Tim Gleason Signs Four-Year, $16 Million Extension With Carolina Hurricanes

Hey, at least Ray Whitney has a renter for another 4 years….

Given the price D-men go for on the open market I am ok with this.

I think this is also a bit of a lower risk bet by JR. He felt that Gleason was worth this over the next four years, and would provide more to the team than the return for a rental player.

The critics of this deal need to be honest: Gleason was not going to fetch us a great return. A #3-#4 defenseman as a rental is going to bring back maybe a second round pick, that’s about it. Better to have that #3 defenseman in place than to gamble. I’m all for a rebuild, but not a multi-year rebuild. Staal and Ward aren’t getting any younger.

Ugh.

Looking at this initially, I thought it was a sign and trade scenario, where Gleason wanted a long-term contract in place before agreeing to a trade deal. I can’t recall a time in the past where the Canes have extended a contract mid-season. Let’s face it; it’s been a couple since Tim has played to his potential. That said, Rutherford’s comments are either somewhat dishonest, or they truly plan to keep Gleason for 4 years.

When Gleason’s on top of his game, he can be very good. Problem is, if you look back at his time with the Canes, he’s been at level at best 30-40% of the time. At the end of last year I expected (hoped) we’d learn he’d been hiding an injury all season. Apparently that was not the case. This year, he hasn’t been terrible, but he hasn’t been very good. The guy we saw in the Olympics was worth $4M per year. The player we’ve seen the past 2 seasons more like $1.5M. Question: this season, If you had to choose between Gleason and Harrison, who would you take?

The timing of the deal, and the dollars involved just makes this a weird one. What’s the rush?

Based on some of these comments we’d have to assume that JR was either completely out of touch or an idiot. I think it is neither. Who if not him has by now seen the actual interest in Gleason and the value offered. I’m sure he’s much better informed than all the so called analysts who are speculating on who is offering what.
Secondly…. at $4mil average a year in the current market this is what the average 2nd pairing guy is getting. I have not always been pleased with Tim’s play but I think we can all agree he is at worst a 2nd pairing guy on most teams. And overall this has been a better year for Timmay and he has played better under Mullers system where the forwards are more responsible or they sit.

Overall this is not a bad move for the Canes. They can still sell off Spacek and Allen ( and maybe even McBain) and I still suspect that one of JR’s priority’s is to get a top pairing shutdown guy to go along with all the offensive minded young D we have both here and as prospects. Tim will be a critical stabilizing force for one of those.

(Yes, I’m a fan, but all I do is watch the games on TV (used to go occasionally) and sometimes read the comments here, I’m not “fanatical”.)

“Hope springs eternal”. (Or “grass is always greener”.)
We want draft picks, not current “ordinary” players
We want prospects, not current “ordinary” players

Typical fan reaction is “we want draft picks” instead of keeping “bums” (which means, almost everyone), as though that will magically bring us outstanding players, when we all know in our more lucid moments how chancy even a first round pick can be. Another typical fan reaction is “we want prospects” even though we know from our own experience that even the first round prospects often aren’t that good.

“He’s a bum”
If a player isn’t an all-star, he becomes a slug, not worth paying much. It’s all-or-nothing, $6M or bust. Yet no team, certainly not a budget team, is going to have many players worth that much money. And there are a lot of slots to fill, that youngsters/prospects/draft picks aren’t sufficient for. We NEED some $3-4M pretty-good-serviceable guys. They’re the troops who hold things together.

We just secured Gleason. Ruu is another of those guys. But he may have priced himself into the $6M category, unfortunately. He’s NOT one of THOSE guys. But if he can find someone to pay him that way, he’s gone. Teams with a lot of money can afford to take a chance on wasting some of it, as Montreal took a chance with Cole (and we’ll see in a few years how that pans out).

This is a surprising, but good, re-signing.

move by jr. certainly caught me unawares. i like it because its not the usual modus operandi and timmy is a solid player despite his numbers. other than suter/weber dont know that there are any other ufa dmen i would choose over gleson. i do think at least two of our d need to be moved for something because there is going to be one hell of a log jam on the blueline next year.

The unfortunate reality of being a budget team is that there really isn’t room for more than two $6M players, and Staal and Ward are already signed for forseeable future. Would I rather sign a $6M top-pairing D-man than two D-men for $4M and $2M? Absolutely. But, given that we weren’t going to sign a $6M player, this is a solid move. If $4M was the ceiling for what we were going to be able to spend, Gleason is probably better than what JR would’ve been able to get on the open market with that money.
This leaves the team with five D-men signed for next year (Harrison / Faulk, Pitkanen / Gleason, and Joslin) and one RFA (McBain). That leaves room for at least one of Murphy, Dumoulin, Sanguinetti, et al. That’s a reasonable situation to have set up for next year. If more than one of those guys earns ice time, so be it, Joslin is expendable, and McBain should be relatively marketable if he needed to be moved to make room. But it’s also better than walking into next year needing two of those guys to be ready to fill out the lineup.

All I hear about when we discuss our D-Men is Dumoulin, Dumoulin. Did he fall in a hole somewhere? Where is he?

I’ve been talking in terms of $4M and $6M guys, thought I’d ballpark a team.

Our ideal team might be:
3 $6M We already have two over that. Pits didn’t get to this level though we feared he might. Skinner probably will, when UFA, but how many years is that?

5 each of $4M, $2M, $1M

2 $.5M

That amounts to 20 players at $54M. Additional players would be callups at $.5M (three more for 23 on the team would be nice symmetry…)

Gleason and Pits are $4M guys. Ruu would be if he stayed. Jokinen we got cheaper than $4M but he might fit the category.

Sutter is a high $2M. Larose is near $2M (please don’t start). Allen, if we kept him, where would he be? In between 2 and 4.

The rest are lower than 2.

Possibly room to squeeze in a $4M guy. Or even a $6M guy, until Skinner approaches UFA. Too bad Cole wanted such a very long contract.