Komisarek and …..

Bob Gainey has been General Manager in Montreal for almost 6 years now, he has not buckled under the media and fan pressure so far, and surely won´t start doing so because Komisarek´s agent would like to hear word from him. I doubt that any NHL General Managers set their agendas to please player agents, Gainey is no different. Why the rush ?

The cap may go down a bit this year, but it´s the next two to three years that Gainey must be beware of, that is why he may have put off talks with his UFA´s so far. As permitted in the CBA, players can negotiate extensions in the last year of their present deals, including players on one year deals, who could do so only after January 1^st.

Don´t worry Habs fans, Gainey wants to see Komisarek in a Bleu, blanc et Rouge sweater as much as you all do.

A little thing you must know

Trades and the cap count,I think it's worthy to go over, as even with almost four years done in the CBA on the subject there is still misconception about it.Ok let's go thru this, it's important.I hope I explain this right and not confuse people. We all know the tradedeadline is the most exciting time of the year for hockey fans, just as christmas is to everyone else, we agree. We all know or have heard the term, balancing the books. Well making a trade is a bit the same. Let's use the example of player that has a chance to move at the deadline. It might not be a good one, but I will use it anyways, Doug Weight of the Islanders. His cap hit was 4,3million at the beginning of the year. Of course, the Islanders have paid a good portion of it since then. So that number in a way is no longer valid. So take his 4,3 million dollar cap hit, and divide by 187 (days in the cap count) it will give you his daily amount, which comes up to 22,995, 65 $ a day. Take that number and multiply by 117, it will give how much he has taken up so far in the Islanders cap count so far. For sake of arguement, it comes up to 2,7 million. So 4,3 million minus 2.7 million, it gives you 1.6 million. That would be the cap space that a team would need to acquire him.

That is the easy part. Now the Islanders, receive in return a player that let's say that has a million dollars in salary owed. So the savings for the Islanders is 600k. True. On the other end the team that acquired him or trying to must have the 600k absorb it. If not, the deal is dead,unless the team that acquired him, had a player eliglible for LTIR, that made same salary as Weight or had the extra cap space to take on the rest. In the end, what I' m saying, is that at the end of the year, the beans have to be well aligned, and make Mr. Bettman happy, if not you will hear about it.

So next time you propose a trade, keep in mind the rule above, and your trade proposal may just make sense. If you have a player with a multi-year contract coming back, make sure your team has the cap space to absorb it.

I hope it was not too complicated. Yes it's what Gm's and their capologist have to keep in mind, when they want to shake things up. It's the reasons why we see so few trades. If the beans don't add up, wait til they do. Remember when Mom use to tell you to save up your good deads for a rainy day, well it's the same.The more good deads you had, the better bargainning power you had for favors, you wanted and needed. Right ?

That's all for now folks !