Gomez

[GNick99]

Is it possible to trade Gomez? His 7.37 cap hit would allow us to make more moves to improve the club

The Rangers traded Gomez once and received a pretty good prospect back. Plus, Gomez contract had 5 years left on it then, only 3 years left now. Trades in recent days show teams over-paying for players to give them a shot at playoffs. Paying out good prospects and high draft picks, Gomez only involves cash and some of these teams have the caproom.

[IamCanadiens]

Who cares about the return. Just getting rid of that contract would be a blessing.

[jkr]

Anyone is tradeable. I was shocked when the Habs got Gomez because I thought there was no way they wanted that contract.

But as you say, there is less time left on the deal & as time passes, perhaps the contract becomes more palatable. His play has been so poor that I'm not sure what he would fetch right now.

[blny]

Anything is possible, but I don't think he's movable this season.

[Marvin]

Please tell me which team would take him and that contract? I was shocked when Mtl took the contract, but this time around it would take a GM who is really clueless.

[NWTHabsFan]

He might be moveable next season if he can get his production back up to a respectible level by the end of the season. A solid post-season would not hurt either, as that leadership and cup ring may lure a tentative GM at some point.

Right now, his warts are fully exposed. Montreal is the last hockey market where your struggles fly under the radar screen. All 29 GMs know what is going on with him, so a big contract for 3+ years is likely not moveable this season.

[24in93]

The best return we can get for Gomez at this point is the Gomez of old. The one from the playoffs last year. Until then, he's a Hab for the next 3+ years.

[BadCompany]

Anything is possible I suppose. Nobody thought Sather would be able to get rid of that contract the first time around, and yet...

Personally I think he could be moved very easily. But the return... well, I don't think we'd be able to free up huge amounts of salary in any Gomez deal. I think we could easily trade him for somebody else's mistake, in other words. Something like Gomez for Komisarek for example.

Would we want to make such a deal?

[blny]

The only way to dump the salary is to find someone spending at the cap floor that needs a boost to ensure they stay above it. Otherwise, BC is correct and, we have to take a contract back. Doing so severely impedes our ability to replace Gomez.

Eller and Desharnais are simply not ready.

[Boston_Habs]

I think one of the mistakes in the CBA is that you can't take back salary. In a perfect world we would be able to trade Gomez and say $5m of his cap hit and keep the rest. Nobody wants to have too much dead cap space on the team, but it allows teams to move players more easily. It should be up to the teams how to manage their cap space and if they think it makes sense to move a player, but keep some of his cap hit then who's to argue with that?

[LoupDogg]

Feb 10, 2011 16:41:25 GMT -5 24in93 said:

The best return we can get for Gomez at this point is the Gomez of old. The one from the playoffs last year. Until then, he's a Hab for the next 3+ years.

I believe that can and will happen in this season's playoffs.

[GNick99]

Feb 10, 2011 16:48:13 GMT -5 BadCompany said:

Anything is possible I suppose. Nobody thought Sather would be able to get rid of that contract the first time around, and yet...

Personally I think he could be moved very easily. But the return... well, I don't think we'd be able to free up huge amounts of salary in any Gomez deal. I think we could easily trade him for somebody else's mistake, in other words. Something like Gomez for Komisarek for example.

Would we want to make such a deal?

We could flip Komisarek to a playoff bubble team looking for a defenseman. Won't get much back, maybe an enforcer at the most.

[seventeen]

I keep proposing sending Gomez to Hamilton. All it would cost is money and since it's not my money I don't mind spending it at all. Desharnais is starting to establish a scoring pattern and only costs $7MM less a season. That's a lot of money avalable for an established top 6 player as well as helping us re-sign players for next year. I just don't think there's much downside (outside of $21MM to entertain fans in Hamilton).

[Skilly]

I've seen an analysis that shows that Gomez's contract is one of the best of all the UFAs that got signed to 4.5M or more in 2007. In today's terms, sure it may be bad .... but let's not forget that we offered Danny Briere MORE money than Scott Gomez (thankfully he turned it down), and Gomez has contributed more bang for buck (yes it is true) than Briere since that contract signing .....

