Taking you back to 2006 from The Hockey News Archive where writer Mark Brender talks about some possible players on the move for the trade deadline as Minnesota's Dwayne Roloson could be an option. FEB 28, 2006/VOL. 59, ISSUE 23.
In the summer of 2004, Bob Gainey did the Senators a favor by taking Radek Bonk off their hands. Two years later, might Gainey also be responsible for helping deliver the Sens a much more valuable prize in Florida pivot Olli Jokinen for their Stanley Cup drive?
It’s perfect grist for the Olympic break rumor mill – and it’s not all that farfetched, either.
On Feb. 11, Gainey signed Habs captain Saku Koivu to a three-year, $14.25-million contract extension. Koivu would have been an unrestricted free agent this summer. For a 31-year-old not generally considered among the top 10 or 15 centers in the game, the $4.75-million annual salary raised some eyebrows.
At 27, Jokinen, the Panthers captain, is four years younger than Koivu and would be the only No. 1 center entering the free agent market this summer in the prime of his career. Playing on an inferior team, Jokinen has 182 points over the past three seasons compared to Koivu’s 165. The comparison looks good on him.
Jokinen recently turned down a reported four-year $16-million contract extension offer from the Panthers. According to his agent Mark Gandler, the player is holding out for something better. Whether that’s $5 million or $6 million or somewhere in between, Gandler isn’t prepared to say.
Whatever the number is, there’s little doubt, given the Koivu contract, the Panthers will have to pay a premium to lock him up. The question is whether Florida GM Mike Keenan – who will also be under considerable pressure to sign potential 2007 free agent Roberto Luongo to a long-term contract this summer – is able or willing to give it to him.
The Panthers have spent most of the season ankle-to-ankle with the Minnesota Wild for the lowest payroll in the league. As for keeping Jokinen around for their playoff push, if the Panthers haven’t given up on the post-season already, that day should soon be coming; they are eight points out of a playoff spot with five teams to climb and 25 games left – five of them before the March 9 trade deadline. Keenan could not be reached for comment.
“I suppose the organization has to make a decision which way to go,” Gandler said. “If they want Olli to sign and forego his unrestricted free agency, they have to come up to our price. You see what Koivu just got and Koivu is older…(Jokinen) knows he’s going to get a payday. The question is how much and where.”
From Ottawa’s perspective, adding an offensive center to anchor the second line would appear to be the prime area that Muckler and the Senators are looking for an upgrade.
There have been rumors of Martin Havlat possibly heading to Florida in a Jokinen trade. Antoine Vermette’s name also has been mentioned. Havlat, recovering from shoulder surgery, will start skating with the Senators sometime after the Olympic break.
“I think the best way to put it is we’re trying to improve our hockey club, yes,” said Muckler from his home in Naples, Fla., where his team, coincidentally, was holding planning meetings. “We’ll look at anything that’s out there to look at.”
On a league-wide basis, despite all the teams said to be looking for goalies (Edmonton and Vancouver at the top of the list) and defensemen (including the Rangers and Toronto), and despite blueliner Brendan Witt’s imminent departure from Washington being a given, some GMs believe there will be more look than action.
This will be an NHL trade deadline unlike any other for three reasons, all of which make life more difficult for those who would rather be wheeling and dealing.
For starters, the deadline is about two weeks earlier in the season this year than normal. Many GMs feel the change will end up having the desired effect of minimizing the rent-a-player phenomenon. More teams are still in the playoff hunt, so chances are these teams will be reluctant to give up on the season by trading away their most marketable assets.
The few games after the Olympic break and before the deadline aren’t likely to change many teams’ assessments of what they want to do, either. The Los Angeles Kings and Phoenix Coyotes have three games before the deadline; everyone else has either four or five.
“Other than guys coming back from injury,” said Anaheim GM Brian Burke, “your analysis of your team had better be complete by this point.”
Added San Jose GM Doug Wilson, who is hoping his team keeps up its .656 pace since Dec. 1 to grab a Western Conference playoff berth: “Short of injuries, we pretty well know what we’re looking at and what we want to do. This year, whoever gets in the playoffs, it is a complete wild card who can win.”
The second reason, of course, is the salary cap. Teams such as Detroit, Philadelphia, Colorado and Tampa Bay simply don’t have much room to maneuver unless they give up someone off their roster.
There was a great deal of talk at the GM meetings in Las Vegas in early February, but potential buyers wanted to wait until after the Olympic break to let the sellers burn off more salary, in hopes of making trades more salary cap-friendly.
The third reason goes hand-in-hand with the second. Not only are team payrolls capped, but, under the new CBA, individual salaries can no longer be chopped up to make trades more palatable. That’s the reason why Alexei Yashin ($7.4 million average salary) won’t be going anywhere for the rest of his career, and why Pittsburgh’s Sergei Gonchar is untradeable at $5 million average salary per year, even though in an ideal world the Pens might eat a few million to get rid of him. Under current rules, would even the Rangers have taken on Jaromir Jagr’s contract to get him from the Caps? Probably…but you get the point.
“You just can’t go out and make some deals with the freedom you had in the past,” Muckler said.
Given all the changes, some of the moves that would seem to be no-brainers in the past aren’t so clear-cut any more.
Dwayne Roloson?
In Minnesota, for example, it has been widely assumed that goalie Dwayne Roloson will be on the move, since both he and Manny Fernandez will be unrestricted free agents at the end of the season and the Wild can’t afford to lose them both for nothing.
But if the Wild believe they have a legitimate playoff shot, what is more important: the third- or fourth-round pick or the prospect they might receive for Roloson, or keeping him around for insurance in case Fernandez gets hurt or slumps? The alternative behind Roloson is Josh Harding. If you’re asking “who?”, that’s exactly the point.
Anaheim GM Burke sees NHL managers over time adopting more of a let ’em walk mentality towards free agency. Due to the increased number of players available in summer unrestricted free agency, the risk in letting one of your own players go isn’t such a big deal.
“There’s nothing wrong with keeping a guy to the end of the year and then wishing him well and taking him to the airport,” Burke said. “That’s what they do in the NFL.”