Recap: NHL trade deadline Q&A

Damien held a live Q&A about NHL trade moves at noon Thursday.

Trade waters starting to stir

Guess Garth Snow didn't want the New Jersey Devils getting out of range.

Okay, that's mean. Presumably, the Islander GM simply saw a chance to get some value for a veteran defenceman, James Wisniewski, who will be unrestricted in July, and pulled the trigger, getting a second round pick and a fifth rounder from Montreal.

Good deal for the Habs, with Andrei Markov out, Josh Gorges ailing and P.K. Subban in some sort of strange purgatory, possibly headed back to the minors.

For the Isles, suddenly winners of four of their last five games, it was nonetheless a little peculiar to see the club move their top defenceman. Wisniewski was tied for the team lead in points and was playing more than 23 minutes a game, tops among Long Island defencemen. Perhaps the Isles have their eye on getting the No. 1 pick again this June, and with 30th place New Jersey going absolutely nowhere despite last week's coaching change, the Islanders don't want to get too far ahead.

The strange part was that Snow didn't shop Wisniewski, but simply cut a deal with Pierre Gauthier. These days, the market for capable defencemen is just starting to heat up and prices can only increase. Then again, moving him now saves more than half of his $3.25 million salary, and that matters on The Island, where the deal has the club barely above the NHL's $43.4 salary floor, and that's with buyout cap hits for Alexei Yashin and Brendan Witt.

The trade was the first concrete evidence that the trade market might be opening after the Christmas freeze. Jersey sent veteran Brian Rolston to the minors and then put him on re-entry waivers, which means he can now be had for half his $5.062 salary this season and next.

Jay Feaster, meanwhile, is now running the show in Calgary, likely with a mandate to clear up some of that team's cap clog, tricky with 11 players on the Flames holding some form of no-trade/no-movement clause in their contracts.

The Leafs would love to get in on this, and have pieces to move, including defenceman Francois Beauchemin, winger Clark MacArthur, centre Mikhail Grabovski and possibly defenceman Tomas Kaberle. Veteran goalie J.S. Giguere could move at some point depending on his health and whether he is willing to waive his no-trade. Youngster Nazem Kadri isn't going anywhere despite being returned to the minors. Teams are showing some interest in Marlie goalie Jussi Rynnas, who is having a sparkling season in the AHL, but the guessing is now that Rynnas and Jonas Gustavsson are slated to be the Leafs' tandem next season.

While many would love to see Leaf GM Brian Burke start dumping players for picks like Snow did with Wisniewski, that appears not to be Burke's priority at the moment. Instead, he'd like to find a way to get some help for his beleaguered coach by acquiring some talent from another club.

Of the teams scraping the bottom of the NHL right now - the Leafs, Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Islanders, Devils, Florida, Buffalo - it's an interesting debate as to which clubs are best positioned for success in the not-too-distant future. The Oilers have the best single prospect in Taylor Hall, although Long Island still believes John Tavares will be a star someday. The Panthers are building a future around Erik Gudbranson but have chronic money problems. The Sabres, who are likely to be sold in the coming months, have lots of young players and prospects, but like Toronto, lack that one superb, blue-chipper. Calgary and Jersey have big messes to clean up before they can start rebuilding, precisely the process the Leafs have already gone through over the past two years.

All of these clubs have something to sell over the next two months. Now we'll see who is buying. 

Live: Hockey Q&A with Damien Cox

The Essence of The Game

If you love hockey, you'd love this.

Five dozen or so Grade 5 students from the southwest quadrant of the Toronto District School Board on their final day of Hockey Academy, a program designed to give boys and girls who have never had the opportunity to play the game that chance, out on the ice at the Mastercard Centre this morning at 7 a.m. showing all they've learned during the last eight weeks.

Which is a lot.

They come to the program out of need or opportunity or perhaps because they are new Canadians without ties to the game, are outfitted with a complete set of hockey gear, including skates, and begin to learn the sport they might have only seen on TV or heard about in the schoolyard.

And my goodness, do they learn.

Today was the final day, the day when they split the kids up into four teams and bring in a couple of real-live goalies - my 12-year-old son and his Humber Valley Sharks peewee partner Quinn were on hand - to give all these kids the chance to experience a real game.

Some are still doing that slow tip-toe around the ice, or trying to figure out whether they really prefer shooting right or left. Others have gained the confidence to try a slapshot, or maybe a little dipsy-doo around a defenceman. Before the game started, a couple skated over to my son, not totally sure how to play, but knowing they shouldn't begin without high-fiving their goalie or giving him a tap on the pads.

And when they score! Oh my, the celebration! All the negatives often associated with the game, particularly with minor hockey, just evaporate.

All the equipment is donated, as is the ice time, and the teachers donate their time. Without all three, this program doesn't happen. Last year, about 10 youngsters went from the program to play house league hockey this year, not necessarily an easy or affordable thing for a lot of families. Just so you know, many of the hockey associations in the GTA have programs in which you can sponsor a child, with the monies going towards paying that boy or girl's registration fee.

