My Last Words On Brian Campbell

[SabresFan220]

For this entire season all Sabres fans have debated what Brian Campbell's real value is. While we know he will be paid a minimum of $6 million in the offseason as the top defenseman in the UFA market, is he really worth that? Looking at other similar defensemen and the top notch defensemen across the league that make the kind of money Campbell will get, the answer certainly appears to be no.

All salaries courtesy of NHLPA.com:

Defensemen I think are similar to Campbell (I've bolded the most notable ones and I'm excluding those still on rookie contracts) and what they're being paid:

Paul Martin $3 million
Michal Rozsival $2.3 million
Kimmo Timonen $8 million (sickening I know)
Sergei Gonchar $5 million
Zdeno Chara $7.5 million (not quite worth it)
Roman Hamrlik $5.5 million
Andrei Markov $5.75 million
Wade Redden $6.5 million
Tomas Kaberle $4.25 million
Jay Bouwmeester $2.25 million
Dan Boyle $3.62 million
Brian Rafalski $6 million
Marek Zidlicky $3.2 million
Brent Burns $875k
Sergei Zubov $4 million
Lubomir Visnovsky $2.05 million
Ed Jovanovski $7 million
Brian McCabe $7.1 million (Even Leaf fans hate him)
Pavel Kubina $5 million

What the best defensemen in the league are making:

Niklas Lidstrom $7.6 million
Scott Niedermayer $6.75 million
Chris Pronger $6.25 million

When you consider that only one of the 3 best defensemen in the NHL makes $7 million, and the other 2 make almost $7 million and a little over $6 million, Campbell is nowhere near those 3. The ones I bolded make around $4 million or less, granted Campbell may be younger than some of them. If you throw out players that are being grossly overpaid (McCabe, Timonen etc) the rest of the best defensemen in the NHL are paid around $5-$5.5 million, and Campbell is more comparable to them than the top echelon players. I would say that given this information the rest of the NHL should know Campbell is worth less than $6 million a year, probably no more than $5.5 million. It will be the hype of being a 2 time All-Star and the Umberger hit that will pay Campbell $6 million or more, not his actual ability.

[beTough54]

Another addition to the list:

Ryan Whitney - 4,000,000 cap hit and has already had more points in a season than Brian Campbell has ever had at the tender age of 23.

[Smapdi]

Campbell is worth no more than 4 million. Even that is high for his role on this club. We have several defensemen who have been drafted that mimic Campbell's game.

Trade him for something good for a team desperate for an offensive d-man.

[Thumper]

For this entire season all Sabres fans have debated what Brian Campbell's real value is. While we know he will be paid a minimum of $6 million in the offseason as the top defenseman in the UFA market, is he really worth that? Looking at other similar defensemen and the top notch defensemen across the league that make the kind of money Campbell will get, the answer certainly appears to be no.

All salaries courtesy of NHLPA.com:

Defensemen I think are similar to Campbell (I've bolded the most notable ones and I'm excluding those still on rookie contracts) and what they're being paid:

Paul Martin $3 million
Michal Rozsival $2.3 million
Kimmo Timonen $8 million (sickening I know)
Sergei Gonchar $5 million
Zdeno Chara $7.5 million (not quite worth it)
Roman Hamrlik $5.5 million
Andrei Markov $5.75 million
Wade Redden $6.5 million
Tomas Kaberle $4.25 million
Jay Bouwmeester $2.25 million
Dan Boyle $3.62 million
Brian Rafalski $6 million
Marek Zidlicky $3.2 million
Brent Burns $875k
Sergei Zubov $4 million
Lubomir Visnovsky $2.05 million
Ed Jovanovski $7 million
Brian McCabe $7.1 million (Even Leaf fans hate him)
Pavel Kubina $5 million

What the best defensemen in the league are making:

Niklas Lidstrom $7.6 million
Scott Niedermayer $6.75 million
Chris Pronger $6.25 million

When you consider that only one of the 3 best defensemen in the NHL makes $7 million, and the other 2 make almost $7 million and a little over $6 million, Campbell is nowhere near those 3. The ones I bolded make around $4 million or less, granted Campbell may be younger than some of them. If you throw out players that are being grossly overpaid (McCabe, Timonen etc) the rest of the best defensemen in the NHL are paid around $5-$5.5 million, and Campbell is more comparable to them than the top echelon players. I would say that given this information the rest of the NHL should know Campbell is worth less than $6 million a year, probably no more than $5.5 million. It will be the hype of being a 2 time All-Star and the Umberger hit that will pay Campbell $6 million or more, not his actual ability.

Right. And you can't just "throw out" some of the defensemen that are definitely not worth their contracts (McCabe, Timmonen, Chara, Rafalski, Jovonovski).

Rafalski is a great compairson. He's undersized, so he's not overy physical, he's extremely offensive, but he's much older than Campbell. He got 6 million per. Campbell will get more than him because of his age and the fact that he still hasn't even hit his prime. 7 million per season is what Campbell and his agent are expecting. You can thank organizations like the Leafs and the Flyers for driving the price up to ridiculous heights for this type of player.

[bduff54]

Right. And you can't just "throw out" some of the defensemen that are definitely not worth their contracts (McCabe, Timmonen, Chara, Rafalski, Jovonovski).