[GNick99]

Briere is one of league's leading playoff scorers since '06 and 1 million less cap hit than Gomez Skilly.

[Skilly]

Feb 11, 2011 8:00:07 GMT -5 GNick99 said:

Briere is one of league's leading playoff scorers since '06 and 1 million less cap hit than Gomez Skilly.

Tried to find it ... and found this from HFBoards.

Seriously, the Gomez salary issue keeps coming up. I think it's time I explained to the board the history of what happened and why.

There is a free agent market every year, driven by supply and demand.

In the Summer of 2007, the cap went up from 44M to 50M (14%). Most of the players in the league are always on multi-year deals or were cost-controlled as RFAs. There were very few arbitration awards up to that point and thus the bulk of the big money was going to the UFAs. There were only so many good UFAs out there, and there was TONS of money chasing them as every cap-spending team had large availability, so basically every one of the big-name UFAs got overpaid, not only in my opinion, but as a general consensus around the league since.

Daniel Briere = overpaid
Scott Gomez = overpaid
Ryan Smyth = overpaid
Bill Guerin = somewhat overpaid
Chris Drury = overpaid
Paul Kariya = overpaid
Michael Nylander = overpaid
Sheldon Souray = overpaid
Mathieu Schneider = overpaid
Roman Hamrlik = overpaid (though less than most)
Brian Rafalski = slightly overpaid, probably the best deal of all

Out of the 7 big salaried forwards ($4.5M cap hit or more) signed that summer, Scott Gomez has put up the HIGHEST point total since, and it's not even CLOSE. He has 20% more points than Daniel Briere at #2, 25% more than Chris Drury at #3, 27% more than Ryan Smyth at #4, and is miles ahead of Kariya and Nylander.

Bill Guerin is the ONLY one of the seven forwards to score more points per dollar of salary than Gomez, but Gomez does have 40 more points!

To repeat, out of the seven high-scoring and highly-paid UFA forwards signed in the summer of 2007, Scott Gomez is a clear #1 in points scored, and a clear #2 in points scored per dollar of salary.

In 2008, when the cap went up 13.4% from $50M to $56.7M, there were more overpayments (Ryder, Streit, Sundin, Lecavalier, Campbell, Huet, etc., etc.).

Now here's the thing: Times have changed, and the market has changed. Not only did the cap not go up in 2009, but compared to 2007 and earlier, RFA age players now get paid relatively better, due to the practice many teams now have of locking up their good young players for a long time. Rising incomes for RFAs combined with a constant Cap means lower incomes, on average, for UFAs.

If someone with Mike Cammalleri's stats and age had been available the summer of 2007, he might have got $8.0M+ per year for 5 years instead of $6.0 million he got in 2009. However, he did not come UFA at the right year, and all of us are now adjusting to the new marketplace. In the new marketplace, Scott Gomez' salary is high, but his is NOT the worst contract in the league, and actually one of the BEST contracts of the 2007 prime free agent season.

As fans, let's try to leave salary out of our judgment, or at least not make it the SOLE criteria by which we judge a player. Personally, I find Gomez to generate decent offence while also killing penalties and making a good effort defensively as well (yet again better than most high-scoring free agents). If we can sign Tomas Plekanec to a fair 2010 market contract (see Marc Savard's for example), we will have TWO #1a centremen and make it hard for other teams to check both of our scoring lines for several years. Sure, their salaries may seem out of balance to each other, but that is solely a function of luck as to what year they became UFA.

Furthermore, this "luck", good or bad, happens not only to players but to teams, which explains why most teams have some overpaid players and some underpaid players. The Habs are not alone in this respect. It's all due to timing and tends to average out.

[jkr]

Feb 11, 2011 8:04:22 GMT -5 Skilly said:

Feb 11, 2011 8:00:07 GMT -5 GNick99 said:

Briere is one of league's leading playoff scorers since '06 and 1 million less cap hit than Gomez Skilly.

Tried to find it ... and found this from HFBoards.

Seriously, the Gomez salary issue keeps coming up. I think it's time I explained to the board the history of what happened and why.

There is a free agent market every year, driven by supply and demand.

