I’m glad Flip filed for arbitration. Now I can stop obsessively checking tsn.ca to see if anyone’s made him an offer.

Sammy’s three goals in the finals earned himself a one year reprieve. But Lilja on the other hand…

We should procure the phone numbers for all of the other GMs in the league, split up the list among the 19, and start cold calling them with trade offers claiming to be ‘special envoys’ of the Red Wings.

Posted by Modnar from Cincinnati, OH on 07/05/08 at 10:32 PM ET

We should procure the phone numbers for all of the other GMs in the league, split up the list among the 19, and start cold calling them with trade offers claiming to be ‘special envoys’ of the Red Wings.

Dibs on Gillis. That knucklehead is ripe for having his pocket picked.

“Yah, listen, Gilly, I got a monster of a D-man and a winger with a wicked shot for ya. And, just because you’re such a sweetheart, I’m gonna give ‘em to ya fer Kesler and your 1st rounder next spring. Call me crazy but I just wanna see ya make the playoffs this year. Call me, babe. Let’s make this happen.”

Posted by OlderThanChelios from Grand Rapids on 07/05/08 at 10:55 PM ET

Well, a few forwards with similar stats and age wise include Sean Avery (4 yrs, $15.5m), Ruslan Fedotenko (1yr, $2.5m), Wojtek Wolski (2 yrs, $5.6m?), Michael Ryder-after an off year (3yr, $12M), Niklas Hagman (4yrs, $12m), Paul Gaustad (4yrs, $9.2M).

I don’t know enough about most of those players to say which matches up best with Fil, but the prices here run between $2.5 and $4mil. Who do you believe?

I’d like to see an escalating contract with the average cap number in the 2.5 range. But after seeing these numbers, if it gets to arbitration, I don’t think that’s realistic.

If I had to guess from what I do know, I’d say Wolski matches up pretty well, and it’s a contract I like.

Posted by Nate A from Detroit-ish on 07/06/08 at 01:13 AM ET

It wouldn’t surprise me if Kenny does give Fil a deal in the $2 million range.  That’s his “market value” right now, including the $500K hometown discount, anyway.

Signing Hossa is basically going to expedite a few roster moves that were going to happen by the end of training camp anyway.  Holland is going to have to make some difficult decisions on defence and some difficult decisions up front, and they were going to be made by the players’ play during the exhibition season, and that still might be the case.  I think that there’s a good chance that he’s gonna keep everybody around and let the chips fall where they may before tossing a defenceman or two (depending on how Ericsson plays) and a forward or two before the season starts—unless somebody gets hurt, which is entirely possible. 

That’s why you sign more bodies than you need to more salary than you probably need.

Posted by George Malik from South Lyon, MI on 07/06/08 at 01:43 AM ET

The situation with Filppula brings up something that I’ve been wondering about for a while, so let me ask…  What’s to prevent an organization from paying a player extra money for some non-hockey endeavor???

Suppose Mr. I walks up to Fil, puts his arm around his shoulder and says, “You know, Wally, I think you as a Red Wing would make an excellent promoter of pizza, and I’m willing to pay you as a Red Wing...  oh, say, $1.2 mil… to do one Little Caesar commercial for me.  What do you think?  Oh, and did I mention that you’d have to be a Red Wing???”

Posted by BobTheZee on 07/06/08 at 09:33 AM ET

BobTheZee,

The NHL looks very closely at things like this (especially if it comes to an owner paying one of his players to do advertisements for another brand he owns). 

If Wally gets offered some sort of beside-the-table deal to stay in Detroit, the Red Wings get in HUGE trouble.  Best case scenario for a team caught sidestepping rules like that would be fines and loss of draft picks.  My thought would be that the league would force an owner to sell if they did something so egregious.  The NHL does not want to have to deal with a scandal that would be as least as big as the NBA’s refereeing scandal.

You may be able to get away with slipping some side dollars without anybody looking, but the risks far outweigh the rewards.  You could possibly keep a player around, but you risk losing your job, your team, your reputation, and your fans.

Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 07/06/08 at 12:30 PM ET

Thanks, JJ, just wondering.  I want to make it clear for the record that I’m not at all suggesting—not for a moment—that this organization or any other travel such a route.  That kind of stuff leaves a horrible taste in my mouth, as I’m sure it does for others.  I’m just sayin’ where there’s rules, there’s loopholes, and where there’s a will, there’s a way.  And as we’ve all seen, there are and have been some NHL owners who seem intent on proving that old adage attributed to Austin O’Malley—“God shows his contempt for wealth by the kind of person he selects to receive it.”

Posted by BobTheZee on 07/06/08 at 01:04 PM ET

No prob, Bob.  You figure that, if there is a way to cheat, somebody is going to find it and exploit it.  From what I’ve been reading in the interim betwen this post and the last, it seems that teams and individual owners and players are audited pretty carefully so that you would have to be in violation of several federal money laundering statutes in order to hide money paid to a player on the side.

Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 07/06/08 at 01:49 PM ET

I think the language in the CBA is pretty specific about what is and isn’t permitted - anything not specifically included in the standard player contract isn’t allowed.

I wonder if the writers mentally ran through the things they would do themselves to get around the rules and wrote down all the ideas they came up with? 

Better to tell him, “we got Hossa for your winger!  How’s that?”

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 07/06/08 at 03:27 PM ET

The NHL does not want to have to deal with a scandal that would be as least as big as the NBA’s refereeing scandal.

An NHL owner getting caught paying a player under the table would be a bigger scandal than corrupt NBA refs?

If you say so.

Posted by Alex Cutter from L.A. on 07/06/08 at 04:21 PM ET

I didn’t say bigger, I said at least as big.

also, the point I was making is still valid.  Regardless whether you agree about the size of the scandal, the NHL doesn’t want to deal with it.

Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 07/06/08 at 04:26 PM ET

I thought I heard something about the Tigers using Little Caesars franchises as leverage in dealing with some of the bigger free agents. It was a couple years ago, so its entirely possible I misheard. Plus, MLB salary structure is obviously a bit different than NHL, so maybe they can get away with that sort of thing.

Posted by Nate A from Detroit-ish on 07/06/08 at 04:43 PM ET

I think the language in the CBA is pretty specific about what is and isn’t permitted

I probably should have looked at the CBA before I posted in the first place, but I’ve been looking at that freakin’ document a lot lately and I was just too lazy this morning to do it some more. 

Yes, there’s a lengthy, legalese-ridden Article 26 entitled “No Circumvention” which goes about the task of defining what is and what isn’t permitted.  It does cover endorsements, even going so far as distinguishing between “local” and national” endorsements, both of which are permitted but only within some specifications.  It even describes procedures to arbitrate disagreements that arise under that article.  So it looks like it does try to cover all the bases. 

On the other hand, they have rules about owner conduct, too, I imagine, and look what they ended up with anyway.

Posted by BobTheZee on 07/06/08 at 05:41 PM ET