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Well, assuming the decision hasn't already been made...one has to think that Lebda and Lilja are paired together as a performance evaluation. They are the only two defenseman among the Wings' 5th-9th defensemen who are playing on a pairing together. They are also the only pairing of two roster players who played in the NHL the past two or more seasons who are not being played with a prospect. Quincey and Meech, as well as others, are being put with veterans to aid in their development. This suggests the team is investing in their development and does not plan to just dump them off. Chelios is being used for the development of prospects, and at his age and status with the club he would not have a contract if he was in danger of being shipped out. Lebda has to be assumed as holding the advantage over Lilja due to age and contract status; and Lilja must significantly outplay not just Lebda, but Quincey and Meech as well to justify his place on the roster. He must outplay them to a degree that the Wings feel that moving a forward to clear cap space is a better move for the team than moving Lilja. If one of the youngsters such as Leino, Helm, or McGrath, or possibly an oldster like McCarty, can show up and make an impact and make a more expensive forward expendable, this becomes more possible. That said...Lilja is probably shipped out in the next two weeks.

The difference is that when MSU players do something stupid, like mug someone in a parking lot, they get to stay on the team while the legal process is sorted out. Funny or not, Harrison was immediately removed from the team once he was charged. I wonder how the victims feel.

Interesting thought that is probably best placed in this topic. Chris Osgood played what many are calling his best season last year. His partner from last season, Dominik Hasek, has now retired at the age of 43. Osgood ended last season at the age of 35. Assuming Osgood plays until the age of 43, he will play eight more seasons. He is 188 wins behind the current all-time wins leader, Patrick Roy, who will likely lose his record sometime during the upcoming season to Martin Brodeur. 16 wins gives Brodeur sole possession; he has twelve consecutive seasons of 30+, marred only by 19 wins in the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season and 27 during his rookie campaign. Osgood is 56 shutouts behind the current all-time shutout king, Terry Sawchuk, who also is quite likely to lose his record during the coming season to Brodeur, who is a mere 7 behind and has eclipsed that number six times during his career, and has averaged a shutout for every ten starts during his career and expects to start more than 70 games this season, as he has every season since 1997. Assuming Osgood plays those eight seasons and retires at 43 as Hasek did...he would need to average at least 24 wins per season to pass Roy's wins mark. If he plays a full 8 seasons as a starter, it should be doable. As far as shutouts to pass Sawchuk? He would have to average 7 per season there. That's not so likely. But another way of looking at it. Osgood has won 57.5% of his games as a Red Wing. If we assume that he maintains this percentage, then he needs to play 327 games. If we assume Osgood plays less than 65 games per season, then he needs to play five more seasons if he wants to catch Roy's wins total unless he greatly increases his winning percentage and/or his workload. 188 games won over 5 seasons would be an average of about 38 wins per season.

Leaning on a player is one thing. The way you and someone else worded it was as if the PA had some sort of veto power over the contract, as if Selanne could negotiate a deal at the minimum with Burke and then the PA could say 'sorry, you're a top player in the league, you can't sign for that amount.' and tell him he wasn't going to get a deal for anything less than what they felt was fair. I pointed out that wasn't the case, and a bunch of people felt the need to jump back at me with the 'Oh yes it is!' arguments. Like I said, I can even bring up cases of the PA leaning on players; the PA leaned on Chelios going into the summer to wait until free agency began before signing his new contract. Chelios commented on it saying he wanted to just sign and get it over with.

$3m would be a raise for Selanne though. His cap hit last season over a full season would have been about $2.75m.