In the Summer of 2007, the cap went up from 44M to 50M (14%). Most of the players in the league are always on multi-year deals or were cost-controlled as RFAs. There were very few arbitration awards up to that point and thus the bulk of the big money was going to the UFAs. There were only so many good UFAs out there, and there was TONS of money chasing them as every cap-spending team had large availability, so basically every one of the big-name UFAs got overpaid, not only in my opinion, but as a general consensus around the league since.

Daniel Briere = overpaid
Scott Gomez = overpaid
Ryan Smyth = overpaid
Bill Guerin = somewhat overpaid
Chris Drury = overpaid
Paul Kariya = overpaid
Michael Nylander = overpaid
Sheldon Souray = overpaid
Mathieu Schneider = overpaid
Roman Hamrlik = overpaid (though less than most)
Brian Rafalski = slightly overpaid, probably the best deal of all

Out of the 7 big salaried forwards ($4.5M cap hit or more) signed that summer, Scott Gomez has put up the HIGHEST point total since, and it's not even CLOSE. He has 20% more points than Daniel Briere at #2, 25% more than Chris Drury at #3, 27% more than Ryan Smyth at #4, and is miles ahead of Kariya and Nylander.

Bill Guerin is the ONLY one of the seven forwards to score more points per dollar of salary than Gomez, but Gomez does have 40 more points!

To repeat, out of the seven high-scoring and highly-paid UFA forwards signed in the summer of 2007, Scott Gomez is a clear #1 in points scored, and a clear #2 in points scored per dollar of salary.

In 2008, when the cap went up 13.4% from $50M to $56.7M, there were more overpayments (Ryder, Streit, Sundin, Lecavalier, Campbell, Huet, etc., etc.).

Now here's the thing: Times have changed, and the market has changed. Not only did the cap not go up in 2009, but compared to 2007 and earlier, RFA age players now get paid relatively better, due to the practice many teams now have of locking up their good young players for a long time. Rising incomes for RFAs combined with a constant Cap means lower incomes, on average, for UFAs.

If someone with Mike Cammalleri's stats and age had been available the summer of 2007, he might have got $8.0M+ per year for 5 years instead of $6.0 million he got in 2009. However, he did not come UFA at the right year, and all of us are now adjusting to the new marketplace. In the new marketplace, Scott Gomez' salary is high, but his is NOT the worst contract in the league, and actually one of the BEST contracts of the 2007 prime free agent season.

As fans, let's try to leave salary out of our judgment, or at least not make it the SOLE criteria by which we judge a player. Personally, I find Gomez to generate decent offence while also killing penalties and making a good effort defensively as well (yet again better than most high-scoring free agents). If we can sign Tomas Plekanec to a fair 2010 market contract (see Marc Savard's for example), we will have TWO #1a centremen and make it hard for other teams to check both of our scoring lines for several years. Sure, their salaries may seem out of balance to each other, but that is solely a function of luck as to what year they became UFA.

Furthermore, this "luck", good or bad, happens not only to players but to teams, which explains why most teams have some overpaid players and some underpaid players. The Habs are not alone in this respect. It's all due to timing and tends to average out.

Did he have the actual numbers posted - I see he is just quoting % comparisons. Looks interesting but I'd like to see the actual figures.

[BadCompany]

Feb 11, 2011 8:04:22 GMT -5 Skilly said:

Feb 11, 2011 8:00:07 GMT -5 GNick99 said:

Briere is one of league's leading playoff scorers since '06 and 1 million less cap hit than Gomez Skilly.

Tried to find it ... and found this from HFBoards.

Seriously, the Gomez salary issue keeps coming up. I think it's time I explained to the board the history of what happened and why.

There is a free agent market every year, driven by supply and demand.

In the Summer of 2007, the cap went up from 44M to 50M (14%). Most of the players in the league are always on multi-year deals or were cost-controlled as RFAs. There were very few arbitration awards up to that point and thus the bulk of the big money was going to the UFAs. There were only so many good UFAs out there, and there was TONS of money chasing them as every cap-spending team had large availability, so basically every one of the big-name UFAs got overpaid, not only in my opinion, but as a general consensus around the league since.

