The Edmonton Oilers offered Dustin Penner a $21.25-million, five-year offer sheet and I want to hunt down Charles Wang and beat him over the head with a hockey stick.
The deal would pays Brown $4.25 million in each of the next five seasons ... that is ridiculous. This is Dustin Penner we are talking about ... he had 45 f-ing points last season. If this sort of thing continues, and I think it will, the league will be headed to a labor dispute again around the time of the 2012 Olympics. Teams cannot keep offering ludicrous contracts to mid-level talent. Edmonton already tried to pull this garbage on Buffalo for Thomas Vanek (and failed), resulting in another prematurely-deserved high money contract. But at least Vanek averaged a point per game this last season.
Don't think I am attacking this just because it is the Oilers; I think the deal the Rangers gave Scotty Gomez was stupid as well - too many years, too much money after a poor season. I do blame it all - of course - on the Islanders and the farce of a contract they handed to DP, thus the stick to the head of Wang comment.
Offer sheets themselves have always been troublesome - the Rangers helped speed the league towards chaos when they gave an offer sheet to Joe Sakic back in '97. But again, at least Sakic was a somebody who had proven his worth, not some kid who may turn out to be something someday.
Sooner or later the league will have to step in, if only because they will lose hold of the salary cap that they were so easily able to force upon the players. I don't want to have to spend another season driving two, three hours to watch UHL or AHL hockey.
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