Just as abruptly as the Ilya Bryzgalov Era began in Phoenix back in November of 2007, it ended almost just as abruptly with a press release out of Coyoteland Headquarters Tuesday afternoon that General Manager Don Maloney traded the Russian goaltender’s negotiating rights to the Philadelphia Flyers.
While Bryzgalov was a favorite amongst the fans the last few years and brought the team back to the realm of relevancy with playoff appearances this season and last, the Desert Dogs faithful are first and foremost more concerned about what Maloney and his staff are going to do about goaltending, especially given that the pesky ownership situation still hovers over the organization.
And while that same pesky ownership situation has affected everything, from marketing to probably the quality of mustard for the hot dogs at the concession stand, make no mistake about this: The absence of an owner likely played little to no role in the Bryzgalov verdict.
According to all accounts and reports, Bryzgalov is commanding big bucks and maybe even the moon to go along with it.
Let’s play a quick game of armchair GM. Bryzgalov’s contract is up, while he’s put up good numbers over the last two regular seasons, he’s 0-6 over his last six playoff games, and according to Todd Walsh of FS-Arizona, he lost his team this past season (something you assume the coaching stuff is well aware of).
So knowing all this, would you pay Bryzgalov upwards of $50 million over the span of six or seven years, salary territory that goaltenders like Roberto Luongo and Henrik Lundqvist reside in, to play the position? Especially considering that, owner or no owner, the organization will have to be wise about how it allocates its salary cap space.
And one last message to Bryzgalov before he departs Phoenix.
Your salary commands will likely leave you only available for teams that want to spend to the cap like Philadelphia or Toronto. Playing in those cities is not like playing in the Valley.
When the media in that caliber of city comes to ask you about a bad game, they’re going to want answers. If you get swept in a playoff series, they’re going to want answers. In other words, you likely won’t get as treated as well as you were here in Phoenix. But that goes with the territory of commanding large sums of cash.
But hey, at least you’ve priced yourself out of Winnipeg’s budget, right?
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