Terry Frei's latest 'article' on Sakic and his timeline for re-upping or retiring is now littering the intrawebs. I'm still seeing red over this one. It doesn't make any sense. He uses shady math and jumps to more conclusions than American intelligence experts looking for WMD's.
Here's some of the gem's from this article:
If Joe Sakic retires, the Avalanche would have a modest payroll.
The team also would be fortunate to win 25 games next season.
And Denver fans would be introduced to small-market hockey.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Because missing Joe Sakic for a huge chunk of last season resulted in a winless streak of unparalleled proportions. (I'm rolling my eyes, can you hear it?)
I think the most damning things I can say about those statements are comments from Greg Ballentine and George James Malik, respectively, over at Red Wings-centric Kukla's Korner:
Apparently market size (which I thought was largely population dependent) is actually driven by the presence or absence of Joe Sakic.
Or maybe when most people talk about market size they really have no clue what they are talking about.
I don’t buy that. Even as a Wings fan, the Avs have a solid base of talent, and without Sakic, they’re still a 7/8/9th-place finisher.
You heard it here first: RW fans think Frei is clueless.
The reality is that the absence of Joe Sakic from this rebuilding team won't make or break the season. It won't damage the franchise beyond repair, especially when Son of Stastny is in-line to be the face of the franchise moving forward. Fan-favorite Foote is back, there will be constant rumors of Forsberg riding in like the cavalry, and they've still got Stastny, Wolski, Svatos, Smyth, Tucker, and Hejduk to fill seats. I think that in the absence of anything to write about, Frei just likes to spew panic-filled garbage.
I also don't know where Frei is coming up with a $3 million dollar contract for Svatos. How does an injury-prone forward with no set-up abilities get more money than Wolski through arbitration? We've all figured in the $2-2.5 million range.
Also, he states:
The remainder of the roster is no sure thing, but if it also includes Scott Parker, David Jones, T.J. Hensick, Kyle Cumiskey and McLeod, all under contract; and the still-unsigned Cody McCormick, that would be about another $4 million for 2008-09.
From nhlnumbers.com, the sum of Parker, Jones, Hensiiiick, Cumiskey, and McLeod ($522 k per DD's post) is $2.77 million, using averages for cap hit. Are the Avs really going to pay McCormick $1.23 million when he spent most of the year in the A last season? Again, bad math or more sky-is-falling crap? You can guess what I think.
The only real insight in the article is the little tidbits related to the Nuggets' luxury-tax impact on the Av's bottom line. Why doesn't he chase that down and give us something real to talk about instead of opining the death of the team and fanbase? Why, because that would be called journalism. Something all to absent in MSM these days.