PHILADELPHIA- The NHLPA’s failure to inform the league that it will not exercise its option to reopen the collective bargaining agreement after this season is the reason why 31 year-old winger Peter Schaefer is in the minor leagues and is certain to remain there for the duration of the season.
It probably is the reason 31 year-old defenseman Kyle McLaren will play out the season in the AHL. It’s certainly a major part of the reason that 21-year-old Bobby Ryan didn’t open the year in Anaheim and it may be part of the reason that Brendan Shanahan has yet to sign an NHL contract.
There isn’t a sane soul within the union who would cast a vote for re-opening the labor agreement after this season. Indeed, there isn’t a sane soul within the Players Association who wouldn’t sign up right now for exercising the union’s option to extend this agreement – flawed as it is for the league and the players – through 2011-12.
Yet, when executive director Paul Kelly allowed an interim Sept. 15 deadline pass without informing the league of the union’s intent not to reopen, the 7.5-percent allowance to accommodate entry-level and over-35 bonuses was stricken from this season’s cap, and thus put a squeeze on clubs all around the league.
No one has been a greater advocate of communication and transparency within the NHLPA than I have been. But Kelly’s postponement of the decision not to re-open until he is able to meet with all 30 teams on his fall tour doesn’t now and never did make sense. Unless players want to face a lockout next summer, they will not re-open. Everyone in the world knows it.
Yes, it’s true, the players will get their 56.7-percent of this year’s gross, regardless. The collective will not be harmed. But individuals such as Schaefer and McLaren, veterans who have paid their dues literally and figuratively, will be. They are in the minor leagues, stuck because of the whipsaw effect of re-entry waivers and the lack of the bonus allowance.
They are in the minor leagues because the NHLPA did not act decisively when it should have.
Impending Minnesota free agent right wing Marian Gaborik, an informant reports, has let it be known that he’s seeking a $100M contract – 10 years at $10M – and all we can say is, “Good luck to you, young man. Enjoy your time in Russia.”
Which reminds us. Which right wing currently plying his trade in Siberia has been on the phone with his former NHL equipment manager, begging for help in acquiring his tools of the trade?
There might not be a more nonsensical trade made this season than the one a couple weeks ago in which Atlanta GM Don Waddell allowed Anaheim to get under the cap by taking Mathieu Schneider‘s $5.625M contract from the Ducks without insisting on getting either Ryan or a first-rounder back in the deal, but we sincerely doubt it.
Though nearly all the world has conceded the Adams Division – uh, Northeast – to the Canadiens, we kind of like the Bruins. If only they weren’t carrying a backup goaltender in Manny Fernandez who’s eating $4.333M of cap space, nearly four times the cost of No. 1 Tim Thomas.
Lookalikes: Hugh Laurie as Gregory House, M.D., and Henrik Lundqvist, goalie.
The Caps should have found the way to keep Cristobal Huet rather than signing free agent Jose Theodore and the Blackhawks would have been better off sticking with Nikolai Khabibulin this season than signing Huet to a long-term deal. Everyone will lose this game of goaltender roulette.
Finally, this just in. Mats Sundin has suspended his NHL career in order to work on the global economic crisis.