Avalanche didn't see him as a $5 million a year player. All of a sudden, because someone else does, now so too do the Avs.
Personally, I feel O'Reilly and whoever is drafted in the first round will, likely, be a wash and O'Reilly is still quite young (22 years old).
For the record, I thought what Calgary did was dumb and what Colorado answered with was even dumber.
Something else to consider: O'Reilly was after $5 million a season all along and the Avalanche said they weren't going to pay it. Clearly, that's not the case. So why not just buckle up and pay it so that you can have a key player in your line-up when the season starts? To me, if I am negotiating something there would be a window of a yearly salary I'd be willing to pay and once O'Reilly brings his price down to that window, then I'll sign him. If he doesn't come down, then he can sit (or, someone else can have him and I'll take the picks).
Watching the experts over the weekend, it sounds as though O'Reilly had played some games in Europe since the lockout ended and even if Colorado had declined to match, it's possible O'Reilly would have to go through waivers and then some other team would claim him and the Flames lose their picks and O'Reilly. Totally idiotic. Their entire management team should be fired on the spot for that potential gaffe.
What I am not sure of is that if O'Reilly is so, grossly, overpaid why are the experts so sure he would not make it through the waiver process? That means we now have Calgary, Colorado, and likely a few other teams willing to pay him $5 million a year. Therefore, he is NOT overpaid.
And, now we come back to one of the reasons why I was 'pro player' during the lockout. We have an employer (Colorado) not being honest with the employee as they, evidently, were willing to pay the money all along. We have other teams willing to pay a player money that outsiders feel is too much and that is NOT the fault of the player. The player, accurately, set his value as a free agent and should not at all be blamed for that.
The problem with escalating salaries lies at the feet of the incompetent general managers who can't control themselves. I can't believe Calgary is letting this Feaster guy keep his gig.
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