Detroit Red Wings Sign Todd Bertuzzi to Two-Year Extension
by J.J. from Kansas on Feb 23, 2012 10:05 AM CST
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The Detroit Red Wings have announced a two-year contract extension for veteran forward Todd Bertuzzi. Details from various sources indicate that Bertuzzi will be paid $1.975 million next season and $2.175 million for the 2013-14 season. Under current CBA rules, Bertuzzi's cap hit would be $2.075M. The contract also offers a no-trade clause for Bertuzzi.
Bertuzzi has 12 goals and 17 assists in 54 games played this season. 57% of his ice time this season has come with Pavel Datsyuk also on the ice. The big-bodied forward often plays a net-front role and involves himself in board battles. He's also come a long way defensively, although he still takes too many penalties.
Personally, I've come around a bit on this signing since yesterday. Bertuzzi is a great locker room presence for the young guys and is genuinely liked in Detroit. The cap hit is very low for how many points he can put up. The no-trade clause is a little bit sticky, as is the 35+ nature of the contract (which under current rules sees the Wings eat that cap hit even if Bertuzzi retires mid-contract), but if he falls off his game and has to go down to a lower-line checking role, Bertuzzi has shown that he can do that well. If nothing else, there's always the memory of the Joe Louis crowd raucously chanting his name last April to keep us warm.
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Anyone else surprised...
… that we locked up Bert before Helm and/or Abby?
No
They’re both RFAs and won’t be going anywhere. No rush to re-sign them.
Brendan Smith fan
by JeffHancock41 on Feb 23, 2012 10:16 AM CST via mobile up reply actions
I've been pretty down about this since yesterday,
but if Homer and Happy are gone next year, and if we get a big name forward, Bert could be on a line with Helm and Miller/ or bumped down to the fourth line with Goose and Abby. Two kids and a Goat v. 2.0
Goalies are enforcers too.
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I'm always ambivalent about Bertuzzi
A lot of the time he seems lazy on the ice, but once every few games he comes up with that one perfect play that breaks the game open. And of course he’s great at the shootout.
Also, he goes offsides a lot.
What?
Bert still checks just fine. It’s a little different when you get older compared to when you’re 29 and 30. Last huge hit I remember him laying, he got thrown out of the game…. That obviously was some time ago.
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by Josh Howard on Feb 23, 2012 10:47 AM CST up reply actions
So...
You’re telling me he uses his size to his advantage along the boards? When was the last time he led the rush into the corner and kept possession? At this point he acts more like Brett Hull in his twilight years and tries to hide in the right place for a quick shot at the net off of Pasha’s feed. Pav is only one making room out there on that line. I just don’t see his value on the top line or even multi-year contract (even if it’s only 2 years)
by DanFromDetroit on Feb 23, 2012 10:52 AM CST up reply actions
All the time
I see him skate in like Z does and keeps the puck quite a bit. That’s kinda his deal to skate with the puck behind the net, draw guys in, and pass to Franzen out in front. I’d say Franzen tries to stay in the quiet areas a lot more. You also have to remember that he’s what… 37 years old.. and that body doesn’t typically take kindly to hard hitting unless we are in a hard checking game. He simply uses his body to create space and goes to the back of the net. Who the heck else are you going to put out there that’s that big and is as dangerous as he can be? He burns those who forget about him and makes space when guys cover him. I think you’re going a bit overboard on the “rarely checks” business. He’s not a Helm or Abby… his job is not to hit everything that moves.
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by Josh Howard on Feb 23, 2012 11:04 AM CST up reply actions 2 recs
I think you and I are watching different games
Because I see a guy who is easily driven off the puck, period. I cringe every time they start the cycle because I know which of the three will lose it.
Agree to disagree.
by DanFromDetroit on Feb 23, 2012 11:12 AM CST up reply actions
totally… agree to disagree. either you’re protuzzi or notuzzi. I like Bert a lot… for the right price. This price doesn’t bother me a bit. I can see some people not thinking he’s worth it, so I don’t fault you for that. We just see the game differently. No biggie.
