OF THE two compet ing forces generated by the NHL’s hard salary-cap system, general managers apparently reached the near unanimous trade-deadline conclusion that the narrow window of opportunity to win it all trumps the need for a steady stream of cheap, young, valuable labor generated by top draft choices and prospects.
The sellers created a market panic – or was that buyer Don Waddell in Atlanta creating the panic all by himself, shuttling the future out of Atlanta in desperate reaches for Keith Tkachuk and Alexei Zhitnik?
We’d say the sanest man on the planet turned out to be Anaheim GM Brian Burke, who refused to allow the gun to be put to his head, but the relentless self-promoter already told us that in a diary he penned for USA Today, didn’t he?
Burke did, however, leave out the part about why he acquired damaged Brad May; this, curiously, the same May who played such an unseemly role in the Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore episode that unfolded while both May and the GM were in Vancouver.
We’ll probably have to wait for the book.
Good to know that it was the same old, same old coming out of Edmonton.
Another great guy became just another greedy bum on the way out the door, this at least according to the Edmonton management and media – or is that redundant?
Really, does anyone honestly believe Ryan Smyth left the Oilers over $100,000 a year? Why would Kevin Lowe – who, like Paul Coffey and Mark Messier before him, forced his way out of Edmonton in order to make more money elsewhere – feel the need to spread that fantasy tale?
Why wouldn’t Lowe simply have told the truth: That in his judgment, Smyth, at 31 and carrying extra miles the way all the Sutters carried extra miles, wasn’t worth more than $5 million a season on a multiyear, no-move deal?
Yes, it’s true, including Robert Nilsson in the Smyth deal was an Islanders’ admission of guilt in selecting him 15th overall in the 2003 Entry Draft when Zach Parise was still on the board – but that choice was made by the previous and already discredited administration (previous, previous, to be exact), not the one currently charged with all personnel decisions.
Rangers forward Michael Nylander is going to be 35 at the start of next season. He’s presumably going to want at least a three-year contract in order to forego unrestricted free agency this summer. And you mean to tell me Glen Sather didn’t even try to get a first-rounder for him on Tuesday?
It’s not about what message that would or would not have sent Jaromir Jagr, though, actually, had the Rangers been aggressive in seeking a blue-chip return for No. 92, we’d have translated the message into something like, “We’re trying to win the Stanley Cup, not merely hoping to finish in eighth place.”
Just wondering, but who is the impostor that’s been wearing No. 26 this season for the Devils, because we know it can’t possibly be Patrik Elias?
This No. 26 has committed more defensive and neutral-zone turnovers this season than Elias had in the previous five. This No. 26 has missed the net more often this season than Elias has since he first skated with Petr Sykora.
We know this much: If No. 26 was having this kind of a season In New York after signing the six-year, $42 million deal he’d been offered over the summer by the Rangers, he’d be even more unpopular than Marek Malik.
Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin is a great player, no doubt about that, but his head is down when he carries the puck just as much as Eric Lindros’ ever was.
Sure, Jacques Martin has way too much integrity to have taken less from Pittsburgh in return for Gary Roberts than he was offered by a Toronto organization with which he feuded while coach of the Senators.
We’ve confirmed that with Mike Keenan, Martin’s lifelong friend who was quickly knifed in the back by the current Florida GM-coach after being brought into the organization by Iron Mike.
Finally, flat on our back this week with the flu, we nevertheless got a hearty laugh from the writer who used his newspaper game story to mock The Post’s exclusive report that Jagr was being dangled at the deadline while at the very same time confirming it on his blog.
Guess that’s what meant by the term “alternative media.”