sibiriak

Of course, after lockout and under the new CBA that will become a 5-year 25 mil. deal

That's a good point. However, the TSN article (http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=404044 )said this: "The league's proposal did not include an across-the-board reduction (or "rollback") to existing contract values. Necessary adjustments would be financed entirely from a combination of modified contracting practices, increases in league-wide revenue and from the players' Escrow contributions." So maybe they will count the cap as actual salaries paid out, after escrow, rather than the contract numbers.

IMHO, this is what the league's real offer is. The first one was just to scare the union into being more malleable. The owners want 50/50 split, and to exclude some revenues from it. Probably the types of revenues that they expect to grow the fastest in the future, like merchandising, ad revenue or the like. Maybe concessions too. As to the salary cap being lowered, that would basically automatically cut all players salaries by the necessary percentage, and escrow is already there as a tool to achieve that. No official salary rollback will happen, the players just won't see any escrow money returned to them at the end of the season. I forgot what is the percentage of salary that the players have to give up into the escrow fund, but it is definitely over 15%, so the 70 mil. salary cap can go down as low as 58 mil. without having to actually reduce the salary numbers in the actual player contracts.

??? OV reportedly was asking for just 3 mil. for the year to play for Dinamo (that's quite a home-team discount, compared to his NHL salary), if there's a lockout. Since the Dinamo's new owners felt that their roster was set, you will see OV get much more money to play for another KHL team. So "nobody's buying" is not quite true. Also, would it be OK with you, if he were a "rich American guy"?

IIRC, Ted Lindsay didn't leave on the best of terms either. In fact, he didn't want to have anything to do with the Wings for decades after retirement and reconciled only relatively recently. So if Fedorov's jersey deserves to hang on the rafters otherwise, the way he left shouldn't have to be a disqualifying factor.

As long as it's Bobby Orr you mean, sure it would be an ... adequate lineup

They meant to say "cardiac"

Well, given the past history between NHL and the NHLPA, and the fact that the players hired D.Fehr, I am now certain that at least a half of the next season will be lost to a lockout. To top it off, the All Star game was supposed to be here in Columbus this year, there goes my best chance to see it live...

According to Sirius FM Semin is to sign with Pittsburgh for 1 year. Since he preferred to keep signing short contracts with Washington before, this rumor rings true.

Being an NHL scout entails attending a LOT of games all over Europe (in this case). In other words, almost as much travel and time away from family as during the acitve playing carreer. I wonder if Lidstrom will be wiliing to do that for very long. Unless he just does it in a kind of part-time semi-retired way.

Why is it a problem, when hockey players make 10 mil instead of, say, 8? If the owners want to shell that much out, that's their money. And if the teams lose money, they shouldn't give out those huge contracts. But we see that the team franchise values rise, even as the teams are losing money, and that means that the market sees future profit potential there. Let them do what they want. If the franchise values fall, then we can start bitching about financial troubles in the NHL. P.S. I am waiting to see how Suter and Parise contracts are structured over time. Remember NJ being slammed by the league for an apparently similar contract given to Kovalchuk?

I might have missed it, but why are the Ducks shopping Ryan? Bad attitude? Makes too much money?

According to TSN the Wings are not pursuing Radulov and will go UFA route instead.

The vote was held prior to game 4 because the Conn Smythe is awarded right after the Cup, so the winner has to be determined before the final game. Game 4 could well have been the final game this year. So Quick can go 10.0 GAA from now on and still keep the award.

The vote for Conn Smythe has been already taken prior to game 4. Quick is the official winner. Source: S. Mamlamud, who covers NHL for Sport-Express, the Russian sports paper. He was one of the voters.

That article was dated April 9. Any rumor/speculation it was based on is certainly obsolete by now.

Does anyone know what was the reason Thomas is actually sitting out? In plain English, like his wife is going to give birth or his child is sick, or his mom needs care or something human like that? Because what I read out of Tim Thomas (or his publisist, who should be fired if he actually exists) is mostly pompous self-centered load of bullcrap. Or is he simply playing head games with Bruins management, to stop them from trading him?