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by Josh Howard on Feb 23, 2012 11:24 AM CST up reply actions
I have to completely agree
with Josh on this. Every point you made is spot on. He is older so he’s learned so save his strength and use positioning rather than power but his size in front of the net does what Homer does, but he doesn’t take the beating because he skates better. Plus he is forgotten about by other teams and the soft hands he has to make the pass from the side of the net to Franzen cutting is perfect.
If we don’t make a big F splash in the FA market this year (Parise, etc) then I see him playing with Pasha another year on the top line. If we do get a new winger for the top line, then he may drop to play with Zetterberg or Helm or yes, provide the two young bucks and the billy goat. But with that, I think he knows that it’s a possibility and because Detroit has embraced him when so many other places wouldn’t, I think he’s willing to play that role without the least bit of complaining. I think he’s just happy he’s playing hockey let alone with the talent that he gets to on this team. It’s called veteran leadership. I believe Bert has it.
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by styks on Feb 23, 2012 12:10 PM CST up reply actions 2 recs
You must have a sour memory of Bert
I can recall a lot of times where he uses his body to shield the puck while he goes down low. Of course he’s not going to keep it every time, and he’s not perfect, but he does use his size to his advantage from time to time still.
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JJ, you made the point yesterday about his shootout skills
but with shootouts accounting for the decisions of about an 8th of games (that number might be really off, i figured their are about 10 a year), having someone who is as successful as he is, even if he is only a checking forward, is really important in today’s NHL.
people laughed about a shootout specialist
but look at our win record at home… we wouldn’t have it if we didn’t win those shootouts. I think Bert contributes much more than just scoring goals or getting assists. He still draws guys to him. When they seem to forget he’s there, BAM… he pots a couple.
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by Josh Howard on Feb 23, 2012 10:38 AM CST up reply actions
Don't worry about cap hit from injury
I’m sure there was an unwritten clause in this contract that if something happens to Bertuzzi that would cause him to retire, that he would just stay on long term injured reserve. This would allow the Wings to exceed the cap by an amount equal to his cap hit.
by RedWingFanInNC on Feb 23, 2012 10:38 AM CST reply actions 1 recs
Nopes, that would be against the CBA and would probably get the Wings fined and draft picks taken away as punishment.
That's why it would have to be unwritten
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Chris Pronger spent the rest of his career on LTIR instead of retiring for the same reason.
Currently, there’s nothing but vague wording in the CBA that allows the league to go after a guy in a case like this and the arbitration surrounding it would likely not go well for the league (since the argument would have to be that the guy honestly has no intention of playing and that’s about as difficult as proving intent to do damage in a libel case regarding a celebrity.)
There’s nothing in any clause right now or precedent I can find where the league can forcibly retire an injured player.
It does go against the spirit of the CBA, to be sure. I wouldn’t actually like for the Red Wings or any other team to do this. But the reality is that I don’t believe it’s very likely a team would ever get in trouble for doing this without the league coming off looking like the bad guy. After all, what are they going to do? Hire a private investigator to prove that a guy has no intention of ever playing again?
by J.J. from Kansas on Feb 23, 2012 10:50 AM CST up reply actions
I knew there was someone I was thinking of with a 35+ multi-year contract
Pronger is one who, if he’s lucky (very, very lucky) might be able to play again in 2013-2014.
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It is quite clear
Article 26.16 (f) of the CBA.
Violation of which can cost as much as 5 million dollars in cash AND cap room plus any number of draft picks and potentially forfeiture of games.
The problem with being on LTIR is that you
Article 16.11 (f) gives the commish free reign to investigate any placement of a player on IR and it gives him the power to impose discipline at his discretion – no arbitration.
No, 16.11 does not give him "free reign"
Please see the entirety of Article 17 for what I meant by “the arbitration surrounding it would likely not go well for the league”. The commish picks this fight, the NHLPA files a grievance, and Bettman gets his tail tucked neatly between his legs for him while the entirety of the anti-Bettman crowd destroys him for trying to punish an injured player.