Hmm...and now you contradict yourself. You say age is a perfectly reasonable caveat as to why a player who has had no durability or consistency issues should take half of what his linemates are making when many consider him the best player on his line. For reference, total stats over the past three seasons: Selanne: 188 GP, 100g-107a-207pt (Avg: 63 GP, 33g-36a-69pt) Alfredsson: 224 GP, 112g-167a-279pt (Avg: 75 GP, 37g-56a-93pt) Projecting Teemu's numbers to Alfredsson's average 75 GP gets you 40g-43a-83pt. Which doesn't even account for the fact that Alfredsson has been a Selke contender during those years. Using your own argument now; Selanne's age makes it ok for him to take a salary that his skill level would otherwise prevent him from being able to take. Do you think I am just leaving out these details? Perhaps I am conveniently not including them in my argument for a reason, that reason being that I know you or someone else will include them in a counter-argument that only serves to strengthen my point. You have yet to address the Hossa argument. Hossa was offered at least two contracts with over $100 million in guaranteed money. He turned them down for less than $8m. Please, tell me why the NHLPA didn't butt into that situation. You've already stated that age is justifiable for reduced salary. If it's the fact that Hossa wanted to sign in Detroit and Detroit could only afford a certain amount, well then the idea of Selanne signing for a small contract in Anaheim should never have become an argument because Anaheim is $1.5m over the cap.

Which is why I didn't buy the argument of people who were all 'Kariya's awesome, he took a huge paycut so he could have a chance to win a Stanley Cup!' given the fact that he left Anaheim because they asked him to take a pay cut so that they could afford to add Selanne to a team that had just been to the finals.

The problem is...other arrangements would have to involve a forward. That forward has to be Sammy or someone more expensive than Sammy. Otherwise, the Wings are still over the cap. So, what exactly do you suggest that hurts the team less than just dropping Lilja, even if Lilja outplays Quincey/Meech/Lebda? I will give you a hint...there is no player or combination of players the Wings can get rid of who clears enough cap space that is less important than just clearing Lilja. The Wings have two problems; they are $850k over the cap and one defenseman over the roster limit, assuming McCarty is headed to GR. Trading Lilja for picks/prospects or waiving him solves both issues. There is no other defenseman outside the top four who can be removed who does so. If you remove Chelios and Lebda and keep McCarty on the roster, that would solve the cap issues and roster space while keeping Lilja...but it would be a 14-7-2 roster; Holland has indicated he intends to go with 13-8-2. If the Wings trade Maltby and Lebda and keep McCarty, that would solve the issue also. Regardless, Lilja is the most obvious answer and the most likely answer.

What about Daniel Alfredsson? Elite offensive forward, Selke contender. His extension is worth less than $4m per year. He is considered by many to be the best player on his line, yet his linemates make better than $7m each. He's also the team captain. Why didn't the NHLPA step in and stop that hurtful action that likely cost a bunch of other players money? I'll give you a hint: Because it didn't. The way the cap is set up, the teams are going to be spending at least a certain amount, and at most a certain amount every year. They know these amounts going into the season. The contract Selanne signs has NO BEARING on what other players make, because it has no bearing on these amounts. The most impact it could have is increasing the attendance at Ducks games, which in turn increases the cap, in turn increasing the player salaries. The minimum average player salary will be at least $1,769,565 this season. That is if all teams spent at the cap floor for 23 players. The maximum average player salary is $2,835,000. That would be all teams spending right to the cap for 20 players. The average pre-lockout salary was $1.4m for NHL players. You're telling me that the NHLPA is more concerned now about a player like Selanne taking a pay cut than they were right before the lockout? The average salaries are higher; much higher, yet the top end salaries are noticeably lower. I would say the majority of players have benefitted greatly from the salary cap in that most players make more than they would have made at the same point on the salary scale in 2004. Which is why the union won't care if Selanne decides to play for cheap.

I did name one. Paul Kariya. Colorado. NHL star in his prime. Signed for a nearly $9m pay cut to play with Colorado, and it was about $5m less than Anaheim was offering him. Selanne is more justifiable at the league minimum now than Kariya was at $1.2m then.

Give me one example of when the NHLPA rejected a player's contract because the player agreed to a deal that was worth too little money. One. Just one. That's all you need to do to show that the NHLPA has ever engaged in this behavior. I have never seen anything to suggest that they do or ever have, other than the belief of a few posters on message boards. Sorry, that's hardly conclusive evidence.