Rafalski is a great compairson. He's undersized, so he's not overy physical, he's extremely offensive, but he's much older than Campbell. He got 6 million per. Campbell will get more than him because of his age and the fact that he still hasn't even hit his prime. 7 million per season is what Campbell and his agent are expecting. You can thank organizations like the Leafs and the Flyers for driving the price up to ridiculous heights for this type of player.

i would add a million to rafalskis salary for his history of winning cups, i think campbell gets 5.5 in FA not 7 million. And chara is not overpaid like mccabe, he is still a very solid player and plays like 30 mins a game.

[foster]

Campbell's value is what other teams are willing to pay - which is most likely not what his true value is to the Sabres.

That's what's driving the market in the NHL and making it tough for teams to offer reasonable, long term contracts to the players they have developed.

[anEinherjer]

Anyone who thinks this is really truly the LAST post SabresFan220 will write concerning Campbell raise your hand.


I didn't think so. :D



Campbell will demand way too much from the Sabres and some other dumbass team will pay it. Good for him, and goodbye! Trade him for something useful, and watch the NHL's salary structure slide farther into the toilet bowl.

[emo]

if campbell is going to get 7 then chara is a steal at 6, he plays 30 minutes, fights, plays great defense, keeps the front of the net clear, plays on the pp, goes against top lines. That being said the salary structure in the nhl is out fo whack but at some point the cap ins't going to rise and teams who throw 7 million at guys like campbell are going to come to regret the decisions they have made. and those teams like the rags are going to shit out of luck because instead of trying to balance money they spend it on3-4 players and the rest of teh team is a bunch of 3rd and 4th liners. This strategy would actually work out incredibly well here, where darcy has really built a great young stabel of players that he can keep pumping through his team.

[Thumper]

if campbell is going to get 7 then chara is a steal at 6, he plays 30 minutes, fights, plays great defense, keeps the front of the net clear, plays on the pp, goes against top lines. That being said the salary structure in the nhl is out fo whack but at some point the cap ins't going to rise and teams who throw 7 million at guys like campbell are going to come to regret the decisions they have made. and those teams like the rags are going to shit out of luck because instead of trying to balance money they spend it on3-4 players and the rest of teh team is a bunch of 3rd and 4th liners. This strategy would actually work out incredibly well here, where darcy has really built a great young stabel of players that he can keep pumping through his team.

Go easy on Chara's knob, would you? "Great" defense, huh? Yeah, he definitely displayed great defense the last time he was in the playoffs...He looked and played like huge a road cone.

The rest of this post is great....But when will the cap stop going up? Who can predict that?

[emo]

honestly, it may never, and ti would be a shame, but the nhl is a bit of a mess right now, when at best a 3rd defenseman on a team with 2nd line defensemen is going to command 7 mil on the open market, and someone is going to pay that, where a 22 year old 40 goal scorer gets 10 for a season?

teams now are going to be forced to adopt a sabres style approach and take drafting and development seriously. Fault darcy all you want he's a head of teh curve most times.

[Thumper]

honestly, it may never, and ti would be a shame, but the nhl is a bit of a mess right now, when at best a 3rd defenseman on a team with 2nd line defensemen is going to command 7 mil on the open market, and someone is going to pay that, where a 22 year old 40 goal scorer gets 10 for a season?

teams now are going to be forced to adopt a sabres style approach and take drafting and development seriously. Fault darcy all you want he's a head of teh curve most times.


I don't fault Regier for it because no one could have ever predicted that Briere, at 5 million per season over 5 years would actually have been a ridiculous bargain. But at the time of Briere's arbitration hearing, no one was getting Vanek money. The Blackhawks really ****ed things up with Havlat before that though.

But if Regier was actually ahead of the curve post lock out, Briere would have been wrapped up for 5 years at 25 million. And like I said, I don't blame Regier for not seeing it that way at the time.

[emo]

true, I think he felt that he had players ready to step in and take briere's place. He obviously didn't think that the lack of a vet leader would be as much of a problem as it was. I think he might have dropped the ball by not going out and getting a steady vet to mentor vanek. But, no your'e right, and hence i qualified it with most times

[jlpubarch]

THERE IS A SALARY CAP...

Teams have to lock up players while they still have money available to them, then roll the dice and hope they remain productive.

Let's face it...there is no secret pact between GM's in which they all agree to help keep players' salaries down...you only need look at what Kevin Lowe did in teh off-season to see evidence of that.

So, one is led to believe that these guys are out to get players and secure their jobs.

When many GM's are all interested in the same few players while ALL of those GM's have cash in hand, the price of the free-agent goes up...its called competition.

When suddenly, most of the teams have consumed their max salaries, you will see player salaries go down DRASTICALLY.

What do you think agents are telling their clients? Something like this:

"Most teams have money under the cap, and salaries are rising from competition. Its in your best interest to cash out now, before all the money dries up in a few years."

This is precisely why the Sabres fuqed up...they failed to identify their key players and lock them up long-term (largely because Golisano has gone on record as saying "I'd do all one-year contracts, if I could.") It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that UFA's in the first few years of this new CBA would get huge contracts...

[SabresFan220]

Anyone who thinks this is really truly the LAST post SabresFan220 will write concerning Campbell raise your hand.


I didn't think so. :D



Campbell will demand way too much from the Sabres and some other dumbass team will pay it. Good for him, and goodbye! Trade him for something useful, and watch the NHL's salary structure slide farther into the toilet bowl.
Ok, so it might not be the last time I post anything about Campbell. I would like to think of this as my final justification for Campbell's true UFA value. All future debates concerning his worth should be directed to this thread.