Daniel Briere = overpaid
Scott Gomez = overpaid
Ryan Smyth = overpaid
Bill Guerin = somewhat overpaid
Chris Drury = overpaid
Paul Kariya = overpaid
Michael Nylander = overpaid
Sheldon Souray = overpaid
Mathieu Schneider = overpaid
Roman Hamrlik = overpaid (though less than most)
Brian Rafalski = slightly overpaid, probably the best deal of all

Out of the 7 big salaried forwards ($4.5M cap hit or more) signed that summer, Scott Gomez has put up the HIGHEST point total since, and it's not even CLOSE. He has 20% more points than Daniel Briere at #2, 25% more than Chris Drury at #3, 27% more than Ryan Smyth at #4, and is miles ahead of Kariya and Nylander.

Bill Guerin is the ONLY one of the seven forwards to score more points per dollar of salary than Gomez, but Gomez does have 40 more points!

To repeat, out of the seven high-scoring and highly-paid UFA forwards signed in the summer of 2007, Scott Gomez is a clear #1 in points scored, and a clear #2 in points scored per dollar of salary.

In 2008, when the cap went up 13.4% from $50M to $56.7M, there were more overpayments (Ryder, Streit, Sundin, Lecavalier, Campbell, Huet, etc., etc.).

Now here's the thing: Times have changed, and the market has changed. Not only did the cap not go up in 2009, but compared to 2007 and earlier, RFA age players now get paid relatively better, due to the practice many teams now have of locking up their good young players for a long time. Rising incomes for RFAs combined with a constant Cap means lower incomes, on average, for UFAs.

If someone with Mike Cammalleri's stats and age had been available the summer of 2007, he might have got $8.0M+ per year for 5 years instead of $6.0 million he got in 2009. However, he did not come UFA at the right year, and all of us are now adjusting to the new marketplace. In the new marketplace, Scott Gomez' salary is high, but his is NOT the worst contract in the league, and actually one of the BEST contracts of the 2007 prime free agent season.

As fans, let's try to leave salary out of our judgment, or at least not make it the SOLE criteria by which we judge a player. Personally, I find Gomez to generate decent offence while also killing penalties and making a good effort defensively as well (yet again better than most high-scoring free agents). If we can sign Tomas Plekanec to a fair 2010 market contract (see Marc Savard's for example), we will have TWO #1a centremen and make it hard for other teams to check both of our scoring lines for several years. Sure, their salaries may seem out of balance to each other, but that is solely a function of luck as to what year they became UFA.

Furthermore, this "luck", good or bad, happens not only to players but to teams, which explains why most teams have some overpaid players and some underpaid players. The Habs are not alone in this respect. It's all due to timing and tends to average out.

More than a few flaws in that argument, if you ask me.

* Briere was hurt. Yes, that means he wasn't producing, but in a cap world it also means that his salary was off the books and somebody else stepped in and replaced him. What are Briere's plus that person's numbers?

* Best of the worst signings, even if true, doesn't not make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

* Five of the ten players listed above are no longer in the NHL, and thus no longer cap problems for their teams. Gomez still is, and unless we bury him in the minors (which would be the highest "burying" amount ever put in the minors), will be for another three years.

* We traded for Gomez. The other guys cost their teams nothing but money. We gave up assets, and if McDonagh is as good as he has been hyped, and as good as he has been playing for the Rangers so far, we gave up good assets.

* We traded for Gomez two years after he signed the contract, in 2009, when as the original poster stated "(n)ot only did the cap not go up in 2009, but compared to 2007 and earlier, RFA age players now get paid relatively better, due to the practice many teams now have of locking up their good young players for a long time. Rising incomes for RFAs combined with a constant Cap means lower incomes, on average, for UFAs." In other words, we should have known better.

[CentreHice]

Crunch the numbers any way you like...this year he's on pace for around 43 pts. (10G, 33A)

His current pace:

.388 Assists per game. (21 in 54 games)
.129 Goals per game. (7 in 54 games)

His worst season to date.

How he compares to other overpaid players since 2007 does little to balloon his point total and help the Habs this year. And that's what we need.

