-The Ottawa Senators resolved their need for experienced
blueline depth by signing former Philadelphia Flyer Jason Smith to a two-year
contract. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
It was rumored Senators GM Bryan Murray was in the market
for a trade with Anaheim for Mathieu Schneider or San Jose for Kyle McLaren.
Smith’s signing negates the need for the latter and appear to indicate they’ll
re-sign Andrej Meszaros which would remove the need for Schneider
Smith was believed in talks with the Buffalo Sabres but
evidently he liked what the Sens had to offer. His gritty performance in this
spring’s playoffs, particularly against Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby, raise his
stock on the UFA market, and heading into this week was the best available
blueliner left on the market.
-Reports claim Pavol Demitra is either close to signing or
has signed a multi-year deal with the Vancouver Canucks.
That could raise complaints of tampering from some Minnesota
Wild fans given Demitra’s spring sojourn to Vancouver as the guest of former
Canucks captain Markus Naslund as well as the fact Mike Gillis, the Canucks new
general manager, is Demitra’s former agent.
The league already looked into that matter and found no
evidence of tampering. Gillis’ previous relationship with Demitra obviously has
some influence but the bottom line is the Canucks desperately need offensive
depth and are willing to consider taking on an aging, injury-prone forward.
-Speaking of the Canucks, they now have seven days to decide
if they’ll keep forward Steve Bernier.
The St. Louis Blues signed Bernier, who was acquired from
the Sabres last week by the Canucks, to a one-year contract offer sheet worth
$2.5 million.
Consider that a bit of revenge on the part of Blues
president John Davidson for Gillis’ attempt last week to sign forward David
Backes to a three-year, $7.5 million contract offer sheet, which the Blues
matched almost immediately.
Gillis will likely match this offer but like the Blues with
Backes will end up paying him more than desired.
**UPDATE** As expected the Canucks management announced they would match the Blues offer sheet for Bernier.
-Defenseman Paul Mara is returning to the NY Rangers, signing
a one-year, $1.95 million contract, a significant cut in pay from the $3
million he made last season with the Blueshirts.
Given that fact it’s a good bet he wasn’t attracting much
interest or offers of note from rival clubs on the UFA market.
The Demitra saga doesn't really concern me as a Wild fan. Everyone new before the playoffs that Demitra was not coming back. Had the Wild "Doug Risebrough Inc" intended on signing Demo, then this would be a bigger issue.
I think it would have been really Ironic if Markus Naslund went to the Wild.
But Why should we even care about losing Demo? Our prayers have been answered in the UFA pool, we picked up Jesse Owens. One of the greatest Athletes to ever play, im told.
i know the Kings are about 10 mill under the cap floor.
What will they do if anything to get to that magic number.
I know the o'sullivan contract should eat up about a quarter of that but there is no one left on the market that A would want to come to La and B is worth the money
Dean has upset alot of fans and I know for a fact that season ticket holders are down almost 4000 this year
Seems like the Rangers are going a little over board with the whole "we need puck moving defensemen" thing. I know play from the point was a HUGE problem on last year's PP units but so too was own zone responsibility. Redden, Roszival, Staal, Mara, Girardi are all offensive defensemen leaving Kalinen as the only true defender in the bunch. And even in Hartford, the Rangers most NHL ready blue liners (Baranka and Pock) are offensive players.
I still think we're going to see Blair Betts and one of the Smurf Squad of Prucha, Callahan, Dawes get moved for a defender.
1) Looks like ya have some Spam there Lyle. LOL Anyway as to TrueKings fans question about the salary cap floor. How would you feel about getting Khabibulin for virtualy nothing? getting him and your teams RFA's signed wuld probably put them at the 40 mil threashold
Nice to see Jason Smith wind up on a contender, and he is exactly the kind of "lead-by-example" guy the Senators have been lacking. I don't know how many more miles he's got in the tank, but he should be able to help the Sens go further than a single round in the playoffs.
TFK,
If Lyle doesn't mind, I'd like to throw my two-bits into the kitty.
Right now LA is $27,117,500 under the Cap limit and needs to spend roughly another $10,000,000 to get to the floor. Not counting the buyouts to Cloutier and McCauley, the Kings have got 16 players under contract (10 forwards, 4 defensemen and 2 goalies), so they essentially need to pick up 4-7 roster players.
RFA forwards Jarret Stoll, Patrick O'Sullivan, Brad Richardson and Matt Moulson, RFA defenseman Peter Harrold and RFA goaltender Erik Ersberg could all potentially be re-signed, and those six guys would chew up a chuck of that $10 million shortfall pretty fast
Prospect defenseman Thomas Hickey (cap hit: $1,345,833) has an excellent opportunity to make the team out of camp, and I'm sure Los Angeles will make every effort to sign Drew Doughty as he looks ready to step right into the league.
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Last edited by Matt_McCallum on July 9th at 9:39 AM.
There are four teams currently over the cap: Anaheim ($2,435,000), Calgary ($1,449,167), Chicago ($415,999) and Philadelphia ($1,031,667). I could foresee Los Angeles making a favourable deal with one of those clubs looking to cut payroll. You've got to think that Chicago will want to move Khabibulin in the worst possible way). (Edmonton would likely be willing to move Roloson for a reasonable price since Drouin-Deslauriers now has to go through waivers, and they're looking to keep him on the big club.)
Among the remaining UFAs (looking at LA's needs and the reasonableness of acquisition cost), I think the Kings would be wise to consider looking at Josef Vasicek (C, NYI), Jan Hlavac (LW, NAS), Marty Reasoner (C, EDM), Richard Tarnstrom (D, CBJ) and Steve Montador (D, FLA).
Last edited by Matt_McCallum on July 9th at 9:40 AM.
Hey Matt- on a local LA news blog, it shows the salary breakdown at $36-37 mil (and looks pretty accurate)before O'Sully's and Ersberg potential raises. I belive the focus is going to sign or trade for D as we do not have a veteran's presence whatsoever on the blue line. I believe the thought is we are not moving for any forwards at this point. Duckdude- maybe Verne would be better than what we had coaching the PK over the last couple of years.
I was using the current salary cap numbers from NHLSCAP.com which puts the Kings payroll at $29,582,950 (including the buyouts to Cloutier and McCauley) and leaves them $27,117,050 away from the cap limit. They have 18 players under contract, but since two of those players are buyouts, they've really got 16 NHLers under contract and have 4 to 7 rosters spots to fill.
The only way you get to a $37 million payroll is if you take all the cap hits for the minor league players in the Kings system (which total roughly another $10 million split between 18 players). However, those salaries only count against the cap if those players are up on the NHL roster, and many of those guys are on two-way contracts, so their real cost will be significantly less if they remain in the minors.
So the Kings have a fair chunk of cap room available to bring in some players and could take advantage of a team that gets into cap trouble.
Last edited by Matt_McCallum on July 9th at 3:32 PM.
Matt- you are right on with your numbers- I was looking at a numbers with a "reasonable" roster- not stretching all that much. I agree, we need to make some moves- other than Modry (who has been a good citizen in LA) - I think a trade would be more likely and welcome.
I'm Lyle Richardson, also known as Spector, Foxsports.com 's "Prince of Pucks".,which is based on the fact I live in Prince Edward Island, Canada and I couldn't think of a better byline. I've been an NHL hockey commentator since 1998 on my website, Spector's Hockey, and I'm a contributing writer for Foxsports.com , The Hockey News and Eishockey News. I'm also a regular on The Faceoff Hockey Show and a frequent guest on "The Late Crew" on The Team 1200 Ottawa.
