Washington has signed Backstrom to a 10 year, 67 mil. contract

Gotta love the Diddling word filters.

Probably bump this now that it's official.

10 years, 67 million.

Does anyone know if this is official yet?

Thanks in advance.

It breaks down like this: $6 mil., 6, 6, 6, 6.5, 6.5, 7, 7.5, 7.5 and 8.

Wow, nice deal for both sides. Especially WSH

10 year deals are just dumb. People think Pittsburgh will be in trouble because of their contract situations? At least they don't have their guys locked up for so long.

Big Ev wrote:10 year deals are just dumb. People think Pittsburgh will be in trouble because of their contract situations? At least they don't have their guys locked up for so long.

... Didnt they sign Malkin and Crosby for 8 years each? I would call that long term .....

Yeah, because M.Richards is on a bad deal, he'll be done by the time he is 32, eh....

This is a great signing and is far from stupid. You have the potential Art Ross winner or candidate for the next 10 years at less then Briere, Spezza, Drury, Gomez... fantastic deal. Not to mention the fact he is an extremely complete player.

SDH89 wrote:

Big Ev wrote:10 year deals are just dumb. People think Pittsburgh will be in trouble because of their contract situations? At least they don't have their guys locked up for so long.

... Didnt they sign Malkin and Crosby for 8 years each? I would call that long term .....

Yeah but it looks better to have Crosby and Malkin and Staal until 2013 (Malkin is 2014) than to have Ovechkin until 2021 and Backstrom until 2020. That's just too long for a core that hasn't had success yet, IMO.

Big Ev wrote:Yeah but it looks better to have Crosby and Malkin and Staal until 2013 (Malkin is 2014) than to have Ovechkin until 2021 and Backstrom until 2020. That's just too long for people that haven't had success yet, IMO.

That's literally the only drawback to this deal, otherwise you're getting one of the best 2-way centers in the game and he's already eclipsed 100 points and 55 assists (3 times in a row).

What a deal...wow..maybe, repeat MAYBE a half million too much per year, but otherwise, a slam dunk IMO.

not to mention that if the economy gets better and the cap starts rising again in 5 to 7 years these deals might be complete bargains.

Big Ev wrote:

SDH89 wrote:

Big Ev wrote:10 year deals are just dumb. People think Pittsburgh will be in trouble because of their contract situations? At least they don't have their guys locked up for so long.

... Didnt they sign Malkin and Crosby for 8 years each? I would call that long term .....

Yeah but it looks better to have Crosby and Malkin and Staal until 2013 (Malkin is 2014) than to have Ovechkin until 2021 and Backstrom until 2020. That's just too long for a core that hasn't had success yet, IMO.

I'd be doing cartwheels if we were in the same "predicament".

N4L wrote:Yeah, because M.Richards is on a bad deal, he'll be done by the time he is 32, eh....

This is a great signing and is far from stupid. You have the potential Art Ross winner or candidate for the next 10 years at less then Briere, Spezza, Drury, Gomez... fantastic deal. Not to mention the fact he is an extremely complete player.

+1

I fail to see how this is a bad deal and yet Toews and Kane aren't? The Crosby, Malkin and Ovechkin are overpaid. Those are the deals that hurt teams. Individual players making 8.7 million or 9.5 million. Those guys could have saved their teams a lot of grief and taken 7.5 million and I hardly think they'd be hurting for change.

Just think... if Crosby and Malkin took $7.5, that's 2.4 million more that Pittsburgh has to improve the team elsewhere. And if Ovechkin took 7.5, that's 2 million more that Washington has and possibly let's them keep Semin, who is likely going to be traded, which many will say is good for Washington in the long run anyways.

All in all, Backstrom @ 6.7 is a far better team friendly deal than the other 3.

Dash wrote:

N4L wrote:Yeah, because M.Richards is on a bad deal, he'll be done by the time he is 32, eh....

This is a great signing and is far from stupid. You have the potential Art Ross winner or candidate for the next 10 years at less then Briere, Spezza, Drury, Gomez... fantastic deal. Not to mention the fact he is an extremely complete player.

+1

I fail to see how this is a bad deal and yet Toews and Kane aren't? The Crosby, Malkin and Ovechkin are overpaid. Those are the deals that hurt teams. Individual players making 8.7 million or 9.5 million. Those guys could have saved their teams a lot of grief and taken 7.5 million and I hardly think they'd be hurting for change.

Just think... if Crosby and Malkin took $7.5, that's 2.4 million more that Pittsburgh has to improve the team elsewhere. And if Ovechkin took 7.5, that's 2 million more that Washington has and possibly let's them keep Semin, who is likely going to be traded, which many will say is good for Washington in the long run anyways.

All in all, Backstrom @ 6.7 is a far better team friendly deal than the other 3.

Yes, those are odd as well. I'm looking at is as a player, why would I want to say for sure that I want to be for this team for over a decade? Who knows what will happen during that span.

Ummmmmmm, you realize you are thinking exactly the opposite of how players think, right?

N4L wrote:Ummmmmmm, you realize you are thinking exactly the opposite of how players think, right?

I think Hossa had it right when he signed a 1 year deal with Detroit. and then had it completely wrong when he decided to sign for what was it 11 years with a team he hadn't even played for yet.

I know what you mean though, they sign the long term deal so they can be guaranteed the money.

Big Ev wrote:

N4L wrote:Ummmmmmm, you realize you are thinking exactly the opposite of how players think, right?

I think Hossa had it right when he signed a 1 year deal with Detroit. and then had it completely wrong when he decided to sign for what was it 11 years with a team he hadn't even played for yet.

I know what you mean though, they sign the long term deal so they can be guaranteed the money.

Even he admitted it was a huge gamble doing what he did in Detroit.

Its more then just garenteed money, it's gaurenteed security on a lot of levels.