End of Smyth era in Edmonton
Thursday, March 01, 2007

Posted by Kerrzy

Well Oiler fans, Ryan Smyth will make his debut with the New York Islanders on Thursday night, a day after an emotional farewell at the Edmonton International Airport. After12 years and 770 games as an Edmonton Oiler, when it came down to the wire $5.4-million per year just wasn’t enough. From all accounts it sounds like the Oilers made that their final offer, but Smyth and his agent Don Meehan wanted about $5.7-million. After years of taking a beating in front of the net down at the visitors end, long enough to see your home rink go from being the Coliseum to the Skyreach Centre, to Rexall place, it all comes down to a measly $300,000. The most popular topic of conversation here in Edmonton today revolves around the possibility of Smyth returning to the Oilers sometime after July 1st, when his unrestricted free agent status kicks in. But is Ryan Smyth worth $5.7-million a year?

There’s no question Smytty is a key part of the organization, not to mention the team’s top scorer, but lets compare him to a couple of players that just put pen to paper with their respective teams.

Darcy Tucker just re-signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs on a three-year deal worth $3-million per season, with an option for a fourth year.

Tucker hasn’t played a game since January 1st of this year, but through 39 games this season he’s got 19 goals and 12 assists. Through the same number of games, Ryan Smyth had 23 goals and 14 assists (though he has 31 goals and 22 assists now, through 53 games). The two are pretty even in most statistical categories with Tucker having the edge in penalties, Smyth in +/-, and both players are known for being gritty offensive players for their clubs.

There is no one in the league that plays a style of game more similar to Ryan Smyth’s than Tomas Holmstrom though, and the fellow 1994 draftee just signed an extension too.

The Red Wings locked Homer up for three more years at $2.25-million per campaign. So far this season, Holmstrom has knocked in 26 goals, and added 22 helpers in 61 games this season. Smyth and Holmstrom both play most of their hockey battling in front of the net, and they both score the majority of their goals from a few feet out. Smyth basically has one more power-play goal, one more game-winning goal and a 19.3% shooting percentage to Holmstrom’s 19.1%.

Practically a mirror image, yet the raise Smyth wants this year is Holmstrom's entire salary!

Ryan Smyth is in the last year of a contract that pays him an annual salary of $3.5-million, and while he has every right to be angry that the Oilers management worked on other players during the summer and during the course of this season, leaving his contract until literally the morning of the trade deadline, he probably isn’t worth $5.7-million.

My understanding of how a players worth on the open market is determined is that you look around the league for similar players with similar numbers, situations and styles, see what they are making and then decide on a number.

The two players that are more Ryan Smyth than anyone else in the entire National Hockey League are Tomas Holmstrom and Darcy Tucker, and they both re-signed this season for less than what Smyth is making even this year. His worth to the Oilers is for sure deserving of more than $3.5-million, but it goes deeper than the money. He has been Edmonton’s adopted son, a product of the province, for over a decade.

If you watched the press conference, once Smyth told the crowd of reporters that he hopes he wins a Stanley Cup so that he can bring it to Edmonton, because this is where his heart is, he opened the floor to questions. Right away, the reporters were on him about the fact that it came down to a gap of just $300,000, which is really just peanuts when you are dealing with upwards of $5-million.

The answer was tough to watch. Smyth stumbled from thought to thought, as if trying to piece together or explain a drunk adventure that he can’t quite recall as he wades through the consequence. You can see it in the way he grasps for words, that he is thinking to himself “how did this happen?”

The Edmonton Oilers have always been a team of the future, never the present. Apart from a brief stretch in early 2006 when they came to within a game of a championship, the Oilers are always awaiting prospects to blossom into stars, or young guys to become experienced, older guys.

Don’t forget, even with Chris Pronger, Jaro Spacek, Mike Peca and Sergei Samsonov, the Oilers only made the ’06 playoffs by a mere two points.

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Jim Kerr