| You can't rule out P.A. Parenteau heading West to get away from that jersey. (Getty Images) |
When the dust began to settle from the first few days of free agency there were some easy conclusions to draw. The most obvious was that there were a ton of players receiving a lot more money than they should. Of course, that's a given every year in free agency.
Another conclusion that's easy to jump to is that the Western Conference "won" free agency, if you can possibly win something like that. When I tried to quantify the winners and losers of free agency up to this point, it was full of teams from the West (on both the good and bad sides).
When you go up and down the CBSSports.com list of the top 50 free agents, 36 have signed contracts at this point. Of those 36, 23 signed with a team in the West. Taking it one step further, 14 of the top 20 free agents signed in the West and there are three still to go which could boost the conference's total.
So often in hockey -- in all sports, honestly -- you hear about the inherent advantages of teams in the East. They get all of the attention in all channels of the media, they travel a heck of a lot less on average, they don't have to cross time zones very often, etc. etc.
You could hear the envy of every team in the West when watching HBO's 24/7 this year and seeing the New York Rangers take a train to play a foe ... not even in their own division! Only the Ducks and Kings get to experience a taste of what many teams in the East enjoy.
Yet here we are, with players flocking to Western teams. It would seem that those factors we hear so much as being competitive disadvantages for teams in the West, like travel, aren't all that important when players consider where they want to play.
Who better to answer that question than a man who deals with players and their contract negotiations first hand, somebody like player agent Allan Walsh? He explained how little that consideration can be.
"I think travel and location are certainly factors, but I think there's a whole menu of factors that go into play," Walsh explained. "I think that the coach, the organization, teammates and who someone projects he's going to play with, the ability to play for a contender and have a chance to win is a huge factor. Certainly money is factor and location and travel. I think those are all the key factors."
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Considering the strength of the teams in the West the past few years in hockey, it's hard to argue about the contenders being in that conferences vs. the East. Just consider how strong of an 8 seed the West produced this season in the Kings.
Now admittedly part of these westbound numbers are a little skewed. A lot of players that signed with Western teams just played for teams in the West. Still, seven players in the top 20 switched conferences and of those, six were players going from a team in the East to a team in the West.
Among them was one of Walsh's clinets P.A. Parenteau, who left the Islanders for the Colorado Avalanche. The Avs gave Parenteau $16 million over four seasons to make Denver his new home and he accepted.
"For somebody like P.A. what he was looking at was 'what centermen do I have to play with?' because for him to be successful he has to play with the right centerman," Walsh explained. "There were other teams that offered more term and there were two teams that offered more money. But in looking at hockey as the overriding concern, Colorado was the best fit."
There is certainly reason to believe this was absolutely the case for Parenteau. He has benefitted tremendously playing with John Tavares the past two seasons for the Islanders and in Colorado they have such a glut of talented centers that one local columnist recently advocated trading Matt Duchene away.
So when you look at the free-agent scene as a whole and try to figure out why it was so West-heavy this year, it's pretty much impossible to categorize it as a trend or anything more than the right fits at the right times such as Parenteau to Colorado or Zach Parise going to the Wild.
"I think it would be inaccurate to say that players are now trending toward the Western Conference because of X factor or Y factor," Walsh said. "I think that the teams that had the most needs just so happened to be in the West and I don't think that the location in and of itself was an overriding factor from high-profile free agents who decided to sign in the West vs. the East."
More than anything it was a coincidence this summer with the most of activity being in the West. However what it does say is that a lot of the factors that we in the media and fans try to claim as important factors and disadvantages aren't really that big of a deal to players. Increased traveling? A general lack of cross-town rivalries? So what.
Oh, and the media attention, playing in a market that will get your mug on national TV much more often?
"It's never once come up in a discussion with a pending unrestricted free agent," Walsh said. "Not once."
The West may have "won" free agency but I feel like we all won a little bit by dismissing some of those intangibles that are often treated as fact.
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