If you love the game, can you think of a better idea at this time of year?

 

Grasping for Easy Answers

CARLOS OSORIO/TORONTO STAR

Donald Fehr speaks to the media after a NHL Players' Association meeting on July 14, 2010.

The NHLPA, to be fair, has tried diligently in recent months to get its house in order, whether it's getting rid of the final sniffs of the Ian Penny-led coup brigade or drafting a new constitution. Actually, to be accurate, the small proportion of the 700-plus members of the union that actually care about this stuff have tried diligently.

Now, however, the union is apparently trying to hire Don Fehr as it's new executive director in the middle of a very complex fight over these absurd long-term contracts that were designed by agents and teams to flout the league's salary cap structure.

Hire Fehr on the fly, as it were.

Yes, they've been considering this appointment for a considerable period of time. Some might suggest that ever since Paul Kelly was decapitated last summer, Fehr has been in the picture. Even before Kelly was canned, really. Some say he's been helping out of pure goodwill, others suggest this is a guy who can sniff out easy money from a group of hockey players who are easy to direct and order around.

Take your pick.

But now is not the time to hire Fehr. In fact, I'd argue there never would be a right time. It's just too easy an answer for a players union that loves quick, convenient answers and has paid dearly for them over the years.

Funny, isn't it, that good, active union men like Brendan Shanahan and Chris Chelios have chosen to go and work for management as soon as their playing days were done, either because the union didn't want them or they didn't want it. Instead, we have this apparent attraction to a former baseball union head who doesn't exactly seem like he wants to make the NHLPA his life's work.

Some say he'd be the Clint Eastwood, tough guy the union needs. Well, they had such a person in Bob Goodenow, and chose to stage a mutiny partway through the last collective bargaining process because influential players saw too many paycheques evaporating.

Fehr couldn't be tougher than Goodenow even if he put Gary Bettman in a headlock. What this remains about, really, is the committment, or lack thereof, of NHL players to be masters of their own affairs. They don't trust one another, quite obviously, are generally terribly uninformed about their own organization, and most recoil when asked to participate in even a conference call, let alone a full-blown meeting.

The personalities involved are curious, sometimes bizarre. Last summer it was Andrew Ference, of all people, leading the charge to take down Kelly, while Dan Hamhuis put his name behind a letter suggesting Penny was doing a wonderful job. Now, you have various union figures leaking out every detail of both ongoing negotiations with the NHL and, apparently, Fehr's contract demands. The office intrigue just never stops with these people.

To paraphrase a prominent U.S. political commentator, it's about the players, stupid.

Now you've apparently got a group of player reps trying to muster a vote on hiring Fehr in order to help guide them through the ongoing Ilya Kovalchuk mess, which may or may not come to a conclusion by 5 p.m. today. Is the NHL seeking to exploit the absence of credible NHLPA leadership to get something it couldn't get through collective bargaining? Of course, it is. Certainly Goodenow was all in favour of exploiting the competitive nature of teams during his reign to get better salaries for his players. This isn't a friendly game of tennis. It's hardnosed, high finance over billions of dollars. You fight to win.

But Kovalchuk isn't the fight this union needs to win right now. Neither is this battle over these silly contracts, which benefit only a tiny minority of players and a minority of teams.

The NHLPA needs to win the fight from within. It needs to stick with the process, avoid easy answers and find a new, fresh, energized, focussed leader, one tied to this sport and to tomorrow, not some other sport and yesterday.

 

Worth Resolving

See, there really is nothing for either side in this fight.

Having teams cook up bizarre, front-loaded contracts that whittle down to $50 a season in the 45th year doesn't help NHL players in general. It may help teams like Chicago win the Stanley Cup, but the vast majority of NHL clubs don't benefit from these kind of deals that most GMs see as a form of cheating.

Everybody knows how much money is on the table for the players. It's set out in the collective bargaining agreement. It's just a question of how its divvied up. The more Ilya Kovalchuk gets, the less somebody else gets, or at least the bigger the escrow cut that comes the way of the average NHL player.

So if the NHL and the NHL Players Association are really using the 48-hour extension in the Kovalchuk decision to hammer out some kind of mid-CBA agreement on how to handle these deals, it's probably a good thing for everybody. Well, everybody except maybe Kovalchuk. And a few others.

Larry Brooks of the New York Post delivered an intriguing scoop late Wednesday night in which he reported that the league has offered to approve the newest Kovalchuk contract with the New Jersey Devils, and stop threatening to invalidate a few other similar deals, if the union agrees to some new rules that will make these kinds of contracts less attractive to teams in the future.

Brooks also reported that if the PA doesn't agree to these terms by 5 p.m. on Friday, commissioner Gary Bettman will reject the Kovalchuk deal, invalid Roberto Luongo's new contract with the Vancouver Canucks and hold a more formal probe into Marian Hossa's contract with the Blackhawks.

This is some heavy poker.

It's a tough fight for the union, particularly given the fact it doesn't have a leader. Moreover, 80 per cent of the players in the league don't benefit from these kinds of contracts. In fact, through the escrow system, you could argue these deals are under-written by the vast majority of players.

