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Defense in the Eastern Conference

A couple days ago I asked who were the best defensemen in the eastern conference and which teams had the best group of defensemen in the conference. The results are in and it seems Zdeno Chara is the consensus pick for the best defenseman in the eastern conference. After him Sergei Gonchar, Jay Bouwmeester, Andrei Markov, Tomas Kaberle, and Mike Green seemed to get the most recognition with Kimmo Timonen, Chris Phillips, Pavel Kubina, Bryan McCabe, Wade Redden, Ryan Whitney, Mike Komisarek, and Marc Staal getting considered as well.

It seemed much more difficult for us to pick the teams with the best defense. The NY Rangers, Boston, Ottawa, Montreal, Pittsburgh seemed to be popular picks with Florida, Philadelphia and Toronto considered by some as well.

Now for a few of my thoughts. First I was a bit surprised at how many people picked Boston as having a top 5 defense. Clearly they did so because they have Zdeno Chara but to me after him they have a lot of average at best players.

People obviously chose Boston because of Chara because after him I really don’t see a lot of top end talent. They certainly have some decent players but nothing too special. It is interesting that the Leafs were the only team where 3 defensemen were considered by at least one person to be in the top 5 and yet most people didn’t consider them as a top 5 team. Dennis Wideman has some offensive puck moving ability but defensively is average at best and Mark Stuart has some promise but neither of the are what you would call top level defensemen. The rest of them are pretty much 3rd pairing or depth guys. I guess having Chara means a lot but I am not convinced they should be a top 5 team.

Another team that surprised me to get as much top 5 consideration as they did is the Ottawa Senators. They seem to still be getting a lot of recongnition for their defensive play during their run to the finals in 2006-07. But the current defense is significantly different. Gone from the cup run defense are Wade Redden, Joe Corvo, and Tom Preissing, their top 3 scoring defensemen from that season. It also shouldn’t be over looked that the Senators had the 7th worst goals against average in the NHL last season. This coming season they will feature an unproven rookie (Brian Lee) and a guy who has played mostly forward over the past couple seasons (Schubert) in their top 6. As of right now I view them as having a below average defense and barring a trade or surprising seasons by Brian Lee and Schubert will be a weak spot for the Senators.

Toronto is almost the opposite of the Senators. The Leafs are awash with offensive defenseman but have really been hurt by not developing a true shutdown defense pairing. Part of that I believe is coaching but part of that is just not having that one pure defensive defenseman on the team. The Leafs are hoping the addition of Jeff Finger and Jonas Frogren will help address that concern and further down the road 2008 first round pick Luke Schenn should be that guy. Since the lockout Tomas Kaberle has the 3rd most points by a defenseman trailing only Nik Lidstrom and Sergei Gonchar and Bryan McCabe is 14th on that list. When considering points per game, Kaberle is 5th post lockout (behind Lidstrom, Gonchar, Zubov and Niedermayer) and McCabe sits in 10th spot just behind Dan Boyle. Pavel Kubina is no slouch with the puck either finishing 18th in scoring by defensemen last season. So while they may not have the defensive shutdown defenseman like some teams do their overall skill and depth is good enough to get them in the top 5 in the eastern conference in my opinion.

So with that said, here are who I consider top 5 defensemen and teams in the east.

Defensemen: Zdeno Chara, Sergei Gonchar, Tomas Kaberle, Kimmo Timonen, and Jay Bouwmeester

Teams: Pittsburgh, NY Rangers, Montreal, Toronto, Philadelphia

Question on Defense in the Eastern Conference

I don’t think anyone can deny that many of the top defensemen are in the western conference (Lidstrom, Pronger, Niedermayer, Phaneuf, etc). This off season Brian Campbell and Dan Boyle found new permanent homes in the western conference. Some of the better young defensemen/prospects are in the western conference as well (Jack Johnson, Erik Johnson, Drew Doughty, etc.). With that, I post the following question to you all:

1. Who are the top 5 defensemen in the eastern conference.

2. Taking into consideration both talent and depth, list the 5 teams with the best group of defensemen in the eastern conference.