NJD/LAK: 4-2

Russian sports paper "Sovetskiy Sport" quoted Ilya Kovalchuk's mom: "Pavel Datsyuk played in the Worlds with an injury." I'm so happy for him. He got his first gold medal for Russia, and was one of the key players on that team. I didn't think I could admire this man any more

Here are the comparable (in terms of production) players and their salaries: Zetterberg: actual salary next year 7.1 mil. cap hit 6.08 due to conrtact length gimmick that the league will not toleraate anymore, as they showed with Kovalchuk's contract. D.Sedin 6.1 mil./ 6.1 E.Staal 8.5 / 8.25 Kovalchuk 11.0 / 6.67 Iginla 7.0 /7.0 that contract was signed waay back. Sharp 6.0 / 5.9 Parise is younger than all of them, but Sharp, and to sign him long term would require an increase, at least 20%, over what those guys are making. So if we take a conservative route, average of all the above players, Parise's agent would ask for 10 and won't come down below 8.5. Given that Parise is THE premiere forward UFA this season, I would expect that he will get closer to the asking price than the minimum one. The final number will be modified by playing with throwaway years on the contract and such, but with the league shown displeasure with such doings, I expect that the cap number will be close to the real salary. Now Suter. His comparables: Weber 7.5/7.5 (1 yr and RFA only would command way more for the long-term UFA contract) Hamhius 5.0 / 4.5 Letang 3.5 / 3.5 (signed as RFA, so UFA contract would be much higher) Keith 8.0 / 5.5 Seabrook 7.0 / 5.8 So an average of these 5 +20% is 7.5 and Weber's and Letangs number are too low. So Suter's agent will start with 9.5 and come down to no less than 8.25. Again, Suter is THE best UFA defenseman this year, so he is likely to command closer to 9 mil. than 8. Again, I assume that the real salary does not get too different from the cap hit. So, assuming a long term contract, Parise will cost 9-10 mil, and Suter 8.5-9. Together they will command 17.5-19 mil. If they decide that Detroit only needs to add the two of them to win the Cup next season, they may agree to a one year package deal at significantly less, but if you were in their shoes, which team would be the most likely to win next year with their addition? I doubt it's Detroit. And any GM in a league will do a lot to add those two. Including trading away major players if the cap limit demands it.

Yes, a year. Comparables for a long term contract: Kovalchuk and Weber (who is on a short term arbitration award IIRC) 10+7.5(short term, lowball). With salaries expected to rise every year, a LT contracts of parise and Suter will at least 10% higher than the Kovy+Weber. That is 19+ mil. How about the Bruins? The Rangers? The Devils? The Kings? The Blues? The Preds? The Flyers even? Those all look like contenders to me.

Perhaps, but there's no way they will both accept such a discount, unless it's for one year only, like Selanne and Kariya once did. But put yourself in their shoes, is Detroit the best place for their one shot at a Cup together? Because at that price (14 mil for both) they can have their pick of ANY NHL team they want. And right now Detroit doesn't look like the team most poised to win the Cup next year. And to sign them both long-term, the price tag will START at 20 mil.

Your last sentence asks the right question. That was my point. In order to sign in Detroit, they would EACH have to take less than other Cup-pursuing teams would offer them SEPARATELY. I don't see that happening. Do you really think that Parise will be making less than Kovalchuk? Or for much shorter term? More likely, he'll be making more. Realistically, the only way to sign both would be if Lidstrom retires and a couple of other larger contracts (e.g. Bertuzzi) are gotten rid of and replaced with min.salary players. And then the Wings will be against the cap, and where will the future raises for the RFAs come from then?

So the only source the article has is an unnamed official, who heard it at some unknown event. The rest is pure speculation. I don't believe that a "package deal" like that is feasible in the today's NHL. Money will talk. There are plenty other playoff-caliber teams, and many of them can throw a lot of money at ONE of them, but few can afford to make top-dollar offers for BOTH. I doubt that the Wings can pay 16-18mil. or more long-term for the pair, because that's what it's gonna take, without severely limiting the depth of the team.

Vancouver games were played on NHL-size ice, so premium was on big,tough D-men. Next Olympics are going to be played on big ice, where skating ability, and PP prowess will be more important than size.