That said, there's pride on the line here. If the union agrees to these conditions with two years still to go on the existing CBA, it's essentially allowing clawbacks in the middle of a contract. 

The league, meanwhile, would still be under the gun to deliver some form of punishment to the Devils for attempting to circumvent the salary cap in the first place. If Bettman can cut a deal with the players union now, and then chooses to let the Devils off the hook, he'll have some explaining to do to about 20 other franchises.

Lots to look for in the next 48 hours. 

 

Of Stars and Playoff Berths

Join Damien Cox at 12:15 p.m. Monday for a live hockey Q&A.

Yes, it's amazing to watch the Phoenix Coyotes vying for first in the west. Folks will be reading this as a comment on the coaching and ownership abilities of Wayne Gretzky, and you can see why.

But in terms of departed star power and its results, it's hard to look past the Atlanta Thrashers, who seemed to be giving up on their season when sniper Ilya Kovalchuk was dealt to the New Jersey Devils but instead have now closed to within one point of an Eastern Conference playoff berth.

The Thrashers swept the stumbling, goaltender-less Flyers over the weekend after beating both Buffalo and Ottawa last week and are hot on the trail of eighth place Boston. While ex-Leafs may be killing the Calgary Flames — could you believe Vesa Toskala got the start last night in Minny? — they're powering the Thrashers' playoff drive as Nik Antropov and Pavel Kubina play key roles.

GM Don Waddell took the public hit for not signing Kovalchuk, but the reality was this wasn't a team that could pay one player $9- or $10 million a season and hope to flourish. Now, without Kovalchuk, they're playing better hockey.

So much for star power.

Meanwhile, Kovalchuk's future as an unrestricted free agent will be fascinating to watch. He didn't exactly light it up last week when he came to town with the Devils. Despite all the talk that the KHL will come calling with an offer of $15 million a season, some attendance numbers out of the IIHF this morning provided some sobering news about just how big the Russia-based league actually is.

St. Petersburg leads the KHL in attendance and they only draw about 9,400, sixth best in all of Europe and less than half of what the top European team, Bern in Switzerland, draws. AK Bars Kazan, one of the better known franchises, has average attendance of around 5,000 a game. Avangard Omsk employs Jaromir Jagr and attracts about 9,200 per match.

Given these numbers — the KHL is ambitiously looking to expand to the Czech Republic and Sweden — you have to wonder about exactly how real the threat is that somebody is going to come calling with huge money to throw at Kovalchuk. His agent, Jay Grossman, is no doubt thrilled to have the KHL as leverage, but it will be interesting if he can use a Russian team to create a bidding war for a player only a handful of NHL clubs — if that — will care to throw big money offers at.

The dwindling number of Russians that are in the NHL seem inclined to stay here. That includes Nikolai Kulemin of the Maple Leafs, who in a story by Paul Hunter of The Star on the weekend said he's not looking to jump back to his homeland as a free agent this summer.

Right now there are only 26 Russians in the NHL, about a third of the number there were a decade ago. Whether the KHL actually ever becomes a rival league to the NHL is a story that has yet to play out.

A New Year, A New Rule

BOCA RATON, FLA.--Don't worry hockey fans. Stand down, Mike Milbury.

The NHL isn't ready to take the hitting out of hockey. Anybody who thinks probably dreams every day about the wonderful possibilities of going back to the old no-helmet days, horsehair goalie pads and tube skates.

What the NHL's general managers will do on Wednesday, it appears, is propose a new rule that will limit the ability of players to strike opponents in the head with shoulder hits.

That's really all we're talking about.

Scott Stevens, were he still playing, would still be able to lay out Eric Lindros, were he still playing, in the same way he did back in 2000. Straight on, elbow down, shoulder to jaw.

There's no appetite out there to take that type of hit out of the NHL game.

But what NHL players won't be able to do any more without penalty and possible suspension is crack another player in the head with a shoulder pad from the side or the back.

Is that going to irretrievably alter the sport? No, of course not.

The guiding philosophy behind the new rule will be to protect "vulnerable" players, or players who simply cannot see a dangerous hit coming and can't protect themselves. It was drawn up by a group of eight GMs today and will be presented to the all 30 execs today for final approval.

"We've all got to look at the bigger picture," said Pittsburgh GM Ray Shero, whose player, Matt Cooke, was the latest to deliver one of these controversial hits when he laid out Boston's Marc Savard on Sunday.

Savard may miss the rest of the season, according to Boston GM Peter Chiarelli. NHL vice-president Colin Campbell has not yet decided whether Cooke should face supplementary discipline.

The rule would be implemented for next season, but would have to be approved by the NHL competition committee - which includes five players - and the league's board of governors.

Live hockey Q&A with Damien Cox

Damien Cox held a live Q&A earlier today, answering questions about all things hockey.

Hockey Q&A with Damien Cox

Damien Cox held a live Q&A at noon Monday, answering readers' questions about all things hockey -- especially the Leafs trade.