Please post your answers as a comment. In asking these questions I hope to get a bit of a discussion going as well as hopefully give us all a bit more insight on hockey around the NHL. If this goes well I’ll pose more questions in the future. I plan on following up this post in a few days with my answers and my thoughts on the discussion.

To help you out, here is a list of each teams currently signed (or unsigned RFA) defensemen who are likely or could possibly make play next season (to the best of my knowledge).

Atlanta Thrashers: Ron Hainsey, Tobias Enstrom, Garnet Exelby, Niclas Havelid, Ken Klee
Boston Bruins: Zdeno Chara, Dennis Wideman, Aaron Ward, Andrew Ference, Andrew Alberts, Mark Stuart, Shane Hnidy
Buffalo Sabres: Henrik Tallinder, Jaroslav Spacek, Toni Lydmin, Craig Rivet, Nathan Paetsch, Andrej Sekera
Carolina Hurricanes: Joe Corvo, Joni Pitkanen, Niclas Wallin, Dennis SEidenberg, Tim Gleason, Frantisek Kaberle, Josef Melichar, Anton Babchuk
Florida Panthers: Jay Bouwmeester, Bryan Allen, Nick Boynton, Karlis Skrastins, Mike Van Ryn, Keith Ballard, Steve Montador, Cory Murphy, Noah Welch
Montreal Canadiens: Andrei Markov, Roman Hamrlik, Mike Komisarek, Mathieu Dandeneault, Josh Gorges, Francis Bouillon, Ryan O’Byrne
New Jersey Devils: Colin White, Paul Martin, John Oduya, Vitaly Vishnevski, Mike Mottau, Andy Greene, Bryce Salvador, Sheldon Brookbank
New York Islanders: Mark Streit, Andy Sutton, Brendan Witt, Freddy Meyer, Radek Martinek, Bruno Gervais, Chris Campoli
New York Rangers: Wade Redden, March Staal, Michal Rozsival, Dmitri Kalinin, Paul Mara, Dan Girardi
Ottawa Senators: Chris Phillips, Anton Volchenkov, Jason Smith, Andrej Meszaros, Brian Lee, Christoph Schubert
Philadelphia Flyers: Kimmo Timonen, Derian Hatcher, Randy Jones, Lasse Kukkonen, Braydon Coburn, Randy Jones, Ryan Parent, Ossi Vaananen
Pittsburgh Penguins: Sergei Gonchar, Ryan Whitney, Hal Gill, Kris Letang, Brooks Orpik, Mark Eaton, Rob Scuderi, Darryl Sydor
Tampa Bay Lightning: Matthew Carle, Filip Kuba, Paul Rangers, Shane O’Brien, Andrew Hutchinson, Mike Lundin, Alexandre Picard
Toronto Maple Leafs: Bryan McCabe, Tomas Kaberle, Pavel Kubina, Jeff Finger, Carlo Colaiacovo, Antron Stralman, Ian White
Washington Capitals: Mike Green, Tom Poti, Shaone Morrisonn, Milan Jurcina, Brian Pothier, John Erskine, Jeff Shultz

More on Frogren…

Greg Ballantine of The Puck Stops Here has more information on the Frogren mess.

The snag is that Frogren was drafted in 1998 by the Calgary Flames, but never given a contract offer. Under the pre-lockout CBA, such a player was classified as “defected” by the NHL if he later came to the NHL with a team other than his drafting team (which no longer held his rights). This classification is a poor name because it doesn’t actually have anything to do with a player defecting. It was agreed, in negotiating the expired IIHF player transfer agreement that it would be best to treat such cases the same way defecting players are treated. This language was left in the current CBA, probably without considering consequences. Defecting players, regardless of age, were to be required to sign entry level contracts.

Anyone who has browsed through the CBA will realize what a confusing mess it is as certain parts of it over rule others and unless you have read and understood every single aspect of it you really can’t say you understand any of it or how it applies in any particular situation. This seems to be what is happening here.

