ComradeWasabi

Just one more thing he has in common with Drapes.

You know what, Crymson, you can just get the hell out of here with your reliable sources and logical conclusions.

The fact that his rights could be traded for instead continues, for some odd reason, to be unimportant to you.

We've seen that teams are pretty willing to let players sit out if they won't sign and a trade can't be arranged - see Kyle Turris, and almost Drew Doughty. While I don't agree with actually paying a 20-year-old $5+ million, the fact remains that a first and a third could be a decent price for what is essentially a sign-and-trade.

Thanks for posting! Bought a poster as soon as I saw it, too.

On the first page I quite clearly explained why I really don't care for this to be investigated. I think it's pretty stupid that team officials are not allowed to say that if a player were to make it to market, they would make a strong push for him. Throwing specific numbers around and talking directly to players or agents: those are (and should be) violations of the tampering rule. I simply don't think that saying that you would match any potential offer a player might receive should be considered a violation of the rules. People aren't stupid, everyone in both the Parise in NJ camps are quite aware that he is the marquee free agent forward this off-season and that if he makes it to UFA status, multiple teams will be making significant offers. I don't understand why everybody is supposed to play stupid until July 1st, especially when it comes to such a major free agent. It would of course be quite another matter if, for example, a GM publicly disclosed the terms of the offer he would be making to a free agent. But just to say "I really want him if he becomes available and I'll stop at nothing to try to make it happen" should not be against the rules, at least in my opinion.

Under the letter of the rules, you're right: this should be investigated and something should be done about it. I just don't like the rules. I was going to respond to the rest of your post, but I don't think it'll be very productive for either one of us, so I'll leave it at that.