[Doc Holliday]

My thoughts on the Gomez situation:
First, I am not at all convinced that JM/PG are as fed up with him as we are. In fact I would even bet that he's seen as a pretty solid asset in their book. Good skater, 2-way play and an integral part of a leadership core that is seen as the most solid in years. Not saying I agree with them, but I strongly doubt he's seen as a "mistake" or even a "problem".

Molsons will NOT bury 20MM in the minors. No their style at all. They are not your typical emotional owners, they are businessmen and that move is not a wise one vs the bottom line. Plus, huge plus for the Molson, his actually pay is coming down in the next years, so you can spend to the cap but make that nice extra 2-3MM of profit. The Bell Center is full, this team makes the playoffs (and the playoff money) with Gomez. All is well in HABSland.

One way out, as BC suggests, is to take on somebody else mistakes, but the chances of actually being worst of after the move is quite high and you're not getting cap relief with this type of move.

Another way out is the gift wrap Gomez. For example, offer Gomez and a first for an obscure AHL level prospect. Again, you won't be better of, but you gain cap relief.

Personally I would simply phase him down the depth chart as Desharnais picks up steam. With his numbers, Gomez himself has to realize that he's no longer an offensive threat. I'd meet him and explain/sell him that. Listen Scott, we think you're still a good contributor but we think you'll be better without the daily pressure of carrying an offensive line. We want to convert you into a defensive minded center, PK duty, important faceoffs, shadowing opponen'ts best players, etc...

[Boston_Habs]

Gomez is here to stay. He's not going to the minors, he's not getting waived, and he's not getting traded until maybe the last year of his deal when his contract may be worth something to a contender looking for short-term depth.

I also agree with Doc that he's not seen as a mistake by JM/PG. He's not living up to his salary but he's still a pretty good player, the best puck carrier/distributor on the team. If you value possession, Gomez is a good guy to have around. He gets the puck from zone to zone and creates CHANCES for offense (that end up getting wasted).

You can either move Gomez down the depth chart if you have better options, OR you can be aggressive and try and win in the window that Bob Gainey created with all these contracts. Trade guys like Hammer, AKost, Pouliot, draft picks for the likes of Brian Campbell or Dustin Penner or whoever PG thinks might be the missing piece.

The fact is we have a lot of salary coming off the books after this season - Markov, Hammer, Gill: those 3 guys are over $13 million.

[blny]

I would still like to see him sent out with two quality wingers at once to see what can happen. I'm not sure he can turn the season around, but give him wingers that can play and compliment his style and I think you'll see improvement.

Give him a guy that can skate with him and shoot well. Give him a guy that goes to the net and has some hands. I'd be for an all Devils experiment for the rest of the season if they can land Arnott. Put Gio with them. Might work.

[GNick99]

Feb 11, 2011 8:04:22 GMT -5 Skilly said:

Feb 11, 2011 8:00:07 GMT -5 GNick99 said:

Briere is one of league's leading playoff scorers since '06 and 1 million less cap hit than Gomez Skilly.

Tried to find it ... and found this from HFBoards.

Seriously, the Gomez salary issue keeps coming up. I think it's time I explained to the board the history of what happened and why.

There is a free agent market every year, driven by supply and demand.

In the Summer of 2007, the cap went up from 44M to 50M (14%). Most of the players in the league are always on multi-year deals or were cost-controlled as RFAs. There were very few arbitration awards up to that point and thus the bulk of the big money was going to the UFAs. There were only so many good UFAs out there, and there was TONS of money chasing them as every cap-spending team had large availability, so basically every one of the big-name UFAs got overpaid, not only in my opinion, but as a general consensus around the league since.

Daniel Briere = overpaid
Scott Gomez = overpaid
Ryan Smyth = overpaid
Bill Guerin = somewhat overpaid
Chris Drury = overpaid
Paul Kariya = overpaid
Michael Nylander = overpaid
Sheldon Souray = overpaid
Mathieu Schneider = overpaid
Roman Hamrlik = overpaid (though less than most)
Brian Rafalski = slightly overpaid, probably the best deal of all

Out of the 7 big salaried forwards ($4.5M cap hit or more) signed that summer, Scott Gomez has put up the HIGHEST point total since, and it's not even CLOSE. He has 20% more points than Daniel Briere at #2, 25% more than Chris Drury at #3, 27% more than Ryan Smyth at #4, and is miles ahead of Kariya and Nylander.

