Justin Schultz

[maplesyrup]

Who wouldn't want Schultz? It would be a disappointment to miss out but with the departure of Schenn and little room on the blue line anyway, perhaps a bigger, more defensively minded, free agent veteran would be a better fit for us at least in the short term. I mean sure, Schultz probably means you trade Franson for help elsewhere and the club is obviously better for it but the current defense as it stands plus another bottom pairing stay at home type wouldn't be such a bad thing either.

 

[Fanatic]

This is quite a production and a lot of hype for a kid who has never set foot on an NHL ice surface before.

Since I just don't see him living up to the hype, I am moving to the side that won't care much if he goes somewhere else.

 

[LeafsInSeven]

Friedman mentioned the following: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/opinion/2012/06/time-to-free-up-nhl-free-agency-30-thoughts.html

Since we mentioned him above, let's start with Schultz. Neither the Maple Leafs, the Ducks nor his agency (Newport) would discuss it, but heard Anaheim allowed Toronto a window to try and sign him at the draft. (There would have been some draft-pick compensation in return.) He wants to test free-agency -- who can blame him? -- and passed. It is believed he is meeting with his agents today to discuss a shorter list of teams and is to begin discussions with that group Wednesday.

That's not good if true. He had a chance to already sign with the Leafs and passed.

Well the whole point of him leaving college and not signing with Anaheim was to test the FA market right?  Wouldn't make sense for him to do that just to sign with the Leafs before even listening to other offers.

Maybe but the criteria isn't money in this case because his entry level deal is capped anyway. I guess the Leafs didn't fully meet his standards.

My best guess is that Schultz already knows where he's going and it's probably either his hometown or an NHL franchise lacking young mobile defenders like him where he'll get his best opportunity.

I see no one has brought up how repugnant this process is. It's great when your team benefits by acquiring a bonus premium player who has snubbed his first organization but I can only imagine what it would be like if a very highly touted Leafs' prospect did this to MLSE. Perhaps even more repugnant is that he hasn't even given Anaheim an opportunity to receive compensation from any of Schultz's suitors.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Friedman mentioned the following: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/opinion/2012/06/time-to-free-up-nhl-free-agency-30-thoughts.html

Since we mentioned him above, let's start with Schultz. Neither the Maple Leafs, the Ducks nor his agency (Newport) would discuss it, but heard Anaheim allowed Toronto a window to try and sign him at the draft. (There would have been some draft-pick compensation in return.) He wants to test free-agency -- who can blame him? -- and passed. It is believed he is meeting with his agents today to discuss a shorter list of teams and is to begin discussions with that group Wednesday.

That's not good if true. He had a chance to already sign with the Leafs and passed.

Well the whole point of him leaving college and not signing with Anaheim was to test the FA market right?  Wouldn't make sense for him to do that just to sign with the Leafs before even listening to other offers.

Maybe but the criteria isn't money in this case because his entry level deal is capped anyway. I guess the Leafs didn't fully meet his standards.

Or that since everyone is offering the same money, it makes sense to hear from all the interested teams more in-depth, and survey the options then, before making your decision.

 

[Kin]

Maybe but the criteria isn't money in this case because his entry level deal is capped anyway. I guess the Leafs didn't fully meet his standards.

Or he wants to hear all of the possible pitches and choose the one he likes best. To me, that's a sure sign that he hasn't made up his mind.

I see no one has brought up how repugnant this process is.

Because it's not repugnant. These guys aren't indentured servants and they're not pieces of property. A team that drafts a player doesn't own him for life. All they get is a window to try and sign him. He's under no obligation to them.

 

[Bullfrog]

Nik, I think that point is often overlooked. Schultz doesn't owe anything to Anaheim nor does he have any obligations to them at all.

I don't see anything repugnant about choosing your place of employment when there are options available to you.

 

[LeafsInSeven]

Because it's not repugnant. These guys aren't indentured servants and they're not pieces of property. A team that drafts a player doesn't own him for life. All they get is a window to try and sign him. He's under no obligation to them.

You might be right. It's actually the NHL draft that's repugnant. All players should be free agents before they enter the league and their entry salaries shouldn't be capped. Only then they wouldn't be slaves to the system.

 

[Fanatic]

Why Are Teams So Fascinated with Schultz

 

[Corn Flake]

QUACK.
QUACK.
QUACK.
QUACK.
QUACK.
QUACK.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Why Are Teams So Fascinated with Schultz

Similar unrestricted young players have come on line in recent years, from Teddy Purcell to Matt Gilroy, from Fabian Brunnstrom to Jonas (The Monster) Gustavsson, from Jussi Rynnas to Mats (The Norwegian Hobbit) Zuccarello, from Christian Hanson to Tyler Bozak. Heck, once upon a time teams went bananas over Mike Van Ryn because he managed to make himself an unrestricted free agent

No, Cox, none of those guys were drafted when they were eligible.  They are not similar situations.

 

[Kin]

You might be right. It's actually the NHL draft that's repugnant. All players should be free agents before they enter the league and their entry salaries shouldn't be capped.

You say that as if it wasn't the way Professional sports operated for the first 90 years of their existence and isn't still the way that soccer operates.