Ok. McCarty has signed for $500k. The Wings now have 25 players who are not waiver-exempt and the total cap hits of those players puts them about $1.35m over the cap. They will be dropping one forward and one defenseman from the group to reach the magic makeup of 13-8-2. McCarty or Downey will likely be the forward, with the TC loser being waived and sent to Grand Rapids. This will probably be McCarty. So that puts us back where we were; 24 players and $850k over the cap, needing to drop a defenseman. But there is the small chance that the forward moved could be someone else; I doubt it as Holland has stated the Wings had been looking to add a top-six forward in the offseason before they added Hossa. The most logical forward to move would be Samuelsson, as nobody else moves enough cap space without creating a more significant hole. Samuelsson himself even creates a fairly significant hole, as the Wings don't really have anyone they can simply plug into his spot and still use the third line the way they had intended; as an offensively capable checking line. So expect the Wings to ship Lilja out by himself sometime within the next couple of weeks; likely to an Eastern Conference team looking for a good solid defensive defenseman.

While I can't speak to the player's motivation, the NHLPA has allowed that kind of pay cut for a top player who was in his later years in the recent past, so if Selanne were willing to accept that kind of rate then it would happen. The blanket statement 'the NHLPA won't allow it because the player is worth more' doesn't work because if that was the way things worked, then Detroit would have been forced to pay more for Hossa. If a player decides he wants to play a certain place for a certain amount, the union can't just say 'no' and that the player can't agree to that contract. That's not how it works. There are specific conditions that are laid out for how contracts have to be structured that can result in contract rejection; we saw this in the Erat case. Otherwise, it just takes agreement on the terms between the player and the organization. The union has no control over the individual negotiations; just over the environment those negotiations take place in.

But he was fourth in Hart voting, and has won five of six Norrises. If you include the lockout season, he has been the best defenseman in the world six of the past seven years. For this season, three defensemen are making more money, although only one has a higher cap hit. Lidstrom had won two in a row and five of the previous six Norris trophies when he signed his extension, which was a pay cut. He is the frontrunner to win the Norris again next season. When Lidstrom wins the Norris the next two years, he will take a massive discount if he stays around. And the NHLPA won't reject such a contract.

Jeff Finger.

Conceivably, a third pairing guy could be a Norris finalist; if he's the third best defenseman on the team, and gets almost all of the third-place votes behind teammates, then he would have a very good shot at being a finalist. The chances of that happening are fairly slim, but it's a realistic possibility.

The NHLPA does not reject "contracts that are below market value" like you guys seem to think. A good example? Paul Kariya signed a one-year deal with Colorado for 1.2m for the 2003-04 season. He had scored 25 goals and 81 points in 82 games the previous season, and was a UFA. He had been offered upwards of $6m by Anaheim after they declined to pick up his option which was upwards of $10m with the plan of signing both Kariya and Teemu Selanne. If the NHLPA were so concerned with rejecting deals that were below a player's market value, Kariya would never have been allowed to play for Colorado. Nicklas Lidstrom continuing to take pay cuts while being named the best defenseman in the league also would probably get rejected by the union.

The trade suggestion I put up, Burke dumps off Schneider and a $2.5m fourth liner and gets back a gritty stay-at-home defenseman and the cap space he needs. It's exactly the kind of trade he should be looking for; if he were the GM he is hyped to be, he would be out pitching that deal to Atlanta.

Brewer 4th? I'm not sure I would rank Brewer 4th just among a comparison between the Wings and Blues.

If Burke is intent on sending off Schneider, Burke should try and package Schneider and Marchant to a team that is below the floor for whatever cheap spare parts they are willing to give up. A good example: To Atlanta: D Mathieu Schneider C Todd Marchant To Anaheim: D Ken Klee Schneider is a better offensive defenseman and PP quarterback than anything Atlanta currently has. Marchant also provides much more value on faceoffs and defense to a team like Atlanta than he does to Anaheim. Klee is a decent bottom-three defensive defenseman at a good price, which is what Burke should be looking for in this trade. Anaheim comes out of the deal dropping to about $5.5m under the cap, which allows them to sign Selanne and Miller and to bring Ryan in full-time.

