Raise your hands, boys and girls, if you think Mats Sundin is going to end up back with the Toronto Maple Leafs next season.
Sound crazy?
Well only if you can't let go of the despicable way Toronto treated its franchise player last season, when it tried to embarrass Sundin into waiving his no-trade clause at the deadline and then dealt away his negotiating rights a week before the free agent market opened.
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| The clock is ticking for Mats Sundin to decide his next move. (Getty Images) |
But hockey is a strange business, and it says here that the longer Sundin continues to hedge his bet, the more likely it is he'll find his way back to Toronto. After all, Sundin never really wanted to leave the place and he will get the same kind of money there as anywhere else. First though, Sundin has to decide first whether or not he wants to continue playing. He has been wrestling with that question since Toronto's season ended in early April, but it would be reasonable to assume that if Sundin wanted to quit, he'd have done so by now.
Truth is, the urge to return only gets stronger for players as training camps approach, and it makes his decision-making timetable come across as little more than a negotiating ploy. In fact, Sundin's agent last week said that the process is on track and hinted his client would be coming back
"He's still taking his time," agent J.P Barry told Vancouver radio station Team 1040 about the confusion surrounding Sundin's comment to a Swedish reporter that he would decide at the beginning of August.
"Unfortunately a lot of people picked up the first of August," Barry said. "He meant sometime in August he would definitely decide because he'll definitely be in training camp."
The only unknown is where. Sundin had 78 points in 74 games last season for a miserable Leafs team, so it's obvious he has lots of gas left in the tank. That, along with his size and skill set, made him the most attractive free agent in this year's market and had him courted by as many as a half dozen teams.
Throughout this process, the conventional wisdom has been that if Sundin does return, it would be to join a contender. But Sundin let a brief window of opportunity with the Detroit Red Wings close early in July, and then turned down lucrative offers from the contending Montreal Canadiens and New York Rangers. He even snubbed a mind-blowing $20 million, two-year offer from the Vancouver Canucks, a team like Toronto that is going nowhere this season.
So now time is actually running out for Sundin. This is the dead zone period around the NHL and many of the league's general managers are on vacation, but they'll all be back within the next couple of weeks when arbitration decisions are expected to be rendered and rosters and payroll limits will need to be finalized.
They won't be able to wait forever for Sundin. He knows that.
And he knows Toronto is still there for him.
Kings ransom
Someone should try telling the Los Angeles Kings just how well the new collective bargaining agreement is working these days.
The deal was supposed to protect financially weaker teams like Los Angeles because it imposed a hard salary cap on payroll, but the CBA also included a minimum spending threshold. And since the limits are tied directly to a percentage of overall league revenues, the increase in money generated over the last three seasons has raised the floor level to a point the Kings and a few others are struggling to meet now.
That means they have to spend more money than they can afford. And in the process, a team like the Kings has to make decisions that are not necessarily in the best hockey interests of the organization, taking on players who will be paid more than they are worth.
Right now the Kings are one of two teams below the $40 million minimum payroll threshold for the coming season. Atlanta is only about $2 million shy, but the Kings are not quite at $30 million yet and they already have 16 players under contract. To meet their obligations, the Kings may have little recourse than to work the leftover free agent market hard and overpay the players they sign.
Naturally trading with a team needing to clear cap space would be a better solution, but there are only four teams over the limit and all are within manageable ranges. And besides, these days when teams trade high-priced players, it is usually because the contract was a mistake in the first place. So Los Angeles' options are limited.
One obvious target for Los Angeles would to be Chicago goalie Nikolai Khabibulin, who has a Stanley Cup ring and only one season remaining on his $6.75 million per season contract and seems to be expendable because the Blackhawks signed free-agent goalie Cristobal Huet to a big deal last month.
The Kings have been desperate for a No. 1 goalie for several seasons and they have a very good young prospect in their system. However, Jonathan Bernier isn't quite ready yet and Khabibulin could be the perfect stop gap. The problem is Chicago is only marginally over the cap limit now and has until the season opener to get in line. It is conceivable the Blackhawks can finagle things enough to keep a pretty good tandem together for one more season.
Of course, if the Kings would be willing to part with one of their talented young roster players to facilitate a trade, it could happen. But that won't help them in the long run.
Icings
- Was there a conflict of interest involved in the sale of the Nashville Predators last season? According to the New York Post, the NHL is looking into the circumstances behind the deal, in which now disgraced investor William "Boots" Del Biaggio was loaned money for his share by two other NHL owners. Del Biaggio, who is being sued on several fronts for fraud and is under investigation by the SEC, obtained part of his financing from outgoing owner Craig Leipold, who purchased the Minnesota Wild after dumping Nashville, and AEG, the owners of the Los Angeles Kings and a new arena in Kansas City that has been trying to obtain an NHL tenant.
- Look for more shooting space next season because the NHL has decided to reduce the size of some parts of goalie equipment, says the Boston Globe. A little more space anyway, because knee and clavicle protectors will be smaller. The knee protectors, which are ineffective flaps added on top of leg pads, will be reduced to 2 and a half inches from six inches while the clavicle protectors, previously seven inches, will get smaller, although an exact length has yet to be determined.
- The son of hockey legend Patrick Roy has been charged with assault in connection with an ugly brawl during a junior playoff game last season that was widely viewed on YouTube. Jonathan Roy, a backup goaltender for the Quebec Remparts, a team co-owned and coached by his father, skated the length of the ice to pound on an opposing goaltender. He faces six months in jail and a fine of $2,000.
- Former Kings coach Marc Crawford has signed on as a commentator for Hockey Night in Canada next season, although he has not given up hopes of landing a coaching job. Crawford is scheduled to interview for the New York Islanders job with GM Garth Snow this week.
They said it
"To be honest, it doesn't change anything on the ice. Off the ice, I'm able to drink. I look at it like this: At 19, I'm an adult in Canada. Now, I'm an adult all the way around" -- Sidney Crosby on turning 21 this week.