Bill Guerin is the ONLY one of the seven forwards to score more points per dollar of salary than Gomez, but Gomez does have 40 more points!

To repeat, out of the seven high-scoring and highly-paid UFA forwards signed in the summer of 2007, Scott Gomez is a clear #1 in points scored, and a clear #2 in points scored per dollar of salary.

In 2008, when the cap went up 13.4% from $50M to $56.7M, there were more overpayments (Ryder, Streit, Sundin, Lecavalier, Campbell, Huet, etc., etc.).

Now here's the thing: Times have changed, and the market has changed. Not only did the cap not go up in 2009, but compared to 2007 and earlier, RFA age players now get paid relatively better, due to the practice many teams now have of locking up their good young players for a long time. Rising incomes for RFAs combined with a constant Cap means lower incomes, on average, for UFAs.

If someone with Mike Cammalleri's stats and age had been available the summer of 2007, he might have got $8.0M+ per year for 5 years instead of $6.0 million he got in 2009. However, he did not come UFA at the right year, and all of us are now adjusting to the new marketplace. In the new marketplace, Scott Gomez' salary is high, but his is NOT the worst contract in the league, and actually one of the BEST contracts of the 2007 prime free agent season.

As fans, let's try to leave salary out of our judgment, or at least not make it the SOLE criteria by which we judge a player. Personally, I find Gomez to generate decent offence while also killing penalties and making a good effort defensively as well (yet again better than most high-scoring free agents). If we can sign Tomas Plekanec to a fair 2010 market contract (see Marc Savard's for example), we will have TWO #1a centremen and make it hard for other teams to check both of our scoring lines for several years. Sure, their salaries may seem out of balance to each other, but that is solely a function of luck as to what year they became UFA.

Furthermore, this "luck", good or bad, happens not only to players but to teams, which explains why most teams have some overpaid players and some underpaid players. The Habs are not alone in this respect. It's all due to timing and tends to average out.

That post twisted things around backwards. I'd take Briere in a second over Gomez. Briere one of top scoeres last 5-6 years in playoffs and 1 million less cap hit. Gomez has added nothing last 2 years.

[blny]

We tried to 'take' Briere and all he did was use the club to bid up Philly.

[Skilly]

Feb 11, 2011 8:57:55 GMT -5 BadCompany said:

* We traded for Gomez. The other guys cost their teams nothing but money. We gave up assets, and if McDonagh is as good as he has been hyped, and as good as he has been playing for the Rangers so far, we gave up good assets.

I think this is the only legitimate arguement to the Gomez-dilemma. When we acquired him, he was a 50+pt player, we knew what we were getting, and for the most part (even this year at a 43 pt pace) we got the player that we thought we were getting.

He got this big contract based on his years prior to 2007, coming off a 60pt year. But since then has 70, 58, 59 .... Gainey acquired a 50-60 point player, and gave up too much for him.

The blame here is Gainey's .... Gomez has lived up to his end of the bargain (a little dip this year, but the year is far from over).

Feb 11, 2011 9:29:40 GMT -5 Doc Holliday said:

Another way out is the gift wrap Gomez. For example, offer Gomez and a first for an obscure AHL level prospect. Again, you won't be better of, but you gain cap relief.

This will tie in to BCs post.

What is a salary dump? Well the way I understand it, a salary dump is when one team takes a high priced player off another team's hands (as a reclamation project usually) and for doing so usually receives a prospect/player. The team that dump the high priced player typically will receive some fringe players to make the trade look good on paper.

So:

Team A receives - High priced player, prospect/player
Team B receives - fringe players

Bob gainey must have been having a bad day at the office, or fell off the turnip truck on the way to signing the papers .... because when we acquired Gomez WE gave us the prospect AND the roster player? I am not sure there is another example of that ... that's my only beef with the trade. Not Gomez's production ... cause like I said, he is what he is ....