The problem arises because of the defected status stuff that essentially has been carried forward from the old CBA to the new one. I won’t go into the part of the CBA which defines what a defected status player is and why Frogren is such a player but assuming he is (which seems to be the case) here is what the new CBA outlines in regards to compensation and entry level contracts:

Defected Players. Any Player who met the qualifications of defected status as per the terms of, and as of the date of expiration of, the expired CBA shall remain defected for a defined period of time, following which the player shall becme free of the exclusive negotiating rights of his drafting club and shall be eligible to enter the league as an unrestricted free agent. The defected status of players selected in the 2002 entry draft, or prior, shall expire as of June 1, 2006… Any player who remains an unsigned draft choice at the time his defected status expires in accordance with this paragraph shall be subject to having to enter the league through the entry level system in accordance with the provisions of article 9 of the expired CBA, including without limitation, the salary scale set forth therein, following the application of the 24 percent roll back as provided for in Paragraph 1(a) above, provided, however, that such Players shall at a minimum be required to sign a one-year entry level SPC to enter the league, regardless of the players age at the time the SPC is signed and, provided further, the player may negotiate for performance bonuses only as permitted by the rules set forth in Article 9 and Exhibit 5 of this agreement governing entry level performance bonuses, and as allowed under Article 50 of this agreement.

Confused yet? I think I am. So, it seems that Frogren is subject to the salary scale outlined in the 1995 CBA, but the bonus scale outlined in the 2005 CBA. How odd is that? So, we need to refer to Article 9 of the expired CBA. According to the salary scale in Article 9 of the 1995 CBA, Frogren is entitled to a maximum of $975,000 less 24% or $741,000, up to 10% of which could be as a signing bonus.

Additionally, the maximum performance bonuses the Leafs could offer are:

$212,500 if he is in the top 4 defensemen in ice time
$212,500 if he scores 10 goals
$212,500 if he gets 25 assists
$212,500 if he gets 40 points
$212,500 if he gets 0.49 points per game
$212,500 if he is among the top 3 defense on Leafs in plus/minus
$212,500 if he is in the top 2 Leafs defensemen in blocked shots
$212,500 if he is on the all rookie team
$212,500 if he makes the NHL all-star game
$212,500 if he is the all star game MVP

There is a good chance that none of those will occur so putting in ‘easy’ bonuses to up his salary is likely out of the question.

The rumour was that Frogren would earn $450,000 (which is actually below league minimum so I question this number) this upcoming season and $900,000 in year 2 and a $700,000 signing bonus. If Frogren is limited to $741,000 plus likely unachievable bonuses as it seems the CBA outlines then Frogren will fall well short of the money he would have collected under the rumoured contract and one would then wonder if he would be able to buy out the final year on his Farjstad contract.

Ultimately this is a mystery that will take some time to unfold and we’ll have to wait and see if the NHLPA will file a grievance and under what reasoning they will do so.

The Frogren Affair

There are some strange happenings in regards to the Toronto Maple Leafs attempts to sign Jonas Frogren and one has to wonder if and why the NHL is standing in the way of the Leafs signing the Swedish defenseman. Yesterday was the day it was expected that the Leafs would finally announce the signing of Frogren but instead news came out that the league had nixed the deal stating that Frogren had to be signed to an entry level contract, not a standard contract.

Yesterday news came out that the NHL has rejected the Leafs contract with Jonas Frogren stating that his contract needs to be an entry level contract. Steve discussed the issue saying that the contract issues made no sense because the CBA states that a player age 28 isn’t required to sign an entry level contract and although Frogren is 27 now he will be 28 on August 28th so the Leafs just need to wait until then.

But it gets even stranger because in the same section of the CBA that states that a player aged 28 does not need to sign an entry level contract it also states the following:

9.2. Age of Players. As used in this Article, “age,” including “First SPC Signing Age” means a Players age on September 15 of the calendar year in which he signs an SPC, regardless of actual age on the date he signs such SPC.

