More on O'Sullivan

They can pay Calder 2.5, Handzus 4, and Stoll 3.6 but somehow 4 for O'sullivan is too much? que

At 4M per they should have accepted it as long as the length was at least, say, 4 years.

I don't see anything wrong with Sully getting $4 Million a season.
DL had no problem giving Handzus $4 Million.
And he gave Handzus all that money even though no other team in the league made him the offer.

Sully is worth hell of a lot more $$ than Handzus.

4 million for what type of term?? At 4 million it better be 5-7

My understanding is that at $4 million a year, it would be a short-term contract they were seeking.

4M for a short-term (2 seasons) is a robbery. It's good you guys aren't running the club, you'd be dead last every season.

I agree with DL and his argument for earning your pay. I love Sully and hope he takes home a good sum to the bank but he has only shown us one terrific season. Handzus has put up 40-50 point campaigns 5 of his 9 NHL career seasons. Calder has also put up multiple 40 point campaigns.

Sully has put up a pair of 19 and 53 point seasons and shown us that he could potentially be a penalty kill specialist. Dustin Brown has a couple and gets rewarded with a long term very reasonable contract, Sully gets 1 good season and he wants more at shorter term? It just doesn't work out.

We need Sully in the 3's for around 4 years or so. We are looking to retain our core for a long time. He has to fit with Bernier, Kopitar, JMFJ, Doughty, Brown, and Frolov for multiple seasons (at least till 2011-2012). I think the negotiations are good. I think as long as we keep him around Stoll then we are fine. I don't want to see him making much more or less.

According to your own words, Sullivan "opened" the negotiations. Therefore the Kings did not make an opening offer. The Kings may have countered with an offer to counter Sullivan's demand, but it appears from your reporting that Sullivan was the first to throw out a number.

Wow...OK. It's not clear, to me, which side technically put the first numbers on the table, so to avoid any over-analysis of specific words, I changed the post to reflect that $4 million was the first number put on the table by O'Sullivan's reps.

Rich
thanks for all of the hard work and long hours you put into this blog. Thanks also for your tremendous patience for putting up with some if the people that post.

i have no problem with Sully getting $4 million, but it absolutely has to be a "lock him up" type of contract. i don't think the guy should earn more than DB, but it's pretty clear that

1. that deal was a huge heist, and
2. the market has gone way up.

so maybe $18 million over 5 years, give or take a million dollars?

So I imagine we'll see him signed for somewhere in the #4 mill range, maybe $3.5? Wonder how long the term will be?

You can't give O'Sully that much after one good NHL season...especially giving him more than Dustin Brown. Penner got just over 4 million on an other sheet and he put up 29 goals and 8 points in 21 playoff games.

These contracts are going right back to the way they were before the lockout. You give O'Sully that and you give automatically drove up Kopitar and Johnson's price.

How can we afford to keep O'Sullivan at 4, Kopitar and Johnson at a big number next year, Bernier, Doughty, Boyle, and Purcell at big numbers in the few years. We also have almost 8 million committed to Stoll, Handzus. What about Frolov...He is due for a huge raise too....

Regarding who made the first offer:

As someone who works in another business with agents and contracts, it is standard operating procedure for the company (the studio, the network, etc... the paying entity) to say to the agent, words to the effect of "what is it going to take to get this done?" The agent then responds with an opening number. This does not mean that the company in question doesn't give a **** or is ignoring the agent/client. It means they aren't stupid. The first number (in my limited experience) always comes from the agent. And the agent knows for a fact that management is not going to agree to that number. Assuming that neither party has the other over a barrel, they eventually meet in the middle...

At the recent breakfast, it did not appear to me the Kings management were nervous about OSullivan signing. Solomon mentioned that he was a player's agent for years (as was Lombardi) and a lot of times the agents try to wait till the last minute to squeeze out the best deal. They seemed pretty confident a contract would get signed. O'Sullivan seems to like playing here.

Having done many negotiations (not sports), Kings management making public comments about O'Sullivan being a core member of the team is a strong sign showing they are trying to bring him in. If they wanted to bring him in but were trying to low ball him, they would not be praising him at all (or using the Steinbrenner method, criticizing him by calling into question his manhood or some other BS like that). on the other hand, see Maverick's and others comments above about why overpaying is a really bad option.

Am I the only one that thinks it's in poor taste to be releasing unconfirmed details regarding a private contract negotiation?

I know we all want O'Sullivan signed... but this kind of unsubstantiated report can only result in more speculation and ill will.

I'm disappointed.

When I spoke to Solomon at the Breakfast, I asked him point blank if he thought the signing of Stoll at 3.6 million per annum had any bearing on what Sully would ultimately sign for or whether there was any use of Stoll as a comparable or non comparable. His response was none whatsoever. He added that a guy with only one good year under his belt (Sully) wasnt close to a proven second line center (Stoll)who could play both PP and PK and was one of the best faceoff guys in the league. Which lead me to believe that the kings were looking to pay Sully far less than the amount that Stoll signed for.

I dont think a deal is close, unless that deal sends Sully elsewhere, and if it does, we'll never keep any thing close to resembling a core together!

Reading most of these comments proves to me the majority of Kings fans don't know the difference between RFA and UFA. Yikes.

4 is too much. Kopitar will sign for around 5 and a half to6 mil. Sully should get what Brownie makes if that. One good season? Why should he get paid more then Fro or Brown? Makes no sense. These kids holding out for more cash only upsets the fans, just talk to Cammy.

$4M - 27 career goals - this is nuts. The cap will not continue to increase at the percentage that it has the last few years. How about 2.0M with a .5M escalator for 5 years? That will give hime 4M when he is 28 and a shot at free agency entering his prime.

I predict $8.4 million over 3 years, or $2.8 million per year. Reasons:

1. Age = 23.7 on October 1
2. One very good, full NHL season
3. Benefit to Kings = avoids arbitration, at end of contract player has one more year as RFA
4. Numbers fit with other players on team (Brown, Frolov, Stoll, Kopitar's next contract)
5. Benefit to player: good contract for one good season, when contract over will have much more leverage even though one more RFA year left, will be in his prime and will get huge pay day from someone if he evolves into 30-40 goal, 80-90+ point guy

IMO he doesn't yet deserve to have UFA years bought out or a premium salary per season.

Since we all love our details so much, Sully was RFA. Which by my understanding means he needs to be tendered a qualifying offer, which techinically would mean the Kings opened discussions. Technicalities are fascinating.

Patrick O'Sullivan for less than a guy that got 36 points last year? Are you nuts? Yeah, he only has one good year but it was last year and he only projects to get better. Do any of you really think that 53 points will end up being O'Sullivan's career high?

The fact that he wants a shorter term tells me that he wants out of LA as soon as possible, by the way. He wants to test free agency where he would easily have gotten $4 million per year contracts offered to him this summer.