King Knut

What if we just let the Rangers buy him out with this new Rule and offered him a much smaller contract as a F/A? I like that a lot better because let's face it. If the Rangers don't want his contract, neither do we.

The problem with that is that the contracts were offered and signed under one set of CBA rules and now they're being enforced under a completely different set of rules. THAT's the insane part to me. You can't change the conditions of a contract. It's like signing a contract to pay me $5 for pint of Beer, and then someone makes a law that says it's illegal to sell Beer in Pints and expecting our original contract to remain valid somehow. Just doesn't make sense. I think buyouts should be legal in every sport. It's totally fair to me. In the NFL you don't even have to buy the guy out, you can just dump him in most cases! Regardless of his contract. Buyouts are fair in my opinion.

I don't know. Seems pretty fair to me. Kinda sucks for a player to have to sit on the bench all year just because his team wants to make sure they can cut him lose at the end of the year. Hey dude, sorry, not only will we not want you in June, we'll not want you so much in June that we'll play this whole shortened season without you in the lineup to make sure we can still get rid of you then.

Poulin didn't teach Lindros to skate with his head down and he didn't pick a string to over the hill old croaks. I still attest that Richie did just fine as a captain... for some reason the press and the fans hated him, but the team did fine with him and he was healthy. If it's a curse of Captains for a guy to take you to the Finals and only lose in the playoffs to the eventual cup winners every year he's a captain, that's not really much of a curse. That said, I think as you point out, it is a strike shortened year and I don't see the need to name a new captain this year. I certainly don't see the need to Rush it to Giroux. Briere and Kimmo are sort of flip sides to the same coin. One does great all season and then falls apart / gets hurt / tires out for the playoffs... the other maybe starts slow, but turns the switch over for the playoffs. Kimmo was the one talking about how unmotivated they all were in years past. He often liked to say so while he himself was playing poorly. Does giving him that leadership role inspire him to buck up and play tougher? Does giving it to Briere for the first 50 inspire him to do the same for that stretch? Or does giving it to either guy merely insure they end the season on the IR?

Laviolette loves Leighton. He just likes playing the guy. Why? I don't know. But he does. Personally I still kinda want to beat him up for not telling the training staff that he slipped a disk int he cup finals so he could stay the starter... but that's just me.

Leighton hasn't been playing for the Phantoms this year... which seems odd to me. Is it a waiver thing? Why wouldn't they have wanted him playing?

Leighton hasn't been playing for the Phantoms this year... which seems odd to me. Is it a waiver thing? Why wouldn't they have wanted him playing?

I think it's just security and insurance. They're going to be playing every other night. It's going to be playoff hockey from now until the hoist the cup. The chances of Bryz or Leighton getting hurt or needing a conditioning stint in the press box seem pretty high. Boucher is insurnace. Obviously neither he nor leighton are the greatest candidates in the world, but one thing we know about both of them (especially Boucher) is that they have the ability to come off the bench and turn their games up a notch when truly needed. Of course they're both 3 years older than when they both got hurt and could only save the team to the point of 2 cup finals wins. AND... Obviously Bryz isn't the strongest candidate to make it through the season without a nervous breakdown or permanent Alien Abduction or something... Who else can they sign before the playoffs?

Do we really think that it's 82 games that warms him up and not the start of the playoffs? Why won't he flick the switch at game 50?

I don't think it's about disrespect as much as it is about valuing what he brings. In order to buy Briere out, they'd need to feel like that have a suitable replacement waiting in the wings. Who's a UFA this summer? Anyone who can bring what Briere does?

I agree... if he buys out Pronger, he still has to pay the man out of his team's pocket. This way the insurance company is paying for him. They just have to pretend like Pronger might come back each of the next five seasons or whatever it is.

Yes, but we still need a keeper... but I'd say a year with crap in net is better for us than a lifetime in the Asylum.

I like the offense. I really do. The Defense is appalling and the Goaltending is an utter catastrophe. Now I know why Snider wanted the lockout so badly.

Regardless of J.R. being a jerk or not, his desire to win cannot be questioned. Also, there were a great many problems with Cechmanek in net. A lot of his numbers were very strong, but his style of play made it nearly impossible for his defense to control rebounds and hence chaos ruled in the Flyers own end.

I read about the escrow for the first time today. They're definitely trying to restrict lengths of future contracts to five years, but I thought I'd also read they wanted to restrict existing contract lengths, thus altering them. Something else i read really suggested to me that the new rule about the signing team being responsible for post trade pay outs was also going to apply to existing contracts. That would be behi d insane to me.