Now I don’t give Gary Bettman and his gang a lot of credit but I will give them the benefit of doubt and assume that they are able to read. Now I believe my reading comprehension skills are not too shabby either and when I read the above it seems clear to me that Frogren’s age when he signs the contract is not an issue but rather his age on September 15th of the year he signs the contract. Now my understanding of the calendar is that August 28th is before September 15th and thus Frogren will be 28 on September 15th. Hmmm, maybe they can’t read all that well.

So you would think that Fletcher just had to call up Mr. Bettman and inform him of the rules and the contract would go through. But apparently that hasn’t happened, or at least Bettman didn’t accept Fletcher’s argument. Instead Frogren’s agent Don Meehan said “We are working with the NHL Players’ Association to resolve the matter.” So it appears that the NHLPA is going to have to file some sort of informal or formal grievance on behalf of Frogren to get the deal to be accepted.

So, what could be the issue? Well, as many of you are probably aware, the NHL and the European teams no longer have an IIHL transfer agreement in place. The transfer agreement allowed NHL teams to bring over their European prospects at a cost of $200,000. But now there is no agreement and thus NHL teams are technically free to bring over whoever they want, potentially even players signed to a contract with a European club with no compensation required. Essentially the NHL could grab any European player regardless of their contractual situation with no consequences. Conversely the European teams could do the same. In essense a contract signed in one league is not required to be honoured by other leagues.

This is a potentially big issue for the NHL because of the cration of the new Russian super league. If the Russian Continental Hockey League is not required to honour NHL contracts there is no obligation by Continental League teams to wait for an NHL players contract to expire before the lure them over to Russia to play. The fear is that at some point down the road, maybe one year, maybe 5 years, some Russian team will offer Alex Ovechkin or Evgeni Malkin a $20 million a year contract that Ovechkin or Malkin can refuse and the NHL will lose one of their prime superstars. So, it is in the best interest of the NHL to not get into the habit of breaking existing contracts and set a precident.

And guess what? Jonas Frogren has an existing contract with Farjestad. The Hockey News Ryan Dixon has an interesting story on the Frogren contract and how he himself is going to buyout the final year of his Farjestad contract.

In the absence of a player transfer agreement between the NHL and IIHF, teams associated with both organizations have agreed not to go after players currently under contract on either side of the Atlantic.

The NHL’s collective bargaining agreement prevents teams from negotiating individual release fees with each other, but by giving Frogren the money directly by way of a salary – which will count against the cap – the Leafs found a way to get it done.

To get around those issues the Leafs are seemingly intending to give Frogren a hefty signing bonus which Frogren will use to personally buy out the contract he has with Farjestad. So if this is all true, could the NHL big wigs be looking at the hefty signing bonus and Frogren’s personal buyout as a workaround to the system and ultimately create a fear that this could be the first step down a downward slope to a near anarchy system where contracts on both sides of the ocean are not honoured as the NHL hopes they will be? Could this be the reason why this seemingly imminent announcement more than a week ago still has not been announced and is this the reason why the NHL is playing every possible card in the book to hold up the signing, including playing semantic games with CBA rules that are seeming perfectly clear to anyone able to read? It is the only possible motive for the NHL nixing the deal that I can see.

Early Look at the John Tavares Contenders

It is still very early but lets take a look at which teams might contend for the title of the worst in the NHL for 2008-09 and win the right to draft John Tavares first overall. I am basing this solely on their current rosters of signed players, not projections of who they might sign. Some of these teams are likely to make more moves to get them off the list.

Bad but not Quite Bad Enough

Florida Panthers: They have pretty decent defense and goaltending but after trading away their only top tier forward in Olli Jokinen they will struggle mightily to score goals unless Stephen Weiss and Rostislav Olesz can really take their careers up a level. They have the talent but they haven’t executed very well so I have my doubts. Vokoun will likely steal enough games not to have them end up in last place but they still aren’t a good team.

Columbus Blue Jackets: The number 1 line will be Umberger, Huselius and Nash which isn’t bad but isn’t a great #1 line either. And after those three there really isn’t much to get excited about. Their defense is OK but there isn’t a lot of high end talent there either. The only savior might be in goal where Pascal Leclaire had a break out year last season and looks like he might become one of the better goalies in the NHL. If Leclaire can’t repeat last years performance the Blue Jackets could easily fall into contention for the last spot in the NHL.

