Chevy gambles, loses on game of to and Fro

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/07/2015 (3782 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

So, what happened with Michael Frolik and why isn’t he a member of the Winnipeg Jets anymore? Was it money? Was it term? Or was it a player simply wanting to move on?

Did Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff drive too hard a bargain or did Frolik’s agent, Allan Walsh, use Winnipeg to leverage the best out-of-town deal he could make?

Likely take a portion from all of the above and somewhere you’ll have your answer.

Cheveldayoff is a GM on a budget and careful with a buck. He also has to keep opportunity open on his roster for the young prospects he’s collected. Walsh likes to get every penny he can for his players. He’s a mercenary, for sure, but he’s effective at his job.

Spin this accordingly but the Jets have lost a good player and he’ll be missed.

The Flames paid US$21.5 million over five years for Frolik on Wednesday, which is less than expected after Colorado gave Carl Soderberg a five-year, $23.75-million pact on the weekend.

Many believed the Frolik camp was pushing for a $25-million package. Did the market collapse a bit on Walsh? Did he overplay his hand with Winnipeg, forcing the move to Calgary?

The Jets reportedly had a standing offer of four years and $16 million on the table. So the difference was one year and about $300,000 on the average annual value. Not insurmountable from the outside, but at some point the two sides had become intractable.

Did Frolik have his mind made up to leave Winnipeg? Or, believing they were out of the running, did the Jets put their money into Drew Stafford, only to watch Frolik sign for dollars they previously would have matched?

Cheveldayoff said he was “very aggressive” in trying to retain one of head coach Paul Maurice’s favourite players.

“I’m not going to give you the intimate details of our negotiations but our offer was very, very good in our minds,” Cheveldayoff said, then almost opening the curtains before stopping himself. “We felt it was an offer that was very competitive in respect to what he took, if not in some ways… At the end of the day, the players have the choice to do what they choose to do.”

The Jets, without question, are diminished today without the services of Frolik. He was a useful player and the Jets wanted him back. Cheveldayoff could have traded Frolik at the deadline but ignored this option and kept pushing for a deal. Cheveldayoff is believed to have made a number of offers, none of which in the end, was good enough for Frolik and Walsh.

In two seasons with Winnipeg, Frolik had 34 goals and 84 points, which validates spending the assets required to get him.

We’ll now see if the Jets can replace him with a cheaper and younger model. Alex Burmistrov and Joel Armia will be options, Cheveldayoff said.

Talks on a long-term deal proved fruitless last summer before the Jets and Frolik agreed on a one-year, $3.3-million contract. Both sides talked about getting a longer agreement done but it never materialized.

Versatile and smart, he became one of Maurice’s most loved players this past season. The coach called Frolik the tonic to struggling players. If a line needed a boost, Maurice would move Frolik to that group, and inevitably, there would be a surge in production.

“It’s his consistency shift to shift. He doesn’t take nights off and he doesn’t take shifts off,” Maurice said of Frolik. “And there’s a personality part of that. He’s got a smile on his face most days. He enjoys playing the game and there’s not a lot of negative tension on the bench with him. If they have a shift that doesn’t go their way, he’s the let’s-go-get-’em-on-the-next-shift kind of player. That brings out the best in his linemates.”

The Jets could have had Frolik on a long-term deal last summer and, depending on who you talk to, the gap on AAV wasn’t very large. Still, Winnipeg thought it was rich and balked. They gambled and Frolik had an excellent season, which only increased his value to the open market.

The player did his part with his play on the ice and the agent worked to have him rewarded.

Cheveldayoff never works just in the present. He’s always managing his cap well into the future, and his moves always take into account where he thinks his cap and roster will be in three, four and five years.

Losing Frolik opens up opportunity for prodigal son Burmistrov as well as prospects such as Armia, Andrew Copp and Nic Petan. It also holds cap space for the monster contract extensions Cheveldayoff is going to have to arrange with captain Andrew Ladd and No. 1 defenceman Dustin Byfuglien.

The Jets missed on Frolik. They should have signed him last summer or moved him if they didn’t like the terms.

Waiting and getting closer to July 1 doesn’t work. It gives the player too much leverage. Don’t expect Cheveldayoff to go down the same path with Ladd and Byfuglien.

Both Ladd’s agent and Cheveldayoff have said they have held productive talks. This deal is going to get done and done soon.

Byfuglien remains a question mark. How expensive and how long a contract he wants will determine the course of his future.

But a decision should be made this summer. Sign an extension or open the bidding on a trade.

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One can argue Cheveldayoff got burned on Frolik. The other side of the coin is he got good value out of the picks he used to acquire the player and Frolik was a big part of getting him into the playoffs. Then he left — it happens.

The true judgment will come in Cheveldayoff’s prospects and whether they are able to fill in where Frolik leaves off.

Organizational strength is what Cheveldayoff has been working so hard on. Now it gets tested.

gary.lawless@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @garylawless