21.25 million bucks. 5 years. I have GOT to be missing something. Dustin Penner appears to be the latest winner of the powerball..err… free agency craziness. Don’t get me wrong, I thought he was quite the force during the playoffs for the Ducks, but man, this kind of insane money-tossing is going to land the NHL into a place that a lot of teams won’t be able to go sooner rather than later. Guy goes from the NHL minimum of 450K to slightly more than 4 mil a season.
Penner has a career year in Anaheim this year, and puts up 45 points. 4.25 million. Balance that, with the 70, and 82 point totals for the last two seasons for Brindy, at 4 million. Or the 59 and 61 point campaigns of the Cole train – who, when is on his game, is one of the premier power forwards in the NHL – also for 4 million. Of course J-Will , putting up 76 and 67 point totals – looks like flat out armed robbery in comparison at 3.5 mil a season. Got to hand it to JR last year for locking these guys up like that. What would I pay Penner? 2-2.5 mil. Yeah, he’s young, big and strong, but would I give up a 1st round (likely top 10), 2nd round, and 3rd round pick to get him? Probably not. Then again, that probably is the reason that I’m not a GM in the NHL. Now, I understand that Lowe had to make an offer that was high enough so that the Ducks would run into cap trouble, and not be able to easily match, without making tough decisions, but seems to me, that money may have been better spent on someone like Zach Parise, who with 62 points at 3.125 mill is a nice signing, course, with the Devils being plundered by other teams like drunken pirates, they likely would have put up a fight. By the way Kevin Lowe, Vanek thanks you.
In any case, this kind of spending and money throwing really makes me wonder what the heck the lockout was really all about. The salary cap is almost back to pre-lockout levels, and the big market teams are going to continue outspending the smaller market teams. I guess the beauty of the cap is that as this silliness escalates, you’ll have your first line taking up 70% of your salary cap, and will fill out the rest of your bench with AHL players. (oh wait – Tampa isn’t that far off already with ‘the big three’ ) 
Ok, enough of my ranting Catch you all tomorrow.
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