Feb 11, 2011 10:18:41 GMT -5 Boston_Habs said:

You can either move Gomez down the depth chart if you have better options, OR you can be aggressive and try and win in the window that Bob Gainey created with all these contracts.

This is why I feel PG should make moves now. The window of opportunity for the Montreal Canadiens is narrowing. We are a few seasons away from a very young team, we may not have Markov anymore, and I don't believe in the linear progression of a player's productivity.

[Skilly]

Feb 11, 2011 11:06:45 GMT -5 GNick99 said:

That post twisted things around backwards. I'd take Briere in a second over Gomez. Briere one of top scoeres last 5-6 years in playoffs and 1 million less cap hit. Gomez has added nothing last 2 years.

Nothing?

Two years ago, BOTH Gomez and Briere had very similar playoff production.

Briere = 6GP, 1G, 3A = 4pts
Gomez = 7GP, 2G, 3A = 5pts

Then last year,

Gomez = 19GP, 2G, 12A = 14pts

On paper it would appear that Briere had a "better" playoffs than Gomez. But Briere also played one extra round. If you exclude that extra round Briere got: 17GP, 9G, 9A = 18pts

Briere had an outstanding Finals with 12 points. But even if he was on the Habs (if we are saying Briere is better than Gomez) Briere's production wasn't THAT much better than Gomez's to get the Habs to the Finals, IMO.

[Disgruntled70sHab]

Both Gomez and Kostitsyn seem to be skating hard enough so as to substantiate having a shower. Right now I find both of them weak links on the team.

Gomez is supposed to be a major leader on our team and for whatever the reason he simply isn't backing that up. At least that's what it appears like to me from the peanut gallery.

Don't know if they're injured/distracted or both, but they're of no use right now. Or, so I feel anyway.

Cheers.

[24in93]

I'd rather have a Gomez that elevates his game in the playoffs and meanders through the regular season than a Gomez who tears up the regular season and disappears in the playoffs. It would be nice for him to do both for sure and for $7.5M you'd expect that, but I'm reserving judgment on Gomez as he did deliver last year in the playoffs for us.

[CentreHice]

Feb 11, 2011 12:20:39 GMT -5 Skilly said:

Feb 11, 2011 11:06:45 GMT -5 GNick99 said:

That post twisted things around backwards. I'd take Briere in a second over Gomez. Briere one of top scoeres last 5-6 years in playoffs and 1 million less cap hit. Gomez has added nothing last 2 years.

Nothing?

Two years ago, BOTH Gomez and Briere had very similar playoff production.

Briere = 6GP, 1G, 3A = 4pts
Gomez = 7GP, 2G, 3A = 5pts

Then last year,

Gomez = 19GP, 2G, 12A = 14pts

On paper it would appear that Briere had a "better" playoffs than Gomez. But Briere also played one extra round. If you exclude that extra round Briere got: 17GP, 9G, 9A = 18pts

Briere had an outstanding Finals with 12 points. But even if he was on the Habs (if we are saying Briere is better than Gomez) Briere's production wasn't THAT much better than Gomez's to get the Habs to the Finals, IMO.

Surround Gomez with the likes of Hartnell, Powe, Pronger, Carcillo, Shelley, Betts, and Carter....and see how he'd do. The skilled guys on the Flyers KNOW the others have their backs.

Swap Briere and Gomez....and you just might see a reversal of fortune for both. Although, Briere appears to me to have a better nose for, and touch, around the net. He definitely "thinks shoot" more than Gomez, who usually "thinks pass".

[seventeen]

Of course you're right Doc. I never seriously expected Molson's to send Gomez to the minors. To do that you have to presuppose that Molson's is more interested in the hockey product than the bottom line.

(Short pause to allow everyone to recover from laughing fit)

The other possible solution really is what should be done. We should have the most ridiculously paid checking centre in hockey history. Play Gomez on the 4th line. Tell him it's his challenge to make a goal scorer out of Tom Pyatt

(Short Pause number II to allow paramedics to administer oxygen)

Desharnais and Eller can fight over the 2nd centre spot and even in their sleep will be able to put up 43 points. So there's no loss there and a possible huge upside.

That's pretty well it. Not so complicated if one is willing to swallow a rather large lump of pride.