Oilers Sign Ryan O'Marra

by Scott Reynolds on Jul 23, 2010 7:15 AM PDT in Prospects Comment 11 comments

With Ilya Kovalchuk's contract being rejected by the league, the strategy of lowering the cap hit of players by tacking on extra years to their contract seems to be on its way out. What is and isn't acceptable probably won't be completely clarified until the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, but something like term limits is likely on the way. Steve Tambellini hasn't tried to use that strategy this summer - though it might be nice to see him try it in the summer of 2011 when Ales Hemsky and Dustin Penner are eligible for contract extensions, and will have, possibly, their only chance at a "lifetime" deal - he has done some interesting things with players on the NHL/AHL bubble.

For players outside of the organization, an NHL contract and real money at the AHL level seems to be the ticket. Alexandre Giroux got a one-way deal. Shawn Belle got a two-way contract and a 40% raise if he plays in the minors. Brad Moran got big money to come over from Sweden. Even Gregory Stewart was wooed to the Oilers' organization with a two-way contract and decent pay - the scrappy fighter will get $105,000 to play in the AHL and $550,000 if he's in "the best (non-European) league in the world". Even in the minors, money talks.

For players who were already in the organization, the strategy is quite a bit more interesting. Both Theo Peckham and Ryan O'Marra rejected their qualifying offers and signed deals that pay them less in the NHL in exchange for a few more bucks in the minors. Peckham gave up $93,500 at the NHL level compared to his qualifying offer in order to get a $7,500 raise to $65,000 in the AHL. Ryan O'Marra gave up a little bit more. His qualifying offer would have included an NHL salary of $803,250, but his actual contract will only pay him $700,000 if he makes the team. In return, O'Marra will earn $70,000 in the AHL, a $7,500 raise from his last contract. That's right, Ryan O'Marra makes more money to play hockey than Theo Peckham.

And that's really the only quibble here. Generally speaking, this is a fantastic strategy, and Steve Tambellini should be commended, but paying $70,000 (and using one of your fifty contracts) for Ryan O'Marra seems a tinge wasteful. Last season was O'Marra's best as a professional and he scored eighteen points in seventy-four games to go along with a -19 rating (fourth worst on the team). Again, that was his best season. The Oilers clearly see something to work with here; I'm just not sure what it is.

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Term Limits

I’m not a fan of term limits on contracts as teams should be able to lock players up for as long as they like. The fix I would like to see is to remove the limitation on when the contract was signed for the over 35 rule.

Essentially any player over 35 is on your books, period, regardless of when he signed or if he retired. That way if you want to sign Hossa until he is 42 fine, but that cap hit isn’t going away so you better be sure he is worth the money at 42.

by Smytty777 on Jul 23, 2010 7:24 AM PDT reply actions

I wasn’t really suggesting “term limits” specifically. I just meant that there will be some kind of change in the next CBA that will have the effect of limiting the amount of term most teams (call it the Charles Wang exception) are willing to offer. If they go with your suggestion, I imagine they’ll need to grandfather all of the contracts that have already been signed.

by Scott Reynolds on Jul 23, 2010 7:38 AM PDT up reply actions

Agreed, it would be difficult to retroactively change the terms of contracts settled under the previous CBA. I haven’t reviewed the current CBA to see how they handled existing contracts although I seem to recall that they rolled back the dollar values, which I’m shocked they were able to get away with, so anything is possible.

In this case it would hurt the teams that negotiated those contracts though so it would be unlikely to have retroactive effect.

by Smytty777 on Jul 23, 2010 7:47 AM PDT up reply actions

Yeah, they had a salary rollback, but that was, of course, something that they negotiated with the players. In this case, there really isn’t any one side that benefits from forcing a change on old contracts. Some owners and some players would benefit, while others from both groups would be hurt by the change. From a “league revenues” perspective, hurting teams like Chicago, Detroit, and Vancouver probably isn’t a good idea.

by Scott Reynolds on Jul 23, 2010 9:24 AM PDT up reply actions

So, why can’t they just say in the next CBA “a player’s cap hit is equal to the amount of money a player is guaranteed that year plus bonuses”? What’s wrong with that?

by Benjamin Massey on Jul 23, 2010 10:20 AM PDT reply actions

I think they were trying to avoid stuff like giving Sam Gagner a seven-year $28M contract with a pay structure of $10M, $10M, $5M, $750k x4. I’m actually not sure why that kind of thing would be a problem (it would help good teams stay together), but I think they saw it as a problem.

by Scott Reynolds on Jul 23, 2010 10:30 AM PDT up reply actions

I follow the farm team closely and watch a lot of the games. Listen to the rest on the radio / follow the live game stats.

O’Marra was the shutdown center last season. He faced the other teams top lines night in and night out. He has size, takes the body regularly, he hardly ever seems to lose a face off and IMO was the Falcons top PK guy. I would say we are lacking in some of the areas that are areas of strength for O’Marra. Not to mention he just turned 23 last month I think. So it is not like he is too long in the tooth to work his way to a 4th line NHL center spot. I feel it was worth it to give him the contract.

by oilerdiehard on Jul 24, 2010 6:50 PM PDT reply actions

Yeah, I’ve heard that he had a shut-down role last year before, playing with Colin McDonald. It’ll be interesting to see if they get that role again after being pretty brutal in it a year ago. They certainly deserve some grace for playing the tough minutes, but the offense is awful and they had two of the four worst minuses on the club. Some of that is likely the percentages, but considering their play in previous seasons, some of it is just not being very good. Either one of them could still make it I suppose, but they’ve both got an awfully long way to go.

by Scott Reynolds on Jul 24, 2010 7:47 PM PDT up reply actions

Well some have said Horcoff was brutal in his role last season too.

Yet some blogs blame a lot of it on the goaltending and having to play at times with O’Sullivan and JFJ. His minus number made O’Marra’s look not quite so brutal by comparison. I mean if we are using that as a strong indicator of things.

But O’Marra was also likewise on an awful team. He also played in front of poor goaltending and he and McDonald had an anchor around their neck by the name of Kip Brennan for most of the first half of the season. Brennan is a tough guy, but an unmitigated disaster in his own zone against strong competition. Not sure why Daum thought that was a good idea and stuck with it for as long as he did.

I am not saying O’Marra is a world beater by any means. He may not amount to much of anything beyond the AHL level. As I said I would not rule out a 4th line NHL center role (in addition to being a solid face off & PK guy) in the NHL though.

by oilerdiehard on Jul 25, 2010 12:12 PM PDT reply actions

The problem with the percentages argument in O’Marra’s case (and as I said, I have no trouble believing it to be true to some extent) is that we don’t have any evidence as to how great the effect was, whereas with Horcoff we do (and it was significant). In addition, with Horcoff we have other seasons where he’s had success in the role, whereas with O’Marra we don’t. There’s just not much reason to think that his failure was all percentages. I think you’re right that there’s still some chance that O’Marra could make the NHL, but he hasn’t yet amounted to much at the AHL level, let alone beyond it.

You’d know better than I would who was playing with McDonald and O’Marra, but if it really was Kip Brennan most of the time while they were playing the toughs, I’m kind of glad Rob Daum got the axe.

by Scott Reynolds on Jul 25, 2010 7:53 PM PDT up reply actions

I’m kind of glad Rob Daum got the axe.

You’re not the only one.

Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.

by Derek Zona on Jul 26, 2010 7:49 AM PDT up reply actions

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