Sure, he can “investigate”, but that ties to the original point… how is he going to do that? Is he going to spy on a player to make sure that he’s actually trying to rehab any number of injuries he could claim he has? The CBA lays out no specific terms for how exactly a player should rehab. All you have to have is a doctor who is willing to say “the guy needs to not be playing hockey right now in order to heal”. The vague wording of the CBA works against the league in cases like this.
As far as Article 26, I take it you meant article 26.15(f) since there is no 26.16(f). At any rate, the ostensible definition of a “no-show” job is not met in this circumstance. This is the piece of the CBA written in to prevent Mike Ilitch from signing Nick Lidstrom to a $1M contract and then having Ilitch Holdings sign him to a $7M advertising contract for Little Caesars. I guess you could use it in this case, but it would be just another stretch to add to a case full of them.
The league would be risking a ton of negative backlash from the fans and the media if it were anything but a slam-dunk job on the guy they’d be going after. Bertuzzi (or Pronger for that matter) would have to be incredibly stupid to give them that open-and-shut case. All that would really have to happen is for either one of them to walk into the arbitration hearing saying “I’m still having symptoms and am working out when I can in order to try and make it back to the club” and that’s the end of it.
by J.J. from Kansas on Feb 23, 2012 1:54 PM CST up reply actions
plus, concussions are pretty much unquestionable
Not that i expect this to ever happen anyways, we’re all just following a pipe dream, but it would be hard to argue with “I keep having headaches”
Goalies are enforcers too.
Twitter- @nkehagias
by AppState on Feb 23, 2012 2:19 PM CST via mobile up reply actions
I don't like it one bit
Bertuzzi is only going to get worse, he was never the fastest skater and he is slowing down that is one of the reasons he is taking so many stupid lazy penalties. He doesn’t provide nearly enough good forecheck or net front presence for someone with his size and does anyone really want him playing on a 3rd line over a guy like Drew Miller or Helm? Bertuzzi is going to fall from top 6 straight to 4th line duty where he can play with Nyquist.
Of course this is not as bad as the Ruutu deal, but still I think we could have spend the 2 mill better on someone else and promoted one of our young guys instead.
I always have this theory that if we gave, say, Helm and Eaves a good scoring winger, that line could put up a lot of points, with how much open ice our speed guys produce with their hard forecheck. But every time Babs tries it, it doesn’t get results.
by RedPandaAlex on Feb 23, 2012 10:59 AM CST up reply actions
I, for one, an happy with the deal
based on the deals that are being handed out to lesser players, like Ruutu in Carolina. The only way that contract will be tradable is to someone who has trouble meeting the salary cap floor.
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I'm sorry
but I keep seeing people complaining about him taking stupid penalties and I just don’t see it. I checked every box score for the games in February. He had 2 minutes against the Sharks for goalie interference which if I remember correctly he had no control over because he was pushed into Niemi who was 50 ft outside the crease. Penalty was killed. He had 4 minutes against the Ducks. Both were killed, oh and he scored the winning shootout goal. And against Vancouver he had 5 for fighting (good band) Keith Ballard.
It seems like those of you who think he takes stupid penalties are just looking for something to complain about with him but I don’t think it’s an accurate assessment. I see more dumb penalties (in the few games I get to see) from Kronwall, Franzen, Abdelkader, and Hudler than I do from Bertuzzi.
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by styks on Feb 23, 2012 12:24 PM CST reply actions 1 recs
Five For Fighting
Not much of a band. It’s just one guy
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by Apocalyptic0n3 on Feb 23, 2012 12:48 PM CST up reply actions
Only Ericsson
has taken as many penalties/60 minutes than Bertuzzi.
The argument about the “quality” of the penalties is something that would need to be researched further with visual evidence, but in terms of pure numbers, no forward on the team takes more penalties per game than Bert.
CSSI
Bertuzzi leads the team in penalty minuses. Remember, I don’t give out minuses when there’s not a good reason for the guy to have gotten a penalty.
