Ferguson Should Be Congradulated
After a few years of hatred from the fans and criticism form reporters and analysts, I feel that John Ferguson Jr. has earned himself a contract extension for a few years, as he has finally found a direction for this team to go in and has learned form his mistakes.
First thing is first thing is first, hands down the best signing so far this off season has been Jason Blake. Call me bias I don’t care, but I don’t see how players like Briere, Drury and Gomez are worth mid 7 million dollar contracts, and a player such as Paul Kariya who’s game is tailing off is worth 6. To go after a “second tier” player for only $4 million a year, not to mention he has the most goals out of any of the free agents this summer, with the exception of Teemu Selanne who clearly isn’t going anywhere. To get a player like that locked up for 5 years, for only 4 million a year was pure genius
Secondly it seems as though he has learned from his mistakes and is trying to correct them to the best of his ability. The McCabe deal was a complete failure, and I don’t see this guy being any more valuable to the Leafs on defence then Carlo Coliacovo is when he’s healthy. All McCabe does is take up a big portion of salary that could be used to sign another 2 forwards or a forward and a D man.
The second mistake he has made that we see and hear about him trying to Pavel Kubina. 5 million a year for this guy is about 3 million too much. That being said, if this contract can be dumped, it would probably be smart to just save the cap room until next year. Odds are the cap will either go down or stay the same. With teams like Philly, New York and Colorado spending like mad men this summer, next years crop of UFA’s will be a huge improvement from this year, and it’d be great to have a little extra cash to spend.
Let’s not forget next summer players such as Wellwood, Steen and others will need extension and probably want 1 million +.
I’m not saying that he’s the greatest GM in the world, but JFJ certainly deserves a bit more time in charge as he’s starting to get positive opinions on the rumours we hear, instead of negative ones.