MacK_Attack

I'm left to wonder if teams will pass on him with hopes that he hits re-entry waivers. I'm wondering if a team like Dallas or Calgary might be looking at him to have on the bench in the playoffs, but they would probably look to him on re-entry waivers.

Players usually like it when the coach gets going like that. Shows he's behind his players to a huge degree. Quite frankly, I think it shows that he cares very deeply about his team.

The player does not "come off the books." The player remains on the salary cap, but with LTIR, they are allowed to replace that salary with a replacement player(s). However, when the player (in this case, Stuart) returns they must clear space for his entire cap hit. Conditioning stints can be used at any time. Players remain on IR while on an AHL conditioning assignment. Even players who were not injured can go on conditioning stints, but they remain listed as an active player. Conditioning stints must be agreed to by the player, as well.

IR and LTIR are basically the same, just differ in how teams can go about replacing the player. Both IR and LTIR players are not on the active roster. A player on IR is short-term (must remain on IR for 7 days, can be retroactive) and can't have his salary replaced by a player called up or acquired. LTIR is for players who will sit out at least 10 games or 24 days. These players can have their cap salary replaced while they are injured, which also allows teams to exceed the cap by 10% in order to allow a team right against the cap to be able to deal with injuries. There's a common misconception that LTIR allows teams to "bank" cap space. Not true. Injured players have their salary count fully against the cap, regardless of the term of their injury. The only way to save money on the cap with an injured player is to have that player injured for the entire season.

More importantly, the New York Islanders list him as being on IR. http://islanders.nhl.com/team/app?service=...amp;type=roster

It has nothing to do with the cap. LTIR players don't technically come off the cap, but teams are allowed to replace that player with a similar cap hit in order to facilitate the replacement of players who are injured for an extended period. I think perhaps DiPietro hasn't been placed on IR simply because it doesn't really make a difference for the Islanders if he's on it or not.

Lack of options. They've set up a rotation now with Toskala and Pogge. Pogge gets called up the day of the game he's starting, then heads back to the AHL to play between his NHL starts.

They'll pick up somebody with the LTIR space created.

That was the breaking point, but it was going to happen that season, regardless. Ron Corey, Rejean Houle & Mario Tremblay ran the Habs into the ground.

A hat-trick against Ottawa is akin to scoring three goals on the special kid at recess.

A starting goalie? Wasn't a deadline deal, but there was Patty Roy in '96.

You can have Toskala. Please. Take him.

Not really, because when the contract is signed, the player can't make more than the maximum salary (for the season that the contract goes into effect for) at any point in the contract. There's also the rule that doesn't allow a contract to drop by more than half from year-to-year, or something like that. Also remember that the first time the Isles tried to sign DiPietro to a 15-year contract, it was rejected by the league.

It's illegal in IIHF play, but so far, still legal in the NHL.

No, they benefited from Tommy Salo.

Yeah, Pacific Coliseum (Canucks old home) is an NHL sized ice surface. There was talk once upon a time about expanding it out to international size, but that didn't happen. Salt Lake had an ice surface that was actually between NHL size and international size.

No, but be mindful of the salary cap drop coming the season after. Load up on long-term deals this summer and you'll be scrambling to dump them next year.

I still think Franzen is heading for UFA. He's never made the huge dollars and needs to cash in while the sun still shines. You might be able to get Hossa, but that looming cap drop in two years is an issue. Heard one estimation the other day that it could drop below $50 million for 2010/11. There's going to be a lot of empty private boxes come next October. Some of the guys who hit UFA status this summer are in for a rude awakening.

Being on the small ice should give Canada an advantage.

They had ice girls when I was there before the lockout.

Sounds to me like Crosby was told to be there today or he'd be sitting next week, too.

Because he's in Montreal doing the off-ice events.

No, his hip and knee injuries go back a few years now.

11 months is more than enough time to let everybody know that they have to be there.

I'm involved in PR and it's a pain in the ass when you line people up for these types of events and they bail at the last minute. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a fan weekend. It's a corporate weekend, and given how hard it is to get corporate dollars these days, it matters more than ever to have every star player possible at these events to sell the game to ones with the big pocketbooks.