Player agents are furious with one NHL general manager.

GM seems to have made a lot of agents angry.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 4 years ago
Player agents are furious with one NHL general manager.
Chris Brown/CSM/Zuma

It seems that there are a lot of very angry agents in the National Hockey League.

The San Jose Sharks and general manager Doug Wilson pulled of a stunning deal during the offseason when they managed to sign veteran forward Kevin Labanc to an extremely team friendly deal. The talented Sharks forward was coming off a career year in which he recorded 56 points but instead of cashing in like most players in his situation, he opted instead to gamble on himself. In the end the two sides signed a 1 year deal that will play Labanc a meager $1 million next season, but another solid season from Labanc could see him earn mega bucks on his next contract.

It seems the gamble from Labanc has impacted more than just his future however. This week Sportsnet's National Hockey League insider Elliotte Friedman revealed that the new deal between the Sharks and Labanc had a wide reaching impact around the NHL.

"You know I gotta tell ya," began Friedman on his podcast. "Doug Wilson, that guy he gets done what he needs to get done and he makes people crazy."

Friedman says that in spite of being on vacation, a period in which he is usually relaxing and not very busy, that the contract from Labanc resulted in his phone exploding. Interestingly enough it sounds like a lot of those calls or messages came directly from player agents furious at general manager Doug Wilson.

"That day when that happened my phone blew up with people just furious. Some of those people were agents because that is a killer comparable now. Like Labanc, 56 points $1 million, you're looking at it from a client point. Now teams are gonna say 'hey he's making a million dollars.'"

"There were some agents that were really mad at that."

The best part about the comments from Friedman is that he believes, in spite of driving several people mad, Doug Wilson is probably loving all of this right now.

"I can imagine Doug Wilson golfing in Arizona or California and just laughing at everybody being so furious at this contract. People went crazy when they heard about this deal."

Source: