toby91_ca

Heard Jim Rutherford on the radio the other day talking about long-term deals and how he always said he'd never give more than 7 years (b/c that is how long you can insure them), but Jordan Staal was an exception, great character, only 23 or 24 years old, etc. He then mentioned he's interested in Semin a 1 year deal as he'd like to get to know him first......what is this saying about Semin's character? I think there are definately at least many teams that question it, otherwise, he would have been offered a multi-year deal by now. Pens only offering 1 year as well?

The correct answer is that any ramifications from the new CBA will be dealt with in the new CBA, so no one really knows at this point. If I were to guess, I'd assume the cap will be unimpacted inititially and the structure will just move from their based on how they structure the new deal. That said, it is entirely possible that they agree to move the 57% down to 54% or 52% or 50% of league revenues for players. They could take that downward movement and lower the cap proportionately and also then lower all existing contracts down proportionately as well. I'm pretty confident in saying that the new CBA should not cause teams to have to get rid of any existing players.

The thing is, neither Parise or Suter need to jump the gun too quickly. In the past, guys would sign right away to avoid risk of missing out on getting a good deal, but with these guys, they can afford to wait. The FA crop is very, very bad, they are the top 2 available and having teams sign a bunch of other guys won't impact them. They'll get their deal and they can take a ton of time thinking about it. Not sure why you would have to though. They should have already thought long and hard about where they would want to go and now it should just be a matter of accepting a deal.

That would be rare though. They have had over a year now to work out a deal with their respective teams, if they wanted to stay, why didn't they sign sometime over the past year. The only reason would be using other offers to up their value in a contract with their existing team. That makes total sense, but you rarely see that. Most cases, when players go to UFA, they sign elsewhere. I have no actual evidence to back that up of course, I didn't waste my time digging for it, just a sense I've had over the past number of years.

2 things: 1 - Having come off a monster season (for him if you compare to his other seasons), if you wanted to sign him now, he'd be looking to cash in on his one big year and would want more than a $1 million raise. 2 - would be pretty risky to lock him up at a big number without him proving more. That said, the Wings have had a knack at doing that (locking guys up early for more money than most people think they have earned, but then the deals turn out good down the road). They haven't really gotten burned too much on that type of thing.

Crosby had 39 goals and 102 points in his rookie year on a god awful team. 44pts ahead of the #2 scorer on his team (same could be said for Ovie in his first cuople years). The thing is, if you are a 3rd or 4th liner and then you get to play with the top line, get top line minutes and top line situations, your stats should grow significantly, but if you are the star player on your team, getting top minutes and playing top situations, playing with better players shouldn't increase your stats astronomically. I don't want to say you wouldn't have better stats, because you probably would, but it likely wouldn't be as signficant as some think. The bigger impact of playing with better players would be having a better record as a team. That said, Nash is a winger and as a general rule, wingers tend to need "help" producing, someone to feed them the puck. Centres should be able to crease offense on their own. This is of course a huge generalization, but I'm not afraid to throw it out there. Great centres will produce no matter who they play with, some upside if you plug in better wingers. Great wingers will produce as well, but if you plug in a great centre with them, I suspect their production would increase as a much higher rate than the other way around.

I think there is way too much speculation going on regarding how much he'll get per year (i.e. front loading and low amounts at the end). I think it is a safe bet to assume that there will be some larger amounts at the front with a gradual decline, but that makes some sense, nothing wrong with that. The huge difference between this 12 year deal and Zetterberg's deal is that Crosby signed his at 24 and Zetterberg signed his at 30 or 31 (also, I'm assuming Zetterberg's has a much steeper decline in salary towards the end, but that's pure speculation). $8.7 million is an absolute steal. The risk of injury to him is a pure cash issue, not a cap issue. Locking him up at a cap hit of $8.7 per year for the next 12 years is a steal......offset that with the risk that they might be on the hook to pay him the cash with him playing if a concussion sidelines him. This assumes he can't be insured for concussions, which likely I would guess. If his contract was fully insured, there would be no risk at all....other than the cap coming down significantly, which isn't a signficant risk I wouldn't think.

Well, facts are that with his type of injury, you never really know if you are 100% or not. The way one GM put it is that he would pay him, knowing there there is a big risk and he may get burned, but if he doesn't do it and Crosby goes on to greatness over the next 10+ years, he'll look even more foolish.

But your $10 million reference point is meaningless, you've created that out of thin air. The fact is, the cap has gone up about 15-20% since Zetterberg signed his contract, so comparing $8 million for him, or whatever the number, to what Crosby might be worth today is comparing apples and oranges. I've always said when Zetterberg signed his contract, he might be worth $8 million a year on a 5 deal, but if you want longer term, your average per year has to come down due to diminishing returns as he ages. Otherwise, you have a 41 year old on the roster taking up $8 million in cap space and potentially not giving you much production. Flip sides are that he's likely retired before then or the cap may be significantly greater so the $8 million isn't a big deal. I've always had an issue with these types of contrats as, to me, they are clearly circumventing the cap. Unless you really thinking the player is going to stick around and play through to the end of the contract, I think there is circumvention. I think deals like Zetterberg's pushed the envelope and then Kovalchuk's initial deal just went way overboard and was denied. Not based on what a group of GMs suggested. I heard a comment a few weeks ago about the very issue with his concussions, etc. I think 6 or 7 GMs were asked about the situation and all of them suggested they would be willing to sign him to a max dollar deal, even if they wouldn't be able to insur him.

I think most are considering the $9-10 million to be the average per year over a deal he signs....therefore = cap hit. Maybe I'm interpreting your statement wrong, but are you suggesting Richards made $22 million last year? He had a signing bonus of $10 million as you say, but his salary was only $2 million....so total = $12 million. Wasn't sure if you were adding the signing bonus on top of the $12 million. Really? Not sure why Hank would be worth $8 million a year into his 40s, but ok. You say Hank took a cut from possible $8 million to $6 million, but if Crosby is worth $14 million (i.e. max under the cap) and he only takes $9 or $10 million, it's not a cut since it's more than $8 million. This makes no sense at all. The thing is, even if Crosby wants to settle at $9 or $10 million, you better believe he will be getting serious pressure from both his agent and the NHLPA to go as high as possible.

Before I say what I'm going to say, I will preface it with the fact that I think Shanny is a HOFer and will get in, likely next year (although, I haven't bothered checking who he might be up against). What I'm trying to do is get in the head of the voters and rationalize why he might not have gotten in. Facts are, if he got in this year (first time eligible no less), he would enter having "one of" the lowest ppg stat in a long time. You can consider a bunch of other little things he brings to the table, but you can say the same about many different players. I know many will mention so many points and so many PIMs at the same time, but I'm not sure how much weight the PIMs carry with the voters. So, it may come down to him being a goal scorer. If you look at the numbers, 656 goals is a lot, by any standard and he is a lock to get in, eventually, but if you look deeper, was he really a dominant scorer? How many years did he actually finish near the top of the goal scorer race? (I'm not sure he ever did). In his two big years (50+ goals) he wasn't even the goal scoring leader on his team, let alone in the top 3 or 4 in the league.

If you think about it though, what arguments do you have for Shanahan over Sundin? Yes, he scored more goals, but Sundin still had 564 goals. Sundin scored the same number of points (give or take a few) in almost 200 less games. I also think Sundin's international experience is a little more accomplished than Shanny's. I think Shanhan's very low points per game stat hurt him. He'll get in eventuall though. If you look at this year's list, I could argue Shanny over Sundin, Oates or Bure, but you could argue the other way too. The only non-argument would be that Sakic is a lock over them all. Oates...much better ppg than Shanny, but after that, not much to say. Bure....the question mark there is the fact his career was cut short....did he do enough? I think his talents were superior to Shanahan's, his gpg and ppg stats blow Shanny's out of the water, but that has been shown in the past not to matter much when you are talking about shorter careers. Bure waited awhile to get in though.

When talking franchise history, what's the difference between groupings today's Wings in with the Wings of the 50s vs. grouping today's Coyotes in with the Jets of the 80s? The only real difference between the 2 is that in one case you have the same name and play in the same city (so what?).

??? - I've always had a seat to games I've gone to, but I think most rinks in the NHL sell standing room only tickets.

I would have been shocked if he didn't step down. I don't know why he agreed to go there in the first place.

I thought Sergei was the problem child, not Andrei (or moreso anyway).

I wonder if the Flyers are going to struggle a bit now. I think their "Cup" was almost beating the Penguins....maybe moreso with their fans, but I bet it has rubbed onto some of the players at least as well. They need to get their goaltending in order if they want to go much further.

I don't know why this annoys me so much, but it does. I watched last night's game via TSN, so maybe a lot aren't getting the same replays, etc. that I am. Anyway, during the game and after the game, they showed the "save" Rinne made on Hulder's spin-around backhander. It was played over and over again and they talking about how great Rinne was playing, etc. I get up this morning and on Sportscentre, it was one of the highlights of the night. So...why am I annoyed? Is it just me, or would the puck have missed the net by about 3 feet if Rinne didn't make the "save"? I wouldn't even call it a save because it wasn't even a shot on net.

Sorry, but what the hell are you talking about? Philly was 3 for 6 on the PP. Pretty sure powerplay chances were 7-6, just slighty different than 9-2. Regardless, PIT beat PHI 6-0 at even strength so not sure why anyone would be fussing about reffing in this one.

Rinaldo is a bit of a loose cannon I think.

Sorry, you are right, I watched on CBC, the replays this morning was TSN

No, that's not what I want to see. The Schenn hit was no clean though....he travelled a long distance and jumped into the hit....not suspension worthy or anything because it wasn't a head shot, but it wasn't clean either. I liked the response by Asham to come over and do "something", but what he did was boneheaded and hurt his team rather than help. If he had come over and roughed him up a bit, that may have helped his team.

That's exactly the point. When someone on your team gets hit hard....clean or not, you want to send a message that they will need to pay whenever they do that.....try to deter hitting the future, that's exactly what they are trying to accomplish. To be honest, I'd be unhappy if my team didn't respond to hard hits, you have to show that you won't get pushed around. Another thing to think about....I bet that hit isn't made of it wasn't Sedin...they target star players and try to punish them, you need to respond. If the hit is dirty, the response would be a lot more violent.

I don't agree with that at all. Not sure how you say this was any more deliberate than the Keith eblow, I think the Keith elbow was pretty damn deliberate. Either way, that elbow was way more devastating of a hit than what Weber did. What Weber did was dirty, boneheaded, stupid, whatever, but how much damage could that really cause? He'd have to be the strongest guy in the world to really hurt anyone doing that. If he made contact with the attempted punch to the back of the head, I think that would be worse. In terms of the playoffs not mattering in terms of number of games, that is plainly stupid of them to say becaus it obviously will and should matter. How could someone argue it shouldn't matter? It has been taken into account in every incident in the history of the game (for good reason) why would it be different now? Personally, I think this is a real tough call. I think he should get 1 game, but I wouldn't be surprised if he only got a fine. I don't see him getting more than 1 game....if it was regular season, that would be different.

Good point