Colorado Avalanche: If Sakic and Forsberg both decide to re-sign then the Avalanche can be taken off this list but until they do they are a bad team going in the wrong direction. The goaltending tandem of Budaj and Raycroft will likely fall somewhere between mediocre at best to horrifically bad at worst. They are certainly not a playoff contender as the team currently stands and with a key injury here or there they could fall into contention for one of the last spots in the NHL.

Vancouver Canucks

After the Sedin’s, Luongo and a couple of injury prone defensemen there really isn’t much to get excited about. They couldn’t score many goals last year and they have lost their 3rd best point producer and captain Markus Naslund. Luongo is the only thing currently saving them from the cellar.

The True Contenders

St. Louis Blues: The Blues showed some promise early in the season last year but then completely fell apart and finished with the second worst record in the western conference. The only major move they have made is acquiring goalie Chris Mason from Nashville but I am not convinced he is an upgrade over what they had. The Blues were a bad team last year and are still a bad team.

Los Angeles Kings: Taking a look at the current Los Angeles Kings roster and it is pretty scary as they currently only have 4 defensemen listed (Jack Johnson, Matt Greene, Tom Preissing and Peter Harrold) and their goaltending is downright horrible consisting of Erik Ersberg and Jason LaBarbera. They do have some decent talent in Kopitar, Brown, Frolov, etc. but overall they are a horrible team.

Atlanta Thrashers: Outside of Kovalchuk and an aging Kozlov there isn’t a lot of talent on this roster. Armstrong and Christensen are nice complementary players picked up in the Hossa trade and Enstrom was a nice rookie surprise last year but there really isn’t much else to get excited about. They over paid for an over rated Ron Hainsey and once top goalie prospect Kari Lehtonen hasn’t developed all that well while suffering through injury issues. Overall they are a horrible team without much near term upside.

New York Islanders: Back in the late 1990’s Doug Weight and Bill Guerin formed a pretty good tandem in Edmonton but it is now 2008 and they are no longer front line players. The problem for the Islanders is they need them to be front line players if they are going to be very good. There are zero star players (save maybe for DiPietro) on the Islanders roster and the number of good players is minimal as well. Ted Nolan has proven a few times to be a very good coach but this team is downright awful and even he won’t be able to make this team anything more than a prime contender for the worst team in the NHL.

Free Agent Thoughts

Here are some of my thoughts on the free agent signings so far.

1. I want to give the finger tor all those who are outraged at the Jeff Finger signing and who have seen him play fewer than two games. Yes, that is pretty much everyone. As a Leaf fan I am a little skeptical of the Finger signing but I am going to reserve judgment until at least December when we will have seen him in action for a couple months and that is what all you Leaf fans should do. It astonishes me how many people will call it a bad signing without even knowing a thing about the player being signed.

2. Wade Redden for 6 years at $6.5 million has to be one of the worst signings of this off season. Redden has some skill but he has been pretty weak the past season or two and while a change of scenery might help him, I am almost certain he won’t come close to living up to that contract.

3. The best signing so far has been Brian Rolston by the New Jersey Devils. Not only will Rolston add some much needed offense to the Devil’s lineup, having played with the Devils previously and the Wild the past several seasons he will fit in perfectly to the Devils defensive system. Now if the Devils could just improve their defense crew they will be back to a Stanley Cup contending team.

4. Whatever happens with the Finger signing, I think Leaf fans will be pleased with the Hagman signing. He’ll add some much needed speed and defensive ability to the Leafs lineup. Just don’t expect 25 goals from him, but 15-20 is certainly possible. The Leafs won’t be as bad as everyone thinks/assumes.

5. The most active teams this off season have been Tampa, Edmonton and Columbus though I am not sure any of them are significantly better, particularly if Tampa goes and trades Dan Boyle. Columbus signing of Mike Commodore for 5 years at $3.75 million is a contender for worst signing this off season. It would not surprise me if all three missed the playoffs again.

