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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Dustin Penner\u00A0(2007) is the only restricted free agent to change teams, and he cost the Oilers\u00A0plenty. (Jason O. Watson/US Presswire)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;By Stu Hackel&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Let's\u00A0file this post under the category of things we have to cover (our SI.com hockey page overlord John Rolfe likens it to eating your spinach). It's less fun than, say, debating Chris Osgood's career or trying to figure out who has the right to claim the history of the Winnipeg Jets, but it contains useful information and perhaps even essential vitamins and minerals. So open up and start\u00A0chewing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Few things are more restrictive than restricted free agency in the NHL. Hundreds of players have been RFAs\u00A0since the current CBA was adopted in 2005, but only six have received offer sheets -- Ryan Kesler, Thomas Vanek, Dustin Penner, David Backes, Steve Bernier\u00A0and Niklas Hjalmarsson\u00A0-- and of those, only Penner changed teams.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That's something to keep in mind when you hear people urge NHL GMs to take a run at an RFA. The 2011 group is stellar, led by Steven Stamkos, Drew Doughty, Shea Weber, Zach Parise, Brandon Dubinsky, Ryan Callahan, Devin Setoguchi, Luke Schenn, Kyle Okposo, and Zach Bogosian. Any club would be instantly better with one of them in\u00A0its lineup. But the RFA system is too onerous to permit\u00A0player movement. Three weeks into free agency, some of these guys have re-upped with their old teams and it's folly to think any of them are going anywhere other\u00A0than back to\u00A0where they came from.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For one thing, some filed for arbitration (or their teams did) and that means they're not eligible for an offer sheet that would allow them to move. In other cases, the teams said they would match any offer sheet, so even\u00A0tendering\u00A0 one would be futile. The GMs know that.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;They also know that\u00A0none of the aforementioned\u00A0players would come cheaply. First, a team that acquires an RFA through an offer sheet has to give up as many as four first-round picks, depending on the salary for which\u00A0the RFA signs. Second, as Kevin Allen points out in &lt;em&gt;USA Today&lt;/em&gt;, to attract an RFA, a team might have to offer a salary that would suddenly catapult\u00A0the club\u00A0over the salary cap, and any team that has the space for an RFA isn't\u00A0automatically attractive to a rising star\u00A0who is\u00A0looking to make an impact for a Cup contender.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There's one other thing that GMs realize: Signing an RFA to an offer sheet ends up causing salary inflation and makes\u00A0their jobs more difficult while angering ownership, something no GM wants to do.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's always been that way with RFAs. When the Rangers offered Joe Sakic a three-year, $21 million deal in 1997, the Avalanche matched and established the superstar salary at $7 million. The pre-lockout salary spiral began immediately (which we chronicled here when Sakic retired two years ago) and helped doom the 2004 CBA negotiations. \"The dance is open,\u201D an irritated Avs GM Pierre Lacroix said. \u201DThe Rangers were very active in the free-agent galaxy. The way they are going, the way they are acting, I\u2019m sure they are going to be the first team to sign an alien and to have an alien to play for their team. I just hope the planet of the alien will have a chance to match.\u201D&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lacroix was right (about the dance being open, not the alien part).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But since 1997,\u00A0the only RFA to change teams is\u00A0Dustin Penner. In 2007, he signed an offer sheet with the Oilers\u00A0for five years and $21.25 million,\u00A0with a cap hit of $4.35 million. Now that's a salary you'd give to a player you hope would get you a point\u00A0per game or maybe 30 goals. Penner, who had been making\u00A0the league minimum ($450,000) for Anaheim, hit that 30-goal mark just once in nearly four full seasons with Edmonton and\u00A0was good for about a half-point\u00A0per game. Tired of his inconsistency for that price, the Oilers\u00A0shipped him to the Kings late last season, where he didn't do much in 19 games (two goals, six points). But every top six power forward-looking\u00A0for new contract can point to Penner's\u00A0deal\u00A0and say \"That's what the market value is for my type of player.