When deflation hits the economy some segments of the market seem to get hit harder than others. Such appears to be the case with defencemen. There was some brisk business in July. Actually it started in June with the big Markov to Carolina trade. Shortly after the free agent bell rang Detroit signed Derian Hatcher. But his published compensation for next season is a mere $5M. By comparison less than the $6M published salary for the aging Al MacInnis. The Rangers signed de Vries at a published salary of $4.2M for next season. Arguably a high number; but then the Rangers operate in their own private financial universe. Dallas was willing to trade away the long term obligation to pay Darryl Sydor $3.5M; and Columbus eagerly accepted. In turn Dallas undertook Numminens short term obligation of $4M+ that Phoenix was eager to pass off. Eventually Brian Leetch re-signed with the Rangers at a published salary for next season of $6.6M. The July market was in approximate balance between buyers and sellers.
That no longer appears to be the case. Such notable defenceman as Ken Klee, Dmitry Yushkevich, and Oleg Tverdovsky remain unsigned. All three have certain asterisks. Klee is a steady hard-working performer; but he rarely goes through a season without some injury. Yushkevich racked up significant negative numbers last season before he came to the Flyers. And Tverdovskys play with New Jersey was so inconsistent that his ice time became severely limited, notwithstanding a published salary in excess of $3M.
That these players remain unsigned could be explained in terms of lets wait and see how things end up. That cannot be said as regards Bryan Berard. Berard is in the upper tier as regards offensive talent. His downside is his eye injury and there are debates as to his defensive prowess. The arbitrator awarded Berard a little over $2.5M. Boston walked away. As a consequence any team paying Bryan a little more than $2M can have his services and Boston has no right to match. ERROR MSGEssentially Boston has made the statement: we do not think Bryan is worth more than $2M, even on a one year contract.
A month ago Toronto paid $2M to secure the services of 34 year old Bryan Marchment. Bryan has many outstanding qualities, not the least of which is his toughness, Nonetheless, to put things in perspective, in the 2001-2002 season Marchment was a number five or six defenceman on the Sharks (after Suter, Stuart, Rags and Rathje).
Speaking of Marcus Ragnarsson (Rags), the Flyers signed him to a long term contract after they obtained him in trade. Rags published salary next year is $3.5M .
As a consequence, letting Berard loose because you are not willing to pay $2.5M must reflect more than just individual decision-making. The market for defencemen has declined. Boston is hardly knee deep in defencemen. It is hard to imagine that they would let Bryan go unless they thought they could replace him at a far cheaper price. Cheaper means less than $2.5M and arguably significantly less or why bother taking the chance.
Assume for the moment then that Boston has set the current market price: There are no free agent defencemen left worth $2.5M. (Dan Boyle's $2.3M would tend to reinforce this market value conclusion.) Consider Ken Klee who may be the most attractive of the free agent defencemen (with the principal possible exception of Berard). Just to choose two examples: Craig Rivet of Montreal and Jon Klemm of Chicago each have published salaries of $2.5M. Without in any way diminishing the abilities of Rivet or Klemm, most GMs would choose Klee over the other two, all other things being equal.
Then finally consider that Richard Matvichuk received only $2.2M in his arbitration. Although last season was a somewhat forgettable one, Matvichuk has had many years of stellar duty. hotel a LilleArguably, Matvichuks value should be roughly comparable to Ragnarssons and recall that Rags is to be paid $3.5M.
I wish to emphasize that I am not arguing that a particular salary is right or wrong. What I am arguing is that the market value of defencemen has depreciated in the past month. All of the important and not too old offensive forwards have been signed at salaries of $3M or more. The only notable defensive signing in the past few weeks was Markovs contract with Carolina. These were dollars that had to be spent from a political standpoint regardless of market conditions.
What this means is this: Some team with $4.5M or so lying around could probably sign both Klee and Berard and change an under-achieving defense to an over-achieving defense (on paper). Risks of injury can be handled on a contractual basis (e.g. lower base with incentives for games played).
There are several teams that at least on paper appear to be relying upon $500K defencemen to fill roles once performed by much higher priced talent. They will inevitably discover that in the vast majority of cases this will not work. By the time this discovery is made Klee and Berard will be gone.