6. Detroit is scary good, but you already knew that didn’t you.

7. Can everyone please stop asking “why did we have the lockout when we are seeing these crazy high salaries once again”. Whoever says that should immediate walk the stupidity plank because they don’t have a clue. First, the salary cap rising to $56.7 million only did so because the revenues are there. That is called linkage which the owners demanded and got. Second, pre-lockout players were getting up to $10-12 million contracts and second tier players like Bill Guerin and Bobby Holik were getting $9 million per season. The high end salaries now have not caught up to pre-lockout levels.

8. It might take another season but the Phoenix Coyotes are assembling a very good team with a mixture of size and skill.

How soon things change…

Only a month ago, Howard Berger and others wrote about how things were pretty much all good int he NHL.

And though it’s oddly out of fashion to lay kudos on commissioner Gary Bettman, there is little doubt he has adroitly guided the NHL through its most turbulent epoch. Bettman and deputy Bill Daly administer to an enormous, 30-team circuit that does not have an overbearing crisis at the moment — a triumph fans on both sides of the border should relish.

I wonder if Howard Berger wants to take back those words now. In the past few weeks we have learned that Nasville Predators part owner William ‘Boots’ Del Baggio has filed for bankruptcy, the league has threatened to boot the New York Rangers owner out of the league, and Anaheim Ducks owner Henry Samueli has been suspended from any involvement in the Ducks or the NHL after having plead guilty of making a false statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding his involvement in manipulating stock options while at Broadcom.

That sounds pretty bad but the Nashville situation is potentially even more troublesome and I think we need to take a cautionary stance on the new Tampa Bay ownership as well. The Toronto Star is reporting that Gary Bettman was blindsided to find out that Los Angeles Kings owner Philip Anschutz and Minnesota Wild’s owner (and former Nashville Predators owners) Craig Leipold lent Boots Del Baggio a combined $17 million of the $25 million Boots paid for his share in the Predators. In Del Baggio’s purchase agreement he has an option to purchase all of the Predators if the situation in Nashville doesn’t improve and it is believed he would have moved them to Kansas City. Interestingly enough Philip Anschutz owns the arena in Kansas City where the moved Nashville Predators would play.

Clearly it seems the NHL didn’t do its homework on Del Baggio’s financial situation but the whole messy Nashville sale stinks with a lot of back room dealings from Liepold selling and then immediately buying the Minnesota Wild, to the league seemingly pushing Jim Balsille out of the picture in favour of local owners and Del Baggio, to other owners financing the deal. I think there is a lot more to this story than we know and I truly would be surprised if Bettman and his cartel are more involved in this than we have currently heard about.

One has to wonder if Gary Bettman’s control of all things NHL is coming near the end. How long will it be before several other owners, and the NHLPA, say enough is enough and give Gary the boot. He has continuously failed to find or adequitely perform due diligence on new ownership groups while seemingly keeping well financed billionaire Jim Balsillie out of the league. Something is clearly wrong in the NHL and it is time for Gary to pay the price.

James Mirtle has more on the messy situations the NHL is facing.

The Bettman Cartel

Sometimes (ok, more than sometimes) I wonder if the NHL has a clue what it is doing. The latest breaking story is that the NHL is threatening the New York Rangers owners (Madison Square Garden, MSG) with possible expulsion from the league for accusing the league of violating antitrust laws. The background is that the Rangers sued the NHL claiming that the NHL had no right to take control of the Rangers website and other marketing and promotion programs. Last year a judge agreed with the NHL and said the NHL was well within its rights to take control of the rangers website.

But instead of accepting victory in a dignified way, as any reasonable organization would, it decided to fight back and “asked a judge to agree MSG has breached its contract by challenging league rules and that it can force out MSG.”

Two thinks come to mind when I read this story:

1. MSG is one of the best owners the NHL could possibly have and in a time when good law abiding owners are seemingly very hard to find (see NY Islanders, Buffalo Sabres, and recently Nashville Predators), it seems very counter productive to be booting out one of the best and most stable owners around. Not only is MSG stable, but they are one of the biggest media outlets in New York and even across the United States. For a league that is starving for hockey coverage in the United States, booting out one of your better owners and media partners seems counter productive too.