\" In any arbitration hearing,\u00A0Penner\u00A0can be cited as a comparable (UFA deals cannot).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The inflationary aspect of offer sheets generates lots of ill will. Before they acquired Penner, the Oilers\u00A0tried\u00A0to land Vanek\u00A0 for seven years and $50 million. Buffalo matched, but\u00A0at a much higher\u00A0salary than\u00A0it\u00A0preferred and\u00A0the\u00A0offer sheet\u00A0certainly\u00A0strained\u00A0the Sabres'\u00A0budget. The same thing\u00A0happened when the Canucks offered a sheet to Backes\u00A0-- and the Blues retaliated a week later by\u00A0submitting a sheet to Bernier. Last summer, realizing that\u00A0the Blackhawks\u00A0had cap difficulties, the Sharks tried to snare Hjalmarsson. The Hawks matched but had to cut loose goalie Antti\u00A0Niemi, who they couldn't afford to re-sign. Hjalmarsson\u00A0is a good defenseman, but you can bet the Hawks didn't want to have to pay him $3.5 million after he got $666,000 coming out of his entry-level contract.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In each of these cases, bad feelings resulted, none more celebrated than the Brian Burke-Kevin Lowe feud that broke out after the Penner signing and just kept going. The GMs are a cozy club and they do business with other regularly. No one wants to anger his colleagues for fear\u00A0of losing a potential trading partner.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;So while its easy to say that a GM who isn't hunting for RFAs isn't properly doing his job of\u00A0trying to improve his team, there are real world pressures that greatly inhibit the offer sheet process.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;What this will mean for RFAs\u00A0in the next CBA is unclear. There must always be mechanisms in place\u00A0that allow\u00A0players to get fair market value for their services if they believe their teams are lowballing them, and reward them if they improve. But, like salary arbitration -- which teams and players both want to avoid\u00A0-- the offer sheet aspect of the RFA system also seems fraught with difficulties and isn't an effective tool. Yet, if it is eliminated, does that remove a necessary, if infrequently used, lever that keeps the RFA portion of the CBA workable? This is why they have collective bargaining.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As for the big name RFAs still out there, the Kings' Doughty begged out of\u00A0the team's\u00A0annual cruise last weekend, one of those offseason fan-mingling events, according to Helene Elliott of &lt;em&gt;The Los Angeles Times&lt;/em&gt;. \"There\u2019s no official word on why Doughty stayed on dry land, but it\u2019s likely he wanted to avoid facing constant questions about his contract status with no easy escape from those inquiries except a lifeboat,\" she wrote.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Elliott reported two weeks ago that the Kings are offering Doughty up to nine\u00A0seasons at more than $6.5 million per year. That's a long time for a deal under the current CBA, which ends after this coming season, and is\u00A0perhaps part of the sticking point. Elliott asked Kings GM Dean Lombardi if he was talking with Doughty's reps,\u00A0Don Meehan and Mark Guy of Newport Sports, and Lombardi answered via email, \"Focused on negotiations for raising the debt ceiling now.\u201D&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There's some thinking that Doughty and his camp are waiting for the outcome of Weber's situation to see what the market for top young defenseman looks like. The Predators captain has an arbitration hearing on Aug. 2, and the team and\u00A0his agent Jarrett Bousquet continue to talk in hopes of staying out of the hearing room. Josh Cooper of &lt;em&gt;The Tennessean&lt;/em&gt;\u00A0spoke with Bousquet\u00A0last week and there was no indication\u00A0that\u00A0Weber was getting antsy. Bousquet said\u00A0Weber wants to be a Predator (who wouldn't, with\u00A0those snazzy\u00A0new gold jerseys?) and feels the team is \"on the cusp of doing something great.\" But Bousquet wasn't all sunshine. \u201CWe\u2019ve had long talks; we seem to be coming to a bit of a stalemate,\" he said, adding, \"We still have time to work before the system kicks in.\u201D&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's a system that, right now, isn't always very good.\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/nhl/home-ice/2011/07/25/rfa-system-leaves-much-to-be-desired>