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While you were maybe sleeping, the Flyers signed Shea Weber to a big old offer sheet:
Breaking: Shea Weber agrees to offer sheet with Philadelphia. 14 years, upwards of $100 mil. Preds have 7 days to match. Wow!!
— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) July 19, 2012
Paul Holmgren is like a less-talkative Brian Burke, who also happens to believe in offer sheets. As our friends and enemies at Broad Street Hockey point out, this would mean the Flyers give up their next 4 first-rounders, per section 10.4 of the 2005 CBA:
Any Club that is entitled to but does not exercise its Right of First Refusal pursuant to Section 10.3 shall be entitled to obtain Draft Choice Compensation from the New Club. The number and quality of draft choices due to the Prior Club shall be based on the average annual value of the compensation contained in the Principal Terms (as defined in Section 10.3(e) hereof) of the New Club's Offer Sheet (determined by dividing such compensation by the lesser of the number of years of the Offer Sheet or five), based on the following scale:
The scale, from this Globe and Mail article, is:
- $1,110,249 or below - No Compensation
- Over $1,110,249 to $1,682,194 - 3rd round pick
- Over $1,682,194 to $3,364,391 - 2nd round pick
- Over $3,364,391 to $5,046,585 - 1st round pick, 3rd
- Over $5,046,585 to $6,728,781 - 1st round pick, 2nd, 3rd
- Over $6,728,781 To $8,410,976 - Two 1st Round Picks, 2nd, 3rd
- Over $8,410,976 - Four 1st Round Picks
As the contract is longer than 5 years, you divide the total value by 5. 100+ million divided by 5....carry the two...is 20+ million, which you'll notice is greater than 8.4 million. So the Flyers would give up 4 first round picks (and on Chris Pronger's career, I'm assuming).
David Poile, the Predators GM, has been through this before - he was in Washington in 1990 when Scott Stevens got offer-sheeted. That didn't turn out too well for Washington, so I'm just going to assume that the Flyers just negotiated a lifetime contract between Shea Weber and the Predators until I hear otherwise.
Highlight:
Chara still shoots harder.