2. It seems like this is just further evidence of a Bettman cartel in the NHL where Bettman will do everything he can to get pro-Bettman owners in the league (see Williams ”Boots” Del Baggio) and do everything possible to keep independent minded owners out of the league (see Jim Balsillie). With this action the NHL is trying to send a statement to all other owners in the NHL: “Do what we want or you’ll be gone”. I am no lawyer but it seems to me that this must break some sort of anti-trust laws.

So far Bettman has been successful in keeping tight control over the NHL and silencing those who might want to challenge him and his rule. One has to wonder if and when this might come back to bite him in the foot. Challenging a media giant like MSG with expulsion is a bigger battle than he has undertaken in the past and one wonders when he will have bitten off more than he can chew. Now that the players get a fixed share of revenue I expect the NHLPA is going to want to have a say in matters like this since such moves will potentially affect league revenues. If MSG, Balsillie, NHLPA and possibly other big market owners choose to fight back it could be wildly lopsided fight that Bettman and his cronies are sure to lose. It will be interesting to see how this will unfold.

Free Agent Wingers

The guy everyone is talking about is Marian Hossa. He is definitley a top tier player who had a bit of an off year this past season but picked it up in the playoffs and that will serve him well this off season. Rumour is Pittsburgh is interested in signing him for 7 years, $49 million. He quite likely will get more on the open market (Montreal, NY Rangers, Chicago, Vancouver, and several others would be interested) but that might be a mistake longer term.

Three interesting players are Selanne, Jagr and Naslund. These three are past star players on the downside of their careers, though still productive. One wonders what kind of contract these guys will command.

Rolston is probably the best two way player on the list but might not command quite as much money as the others on the list. Because of this he may in fact be the best ‘value’ available, particularly for a team with plenty of offense already (he’d be perfect for the Senators though might still be too pricey for them).

Don’t over evaluate Ryan Malone, who when not playing with elite level players like Crosby or Malkin is probably only a 20 goal, 45 point guy. He is good but not worth the $5 million he might get on the open market.

If you are looking for defensive role players take a look at Jay Pandolfo, Jarkko Ruutu, and Mat Cooke. Also, Martin Gelinas is older but can still contribute defensively and as a team leader as well.

Free Agent Centers

Similar to yesterdays free agent defensemen list, here are this summers top free agent centers.

I think we can expect Daymond Langkow to re-sign in Calgary (apparently he has a verbal agreement which won’t be signed until the final salary cap figure gets announced) and Joe Sakic to re-sign in Colorado. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Forsberg stay in Colorado as well. The next best and most talked about center is Mats Sundin. Sundin keeps a pretty tight lip and no one really knows what he will do but it seems he wants to stay in Toronto or close to Toronto. Toronto, Detroit, Ottawa, and Montreal are the most likely destinations for Sundin but I wouldn’t count out Vancouver or a few other teams. My bet is he stays in Toronto if the Leafs can make a few quality changes in the roster. Otherwise he goes to Detroit.

Those of us in Ottawa believe Chris Kelly had an off year, but even though it wasn’t as good as 2006-07 it was still pretty good. Any team looking for a versatile two-way forward who can kill penalties with the best of them will do well picking up Kelly. Craig Conroy is another Kelly like player but might cost more. Mike Peca fits into this group as well.

Everyones favourite, or lease favourite pest, depending on your perspective, is Sean Avery and clearly his antics produce results on the ice. The questions with him are two fold: 1) How many teams will put up with his antics and possibly dressing room disruptions and 2) if he cuts back on some of his antics will he be the same productive player. Only time will tell.

There are a few other interesting players like Martin Straka, Brendan Morrison, Vaclav Prospal and Jason Williams but after that there is a lot of mediocrity.

