Although the Red Wings have been in contact with Andreas Athanasiou’s agent over the last few days, the GM told reporters, including MLive’s Ansar Khan, that nothing has changed with regards to the stalemate in negotiations. Athanasiou’s agent Darren Ferris also told Khan that there is nothing to update at this time.
Detroit made a pair of offers to the 23-year-old restricted free agent earlier in the offseason. They tabled a one-year offer worth $1.25MM that would allow him to return to restricted free agency next summer with arbitration eligibility where he could possibly have more leverage to yield a bigger salary. They’ve also offered him a two-year pact with an AAV of $1.9MM.
However, Athanasiou is believed to still be seeking $2.5MM per season which means there is still a pretty large gap to bridge. Ferris revealed back in August that the winger had a KHL offer on the table and while he wouldn’t reveal the specifics financially, it was suggested that it was worth more than what the Red Wings have offered.
Athanasiou is coming off of a strong season that saw him record 18 goals and 11 assists in just 64 games. However, this was also his only year that he was a full-time NHL player so his track record is still pretty small. The team is likely using comparables such as Toronto winger Connor Brown (three years, $2.1MM), Columbus winger Josh Anderson (who just signed a three year, $5.55MM deal on Monday), and Vancouver winger Sven Baertschi (two years, $3.7MM). Those players all were coming off similar seasons to Athanasiou without any sort of long-term track record of NHL production.
With the season getting underway today, this will be the first day where Athanasiou is leaving money on the table by not being under contract. If he is to play in the NHL at all in 2017-18, the two sides will need to reach an agreement on a new deal by December 1st.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Ken holland needs to do all he can to sign athanasiou he is primed to score 20 goals a year for the foreseeable future. Holland should pull out all the stops to retain him even if that means trading current players to open up cap space such asSheehan and Ericson
The problem is that Detroit is pretty tight up against the cap. If Detroit had say $5-$10m in cap space, this deal would’ve been done already. Obviously trading a player would help, and I think a guy like Sheehan could find a couple of suitors, but a bigger salary like Ericsson is basically unmovable without adding a pick/prospect or taking back salary, with the latter option defeating the purpose of moving Ericsson in the first place.
Another problem is, that Holland has no clue how to build a team according to the salary cap. He was a genius when he had nearly an unlimited amount of money to build a team. In my opinion, he, along with Blashill needs to go before they ruin the Red Wings & their young talent any further. To me, the sooner the better.