Sports network: Corey Masisak on Jeff Marek’s show on the San Jose Sharks pending release of the forward Timo Meyer.
** NHLRumors.com transcript
Marek: “One of the things that I think we’ll be watching all season is the Timo Meyer situation and the next contract. For those who don’t follow the San Jose Sharks closely, his AAV, his cap hit is $6 million, but his qualifying offer is just to keep him and keep his rights, San Jose has to qualify him for $10 million.
Was there any indication of what it would look like? What will these negotiations be? What is the relationship between the player and the new general manager in this organization? As you can see the Tyme-Meier situation is playing itself out and this season isn’t exactly helping his own cause right now.
He was game last year. We estimate that he should score 40 goals every year. He has two points after six games.
How do you see the Mayer situation playing out here?”
Masisak: “I think with the new general and the new coach, and really the new regime, there’s really been a wrinkle. I think it will just be last year they were Thomas Hertl in a similar situation to keep it for a long time or not?
At the time, I thought it was either, or neither. If you’re all in one, you’d better be all in the other. Just because I’m not really sure it will leave them for the next few years if they don’t have both. Or, we’d know exactly where they’d go if they didn’t have any of them.
Therefore, Mike Grier and an agent Claude Lemieux both said they were in no rush. They seem to want to get to know each other. Timo wants to meet the coaching staff and the general manager. So there’s no rush to do anything right now, but like you said, it’s just different, if they qualified him at $6 million or $7 million, and they were looking at it, we could do a two-year deal or a six-year deal, like normal negotiations, I think it would be much different than — is it either a one-year, $10 million deal and then hit the market, or can you get him under ten a year? Or he just feels that with all the contracts that have been signed over the past couple of offseasons, maybe, maybe, he’ll be worth more than $10 million.
And obviously they, the Sharks, can say they want to keep him, but they also have to worry about how tight they are against the cap. Now if the cap starts going up it will help them a bit. The only question is that they can probably keep him if they really, really want to, and he really, really wants to stay. The point is whether these things will be true or not.’
Marek: “Always, as the manager and the owners will constantly bring it up, it’s a very difficult thing to go through when you have a salary cap problem because you’re facing a cap and there’s no playoff revenue.
There are some big ticket items here. You mentioned Tomas Hertl, he came back to the team last year, it’s an $8 million deal. Logan Couture is also $8 million. Karlsson’s deal is $11.50. The holder costs $7. Someone likes it Kevin Labank, which is worth $4.7, he won the night against the New York Rangers. There’s a big cash commitment here, and now that you’re the owner of the San Jose Sharks, you don’t see the return on any of that.”
Masisak: “Yeah, I think, I think, I’d say they’re probably very lucky in this scenario with an owner who doesn’t seem particularly interested in whether he loses $5 million this year or $10 million in this year.
He is a very interesting character. I’ve been trying to learn more about him this year by working on a story about him. He wants to win. When the team was winning, he was the best host in the sport, everyone loves him, and now when they’re not winning, the fans want him to just reboot and start over, and that’s just not in his character.
I think they’re in a scenario where they just don’t want to not win on purpose, but maybe the lineup is leading them in that direction. But at the same time, as I said before, if you don’t have Tim Mayer for the next few years, it’s going to be very difficult for them to turn it around without a complete turn to the bottom for a few years.
I think every time there was a GM job opening someone said one of the best owners in the league, one of the worst Cap Friendly pages. This is the kind of work Mike Grier inherited here. There are some very significant pros to this job, and there have been some cons as well. It’s just a matter of how much patience everybody will have to deal with it, because there are certain contracts that they may not be able to move or get out of for three or four years.”
** NHLRumors.com transcript
NHL Rumors: San Jose Sharks Timo Meier is entering the final year of his contract