Free Agent Defensemen

In preparation for the off season, over the next few days I am going to be posting lists of most of the NHL unrestricted free agents that played fairly reguler roles in the NHL last season. In my lists I am including the player offense, defense and overall ratings that can be found at stats.hockeyanalysis.com for 2006-07 and 2007-08 plus each players two year average overall rating.

It should be noted that these ratings do not take into account ice time, just how they performed in the ice time they got. Clearly some of these players played far more significant roles with their teams than some other similarly rated players but I think these ratings should give an indication of what each player is capable of. It also might point out players that just posted big numbers either because they got a lot of ice time or just played with really good line mates as these ratings do factor in who each player has played with and against. I’ll also point out that the more ice time a player plays the more reliable the ratings are. For players who played a lot over the past couple seasons you will generally find the lowest season to season difference in the ratings.

So lets start out with defensemen. After the table I will post a few of my thoughts.

In my opinion the potential steal of the defense free agent crop could be Marek Malik. His play dropped off a bit last year but he always seems to get it done defensively dating back to his days in Vancouver. His +/- ratings the past 5 seasons are +23, +35, +28, +32 and +7. But because he had a bit of an off year last year he could be had for a very reasonable price.

A defenseman to be real cautious on is Ron Hainsey of the Blue Jackets. Statistically he had a very good year in Columbus but my ratings rate him as average at best. There is talk that he might command upwards of $4-5 million but that would likely be a huge mistake. This is a guy who benefited from playing a big role on a weak team.

Mark Streit and Wade Redden might be identical players. Too bad for the team that pays Redden as if he were a well rounded defenseman as opposed Mark Streit who might earn half of what Redden will get more as a PP specialist.

Carney and Chelios show that getting old doesn’t mean getting bad. Their roles and overall contribution have diminished but in the right role they can still contribute to good teams.

It was all about the money…

This whole HNIC theme song fiasco can be sumarized by one word: MONEY. The creator of the song, Dolores Claman, through Copyright Music & Visuals has sued CBC for an unreasonable sum of money ($2.5 million) for supposedly using the song in ways not allowed by their agreement. I believe the Copyright Music & Visuals then used that unreasonable sum of money as a bargaining chip against CBC by saying ‘ settle this lawsuit or we won’t renew’ but when CBC refused to settle the ridiculous lawsuit for a ridiculous sum of money they were forced to say thanks but no thanks. CBC even offered one last ditch effort by offering to go to arbitration to settle the issue once and for all but apparently Copyright Music & Visuals didn’t like that avenue, possibly because the inevetible outcome would be far below their rediculous $2.5 million claim and instead sold the song to CTV for what is rumoured to be around $2.5-3 million. If that sum is true it tells you exactly how rediculous the Copyright Music & Visuals $2.5 million lawsuit was. They were suing for as much as the song was worth.

What I find odd is why CTV would even be interested in the song. Yes, the song has a lot of tradition and intrigue to hockey fans and even Canadians in general, but does it really bring added value to TSN hockey product? The tradition was related to Hockey Night in Canada on CBC, not hockey in general and although the song has tradition and intrigue, I really don’t see it as something that will add to a hockey broadcast. In fact, for me it will detract from the hockey broadcast because I not view the song not as a symbol of hockey but rather a symbol of money and greed and commercialism at its worst. TSN does a lot of creative and original stuff with their hockey coverage and are very good at what they do (Pierre McGuire excluded) and effectively outright stealing someone elses open music just seems cheesy and amateurish.

Even more dumb is how CTV is trying to sell their buying the song as saving the song from “obscurity” and that they only got into the negotiations after CBC backed out on Friday. The song was not going to fall into obscurity and had it not been for CTV I expect it would likely still be on CBC next fall. I am almost certain that CTV has been in contact with Claman and Copyright Music and Visuals far before Friday. I am sure Claman knew they had CTV as a backup and thus felt at east putting all the pressure on CBC to agree to their demands and not vice versa. If Claman had no other suitors there likely would have been an agreement with CBC earlier.

So there we have it. Money and Greed have ruined yet another great tradition in hockey and we can no longer start our Saturday winter evenings with the same song we have for so many years.