How does that work even? Is the league really suggesting that existing contracts should be cut off at a league maximum of 5 years, no matter what they've already signed for?

I disagree. Historical evidence suggests that they'll do something like make overtime 4 on 4 or remove the red line or add teams in cities without evidence of sufficient fan bases when people start looking elsewhere with their entertainment dollars.

The sticking point is said to be about whether or not the new rules will apply to existing contracts. My question is, if they weren't applied, what is the league suggesting be done with existing contracts that violate the new rules (i.e. Pronger, Weber, Bryzgalov, Crosby, Kovalchuck, etc)? Anyone have any ideas?

I'm guessing with the details of the new CBA in place (which of course may never happen), Homer's not going to want to trade for weber ever for the next 14 years. Unless there is a buyout option, this new CBA really screws the Preds on the Weber deal. And I'm kinda okay with that.

Sure, but there HAS to be a way to allow for failing teams to fail without dragging down the rest of the league too much. The league has done too much coddling to teams that have no business being in existence and that will very obviously never be competitive in the market on the whole. The fans deserve as superior a product as possible and by forcing teams to be more mediocre, you are denying a loyal, dedicated multitude of fans in many cities that superior product. What's worse is you're ultimately asking them to foot the bill for diluting things in the first place. Hockey isn't as popular as football. Football is ubiquitous. Hockey isn't. It's NEVER going to generate that kind of money. No one is ever going to spend millions of dollars to premiere ads during the Cup Finals. Hockey is just plain too big for it's shorts right now. It has to be toned back a little. I assert that right now those 30 teams are working for the betterment and advancement of their league, but not the sport as a whole and not for the sake of their fans.

when then the good news is that under the new CBA, we can trade for him and when he gets concussed and can't play again we don't have to pretend like he might come back because it'll be the Predators on the hook for his cap hit. Make it so!

Which is Ironic because what they're doing is completely antithetical to the ideals of John Galt's in Atlas Shrugged... but that's typical of the Rich I guess, to just take what they want from something an use it to justify your actions. The revenue sharing is enhanced now BTW, We'll be on the hook for more. That's all I meant by that. It frustrates me.

For the Predators (and the Flyers if the Predators hadn't matched). Sure we'll have to pay for some portion of Weber's salary down there, but the smaller cap and the limitations for moving a player with that kind of contract will now make it even more difficult for the Predators to ice a competitive team around their 14 year man. At this point (assuming most of the new CBA stays in place) all I can do is make a complete 180 and say thank GOD the Predators took that albatross from around Homer's neck. It's going to be hard enough for the Flyers to ice a competitive team next season as it is.

Well I think the question really being asked here is if by "Matching" the Flyers offer the Predators included a No Movement Clause. Then the debate would become whether a deal without a NMC is in fact "matching." Not that I don't think there is any actual debate. I've heard no such thing. I always assumed that they included the NMC when they matched and I assume it still. Perhaps there's some small print in the old CBA (or the new one since it apparently travels through time to legally bind people to rules that were not in place when they signed contracts 5 years ago) that excludes NMC's from the "matching" qualifiers. That would be lame of the NHL CBA, but there are a lot of things that are incredibly lame about the NHL CBA. So in short, does anyone know if the Preds included the NMC? If they did then the questions are answered and the conversation is over. If they didn't we need to ask if it matters before we can worry about it. Right now, quite honestly, I don't want the offer sheet we signed with him to have to be honored. THe new CBA is a killer on this sort of thing. We'd be doomed even worse than we already are.

I agree, Homer more or less invented the stuff to get around the old CBA rules. They didn't pick Homer because he had some secret grasp of the mysterious new rules. It was a new climate where you needed more of a business minded guy instead of just a hockey minded guy. He'll do his best now too. That said, it's unfair to apply all the NEW rules to the OLD contracts. There should be a way to buy out of guys like Pronger or Weber or Kovalchuck for these teams. I don't know why Snider isn't more adamant about that. It's going to cripple this team next year unless they allow a back door escape of buying out Ilya or Pronger. It's ridiculously prejudicial not to do that. It's not Homer's fault he was able to outsmart the system last time. Punishing the players and the fans now as a result is ridiculous. The New CBA pretty much takes Comcast and Snider completely out of the equation. It completely removes any risk or responsibility for the owners. IT's a business like any other and you can't remove the risk.