The fall out of the Lecavalier contract has been all over the Team Canada Olympic Camp in Vancouver. TSN gets comments form Brad, Vinny and Marty with regards to the salary crunch.
The one thing that amazes me is the attitude that caused the lockout in the first place seems to be dictating players attitudes still.
‘It sucks, there was a reason we didn’t want a salary cap that low, especially for our team,” said Richards. ”For some teams it’s great, for some teams it sucks. But we’re going to have live with it. We’ve already lost one of the best goalies in the world – which we could have signed without a cap – and now we don’t know what’s going to happen with our Hart Trophy winner.”You know, Brad, the Lightning could have signed Khabibulin if he wasn’t all for the money. Just LOOK at the difference between the Lightning and the Blackhawks and you want to tell me that Nikolai made his choice for reasons other than financial? Maybe he could have accepted just a bit less in order to stay with the team… You’ve heard of that, right? “Taking one for the team?” It’s an expression that’s commonly used in sports and fits perfectly right here in a monetary sense.
Vinny’s as guilty — as is, of course, agent Kent Hughes — for letting the market dictate what Vinny would accept as a “fair price”. He and Hughes should have been well aware that his payday negatively effects the future of the Tampa Bay Lightning roster if it results in the departures of St. Louis, Richards, Modin or other key components on this team.
The New NHL — featuring the same mentality as the old NHL: Get it while you can and don’t worry about the next guy. Don’t worry about the team. Worry about “fair market value” and be done with it.