I also haven’t seen anything in the CSSI posts this year which have argued penalties for Bertuzzi. If there’s a thought that I"m perhaps harder on him than I am on others, know that Bertuzzi is tied for 12th on the team for the ratio of penalty minuses to minor penalties taken (he gets a minus about 75% of the time). For reference, Ian White actually has more minuses than penalties taken (because he’s been at fault for things that have forced his teammates to take penalties)…. then again, Ian White only has 11.5 minuses to Bert’s 16.5.
I’m confident in saying that, while there is an offset for tough-luck and reputation calls for Bertuzzi, that the number of good calls he takes is still too high.
by J.J. from Kansas on Feb 23, 2012 2:02 PM CST up reply actions
I don't always agree
with the penalty minuses you give Bert. But, even in those cases I can see both sides of the argument, in which case I don’t feel it’s really worth the objection. So one might argue that he plays borderline very often and gets caught quite a bit.
by Red, White and a Mile high on Feb 23, 2012 2:58 PM CST up reply actions
I could agree with that.
I was reading back through some of the logs and there are a couple of cases where I called something a reputation call on Bertuzzi, but gave him the minus for being in a situation to draw one in the first place.
Ultimately, I think “he plays borderline very often and gets caught quite a bit” works pretty well to define it.
by J.J. from Kansas on Feb 23, 2012 3:02 PM CST up reply actions
I wonder
how much his ‘bad rap’ makes the zebras specifically watch him more often in order to call ‘borderline’ calls against him…not saying it’s a league/bettman mandated conspiracy, just a non-conscience effort from the refs.
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If I had to toss a figure out there
I’d say about a 1/5 to 1/4 of his penalties are things I think other players consistently get away with more often than he does based solely on Bertuzzi being Bertuzzi.
by J.J. from Kansas on Feb 23, 2012 3:45 PM CST up reply actions
that's sad
whether true or not
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I got to go to a game for free because of Bert and his penalties
They’re sneaky, but his PIMs creep up.
Fan of the Detroit Tigers, Lions and Red Wings.
New thoughts
So, after a night to reflect, I think we might be missing the point of this one. Let’s say Homer retires. We need 2 big bodies to play net-front on the powerplay. Who? Bert’s not a tip-master like Homer, but he’s a large man and seems to be rather hard to move once he drops anchor in front of the goalie.
Still not sure I like signing a progress stopper, but I’m now thinking this is a sign that Homer’s done after this year. If so, Kenny might be smarter than we’re giving him credit for.
I've resigned myself that this is the way it's going to be
I still am not jazzed about the deal, but after that Ruutu got, I’m not going to complain as much as I did yesterday. I still think the Wings had an opportunity to bring in one of the younger guys, give him some time on one of the top lines and get close to the same production while having more money to go out and spend on a FA to get better.
It could be worse.
They could have trade for Mikael Samuelsson
Brendan Smith fan
by JeffHancock41 on Feb 23, 2012 1:31 PM CST up reply actions
Wow..
you just said his name.
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by Josh Howard on Feb 23, 2012 1:59 PM CST up reply actions 3 recs
I hate it.
I would be more ambivalent if it were a one year deal. This is now 2 years that he will have a spot on the roster and eating cap space that could be spent towards the future of the team. And I believe it also means the end of Hudler in Detroit and having our up and coming scoring prospects toil on the 4th line instead of offensive roles.
Pierre McGuire is a blithering dimwit.
Serious questionfor everyone
Would you rather have an older Bert on this two year deal or Happy at his current price for 3-4 years?
Goalies are enforcers too.
Twitter- @nkehagias
by AppState on Feb 23, 2012 2:23 PM CST via mobile up reply actions
Based on comparable contracts,
If Hudler’s level of play this year were to continue, given that he’s only 28 it is expected to, I would without question take Hudler on a 3 year deal over Bertuzzi’s. Factoring in their ages and injury history, it’s almost a no-brainer.