But, either way, I don't have a major problem with the draft. I just don't think the draft means what you do. You draft a player's exclusive negotiating rights for a certain period of time. If you can't sign them, they get to sign with someone else. It puts the drafted player under no obligation and it's ridiculous to think that Justin Schultz would feel some deep sense of loyalty to the Ducks because they claimed his negotiating rights.

 

[Fanatic]

Similar unrestricted young players have come on line in recent years, from Teddy Purcell to Matt Gilroy, from Fabian Brunnstrom to Jonas (The Monster) Gustavsson, from Jussi Rynnas to Mats (The Norwegian Hobbit) Zuccarello, from Christian Hanson to Tyler Bozak. Heck, once upon a time teams went bananas over Mike Van Ryn because he managed to make himself an unrestricted free agent

No, Cox, none of those guys were drafted when they were eligible.  They are not similar situations.

True, but to be fair, there are more similarities than differences. You might be splitting hairs.

All of these players are guys who were ranked much higher 2 - 3 years after the draft than when the draft was held. They were all unrestricted free agents and there was a lot of hype around them all.

 

[Kin]

I don't see anything repugnant about choosing your place of employment when there are options available to you.

Well, of course not. Especially not when the options available to a player are as wildly disparate as, say, playing for the Canucks vs. playing for the Blue Jackets.

It's also why I've never seen the idea of a player going to the KHL as some sort of terrible flaw in their characters. These are highly sought after professionals. They should field offers from the various people who are interested in hiring them.

And in this particular case, I mean, the only real obligation a player has(and even then it's really only an ethical obligation) is to be honest. If the Ducks spoke to him before he was drafted and he said "I'll sign with whoever drafts me, no matter what" then he could be fairly accused of misleading them and costing them a valuable asset.

But absent any evidence of him saying that and the far more likely scenario being that he told teams he wanted to stay in school and then make a decision afterwards he's acted completely fairly. If the Ducks want compensation for the fact that they were unable to sign him, they should lobby for it to be written into the next CBA, the same way that Major League Baseball has it.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

True, but to be fair, there are more similarities than differences. You might be splitting hairs.

All of these players are guys who were ranked much higher 2 - 3 years after the draft than when the draft was held. They were all unrestricted free agents and there was a lot of hype around them all.

The similarities are that they are 20-something's who happen to be UFA.

They went undrafted for a reason, and when they performed well in their early 20s, teams thought they were worth the risk of only $$ to sign.  They were low risk plays where you hope the player might turn out.

Schultz was a 2nd rounder who has gone through his normal development progress as a drafted college prospect.  He's not suddenly appearing as a 22-25 year old in Europe.

 

[Kin]

They were all unrestricted free agents and there was a lot of hype around them all.

But saying that hype is an important similarity around them sort of ignores that in the NHL offseason hype runs like tapwater. Every FA will have a major impact, the draft is full of nothing but Brian Leetches and Mike Richardses and JVR is a #1 centre.

A guy drafted high in the NHL draft becoming a UFA is a pretty unusual occurrence and significantly different from an undrafted free agent getting a shot, regardless of the hype that gets kicked up as a second nature.

 

[LeafsInSeven]

You say that as if it wasn't the way Professional sports operated for the first 90 years of their existence and isn't still the way that soccer operates.

Free agency isn't the way it worked before the draft. For example, before the full blown NHL draft (1969), players' rights were even more indentured to franchises at very young ages based on territorial rights held by the Canadian teams especially in Quebec and Ontario especially. Toronto and Montreal were limited in the teenagers they could hoard so the occasional great player escaped their grasps to other franchises but only occasionally were these teenagers afforded the opportunity to choose their destinations.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Yeah, we should come to expect by now that these things are going to be hyped up, we've seen it happen numerous times the last few years already.  It's the nature of modern media.

 

[Fanatic]

A guy drafted high in the NHL draft becoming a UFA is a pretty unusual occurrence and significantly different from an undrafted free agent getting a shot, regardless of the hype that gets kicked up as a second nature.

True enough, but I think the similarity that matters most (because there are similarities) is that a young, and still unproven talent, is going to generate a lot of hype and command the top salary possible not because everyone knows he is worth it, but because everyone thinks he might be worth it. At a time like this it is not such a bad thing to take a step back and ask if he is really as good as the hype suggests or is he just in a really unique situation that his agents are playing extraordinarily well.

 

[LeafsInSeven]

Similar unrestricted young players have come on line in recent years, from Teddy Purcell to Matt Gilroy, from Fabian Brunnstrom to Jonas (The Monster) Gustavsson, from Jussi Rynnas to Mats (The Norwegian Hobbit) Zuccarello, from Christian Hanson to Tyler Bozak. Heck, once upon a time teams went bananas over Mike Van Ryn because he managed to make himself an unrestricted free agent

No, Cox, none of those guys were drafted when they were eligible.  They are not similar situations.

True, but to be fair, there are more similarities than differences. You might be splitting hairs.

All of these players are guys who were ranked much higher 2 - 3 years after the draft than when the draft was held. They were all unrestricted free agents and there was a lot of hype around them all.

Probably the best comparables to the Schultz free agency frenzy would be R.J. Umberger and Blake Wheeler who are players that the drafting franchises certainly would have signed if the player was willing to sign in one way or another.

 

[Fanatic]

Yeah, we should come to expect by now that these things are going to be hyped up, we've seen it happen numerous times the last few years already.  It's the nature of modern media.

And media savvy agents.