$3m is more than Teemu's cap hit, including all potential bonuses, was for last season. So regardless of what you think the NHLPA 'will do' they won't force an aging player who played under 30 games to hold out for a raise if he doesn't feel he earned it. The PA wouldn't even have done that under Goodenow, and the PA has been much LESS intrusive on the player's end of contract negotiations since Kelly took over from what I have gathered. Anyone remember when the PA gave Chelios a hard time about wanting to just resign and pretty much forced him to wait until July 1st, and there were all kinds of 'Chelios to New York' rumors? Chelios just wanted to sign, and the PA was giving him hell over it. That kind of crap has pretty much been curbed.

Did Jagr ever play on a line without a top-end offensive center? Centers Jagr played with for full seasons during his career include: Martin Straka, Ron Francis, Robert Lang, Mario Lemieux, Michael Nylander, Scott Gomez Jagr has had a great career...but he has played with some great linemates for his entire career also. Why is it that some people are given the 'Oh, he was great because of who he played with' tag but others who played with great players get the 'Man, he's such a great player, look at all the division titles and Cup championships' stuff. Anyway...as I said before...the defense Hasek played behind in Buffalo played defense with the purpose of limiting chances. If you wanted to take unscreened shots from the point all day, they would let you. Not saying that's all that ever happened...but Brodeur's defense in New Jersey was much more aggressive about preventing shots; Brodeur faced more quality chances per shot. Hasek was still the best goalie of the decade...but I think the stat differences overstate the difference in their play. But an interesting look at the two goalies' domination: At Brodeur's current age, Hasek had just won his sixth Vezina in eight seasons. Brodeur has just won his fourth; given that he had won the two going into the lockout and has won two of three since, it is safe to assume he would have most likely won it had there been a season that year. So while Hasek had been the league's top goaltender six of eight seasons, and would not again be named as such, Brodeur has been the league's top goaltender five of six seasons. He has been arguably just as dominant over the past six seasons as Hasek was during his prime; possibly even moreso. Given that Brodeur was a Vezina contender for ten seasons before that, can you now see why I am not so quick to just say 'Oh yeah, Hasek is the greatest goaltender ever, I mean he has six Vezinas!' because he might not even be the best of his era. That distinction could belong to Brodeur.

To my knowledge, the NHL will not reject a contract because a player agreed to take less than his market value; the only situations where a contract will be rejected is if the values of salary do not conform to the established rules (such as the Erat extension) or if the contract would put the team over the cap during the playing season. If Selanne wants to sign for the league minimum, the league would approve the contract. Selanne's cap number, with bonuses, was just shy of $3m last year. That was a pay cut of more than $1m from his previous season. If the NHL was going to reject that kind of stuff, Selanne would have been playing for more than he made last year. Also, Nicklas Lidstrom would make more than the $7.45m he does (pay cut after winning the Norris trophy for the fifth time in six seasons), and Marian Hossa wouldn't be a Red Wing.

I said Ryan; I meant Drew Miller. Slip of the...fingers? Anyway, I stated that Marchant and O'Donnell could be replaced with little difference in performance by minimum wage players. That should have been enough to indicate that I felt that is what Burke should have done. 2.5m+ for a fourth line center is way too much.

Anaheim now needs to pick up one more defenseman to take his place. They also need to get Ryan and Selanne (or another forward) under contract, and to do it within the $4m cap space opened by waiving Schneider. If the events of last season are repeated in terms of player performance, Burke has just given up his best defenseman for nothing. At best, he has given up a very good defenseman who could have garnered at the very least one decent pick from a couple of bad teams that were desperate for a good offensive defenseman like Schneider; the same kind of teams that now have free access to him. Moreover....fourth-liner Todd Marchant and third-pairing defender Sean O'Donnell could have been replaced with no significant loss of performance by players making close to the minimum wage. That would have cleared up almost as much cap space and brought in more youth to the roster, while maintaining a better group of players and paying much less for the depth players.