Jim Kelley wonders what message Peter Forsberg is sending to Columbus or Phoenix by excluding each from the well-manicured list of potential comeback locations.
Pardon me if this comes off as anti-Swede or even a mangling of the French Canadian language, but bringing Peter Forsberg back to the NHL at this point of the season is a monumental faux pas.
The idea that any time prior to the NHL trading deadline of February 26 (the day NHL rosters are frozen) any team can sign him and inject him into their lineup is not just a bastardization of all that should be logical and decent in regards to NHL roster rules, but it also makes a mockery of the idea of team building and the value of playing a full NHL season.
Understand that I get why teams –and the rumour is that Philadelphia, Colorado, Dallas, Detroit, Nashville, San Jose, Montreal, Vancouver, Anaheim and perhaps even the Peoria Podunks--have made or are contemplating an offer. Forsberg was once, arguably, the best all-around player in the league. It’s fair to say that given his age, 34, his history of injury and the seemingly never ending problems he’s had with his feet, that he is no longer in that class.
Still, as the old joke about pizza would illustrate, even a slightly off Foppa is still pretty good.
A quality player, one with a still-solid skill set, a proven and intense yearning to compete and a Stanley Cup ring on his finger for nothing more than some spare cash pro-rated over the remainder of this season and maybe a year after that; what’s not to like?
Plenty.
For starters, what kind of league allows for these kinds of deals? Picking up players on the fly for say the World Championships, well that’s one thing, a commitment has been honored and after that, well, why not. But allowing players to sign on to teams after two-thirds of the season is in the books? That’s what beer leagues do.
Not to write like a moralist here, but if you’re going to have any integrity in regards to an 82-game regular season, it would make sense not to allow teams to pick up ringers for the playoffs, especially if they’ve been sitting around with their feet up competing at nothing more than getting a good seat at the coffee bar and tracking the competition via the published standings in the local paper.
I’ve made this argument before, usually regarding the trade deadline, but at least the players that move on or around that date generally have played a representative portion of the season. At least those players have competed for someone and if they happen to move up, or down, because someone is gearing up, or down, for the postseason, well they are usually on an equal footing regards the season. My argument isn’t against strengthening teams or even repositioning for a rebuild, it’s just that the deadline should be sooner rather than later.
This is different; different even from the troublesome issue of a “retired” player “un-retiring” and returning to the team he left after a significant rest. Peter Forsberg is cherry picking. He’s taken time off (in part because due to the largess of several NHL owners) because he can afford to. Now he wants to come back, but not say to the Florida Panthers, the Edmonton Oilers, the Tampa Bay Lightning or some other non-contender (Toronto Maple Leafs?), he wants to come back to a city that will treat him in the manner to which he’s become accustomed.
The components for “winning” the Foppa derby are varied and certainly being a Stanley Cup contender doesn’t hurt, but they clearly don’t include being a part of a team building for the future or, apparently, a team not located in a high-profile market.
What does that say to Rick Nash and a handful of kids in Columbus trying to make it to the post-season for the first time in franchise history, other than they don’t matter? What does it say to the Phoenix Coyotes who are trying to play their way to respectability for the first time since Wayne Gretzky took over as coach? What does it say to every team that doesn’t fit the Foppa criteria which would appear to be little more than “what’s in it for me.”
I understand that a veteran player has rights; and the right to control his own destiny after a certain time in the league is both hard won and understandable. I’m fine with Forsberg writing his own ticket with any team he so chooses for next season, but not for the current one.
By being able to sign with the team of his choice at what in essence is the time of his choosing, he does a great disservice to the meaning of competing in the regular season and especially the post-season. He also does a disservice to clubs who put a value on team building and player development and the idea of building something of substance not for a couple of weeks in the spring, but for the long haul.
He’s also contributing to what –short of a betting scandal—is the NHL’s worst nightmare, that a Stanley Cup can be bought. That argument has come up from time to time in the past (read New York Rangers, 1994), but like so many other things about the hard-won CBA agreement that turned out not to be true, the argument was supposed to be over once a salary cap was in place. Wasn’t the idea of a cap supposed to be that there would be equal footing for all clubs once a set salary structure was in place?
Technically, any team with cap space could sign Forsberg, but when the gap between floor and ceiling expanding every season the cap has been in place, can you honestly argue that every team really has a shot?
The Philadelphia Flyers appear to be a playoff contender (though hardly a Cup favourite), but already there are reports that the Flyers made a pitch to Forsberg not only to sign him for their team but to keep him away from any other team ahead of them in the Eastern Conference. Is this good for the game, spending to keep players away from opponents? It likely wouldn’t happen if the league had an earlier deadline for free-agent signings. It couldn’t happen if the league refused to allow late-season returnees to participate in the post-season.
Peter Forsberg likely still is a very good player. He’s also a good man and an intense competitor who happens to believe that the game should be played clean and with integrity. The league and an individual team would and should benefit from his presence, but not now. Allowing him back now gives credence to the argument that the NHL, as Mario Lemieux once said, is a “garage league.”
A garage league is the kind of league that has so little respect for itself that it allows anything to take place. That’s the kind of league that doesn’t respect itself and that’s the kind of image the NHL needs to avoid.