Hudler’s contract comparables:
http://www.capgeek.com/comparables.php?season=2011&player=287
Bertuzzi’s contract comparables:
http://www.capgeek.com/comparables.php?season=2011&player=443
As of right now, they’re both pretty in line with what they make and do (I’d say Hudler’s a better value right now). However, given the known exponential drop off to occur after age 36, Bertuzzi’s deal has a solid chance of being semi-ugly by the end of the 2013-14 campaign. 2 million dollars isn’t very much, but the roster spot can prove to be invaluable.
Pierre McGuire is a blithering dimwit.
I agree with the roster spot being the big issue
but If he starts eating sh*t, can’t they just put him in the Leino Lounge or send him to GR (exposing him to 1/2 salary waivers) to open up the spot?
by Red, White and a Mile high on Feb 23, 2012 3:01 PM CST up reply actions
Giving him a healthy scratch doesn’t affect the roster spots or the cap hit, and if he’s sent to GR, he could just retire instead, forcing the Wings to eat the cap hit.
Pierre McGuire is a blithering dimwit.
I realize that having him as a healthy scratch doesn’t change the roster spots per se. However, on any given night there are 3 roster players not dressed, you can relegate Bert to that role, allowing a young guy to get ice time who would otherwise be scratched. As for the 2M cap hit, I’m not going to lose sleep over that since I expect the base salary to increase again this offseason and NHL minimum will approach 600K.
by Red, White and a Mile high on Feb 23, 2012 3:37 PM CST up reply actions
Happy was my choice too
But I’m pretty admittedly a homer for Huds, so i thought I’d ask.
Goalies are enforcers too.
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by AppState on Feb 23, 2012 3:05 PM CST via mobile up reply actions
Im a HUGE homer for Hudler and Kindl
They better be back!!!
Datsyukian Deke, Detroit Red Wings Blog
Follow @cnsportsblogs
I really don't care for the 2 mil, its the roster spot im worried about
It could force out Hudler, and if Holmstrom decides to return and the FO decides to resign him, expect to see Tatar and Nyqvist in GR for another year. Also, with this move I doubt we see Emmerton back next season.
Datsyukian Deke, Detroit Red Wings Blog
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don't forget Brunnstrom
who’s seemingly playing very very well in GR now.
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Yeah and Connor
This move just makes no sense unless the Front Office is working out a package deal for Iligna/Parise that includes Tatar, Hudler and Emmerton
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I think
he’s just preparing for people to leave or retire after this year. It’s not a bad idea.
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Homer is gone
This move solidifies that. Despite him saying that he wants to return, he just doesn’t contribute the same way. Expect to see something like what happened to Draper last year.
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Homer needs to be gone, from a business perspective
There’s a logjam and something has to give.
Pierre McGuire is a blithering dimwit.
True, Had Bert not resigned
And us not winning the cup, I could see Homer back for one last try.
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pretty sure Tatar has to come up
But I haven’t checked with any slutty girls recently to confirm that
Goalies are enforcers too.
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by AppState on Feb 23, 2012 3:04 PM CST via mobile up reply actions
you haven't?
I should ask the ones who keep finding me on twitter and won’t go away. Maybe they know?
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bloggers have groupies?
I’m in the wrong line of work
Goalies are enforcers too.
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by AppState on Feb 23, 2012 3:07 PM CST via mobile up reply actions
naw
porn-spam. i have no groupies and am not a blogger… just a designer.
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I don't think so
Pretty sure he has one more season
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His contract has 2 more years as a 2 way deal, but
I don’t know his waiver rules. Using Emmerton as a bench mark, Tatar is younger and has been signed for less time. So he should be eligible to bounce around freely for another year. But I’d rather see him with a winged wheel on his chest soon.
Pierre McGuire is a blithering dimwit.
Tatar and Nyquist both have two more years
before they’ll have to clear waivers. Smith has one year left. So all three could go up and down from GR to Detroit without a problem next season.
Brendan Smith fan
by JeffHancock41 on Feb 23, 2012 5:22 PM CST up reply actions
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