Tag Archives: player

Gallagher: NHL deal means flurry of action for Canucks

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Missing the entire season was never an option over the trivial issues that kept the NHL and their players apart for the last month, so the lockout finally ending early Sunday in New York wasn’t really a surprise.

It had to end this week to get a season together and missing an entire season wasn’t an option for either side so, if anything, this settlement was a shade early for two deadline workers like Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr.

Now the task of getting things on to paper starts and that will doubtless have a few hiccups and protests from both sides, followed by the process of getting things back to normal.

For the Vancouver Canucks, of course, it means a flurry of action right away, not the least of which is the likely move of Roberto Luongo to some team that wants him. The fact the final deal left next year’s salary cap at $64.5 million US...

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Mason Raymond signs contract to play in Sweden

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Mason Raymond is either getting in before the rush, or he’s being pro-active in trying to make sure his game isn’t a moth-eaten wreck when a NHL season begins.

Raymond has signed on to play for Orebro in Sweden’s second-tier Hockey Allsvenskan, which has surfaced as a go-to league for locked-out NHL players.

To start, it’s an 11-game, month-long contract which begins with Raymond’s first game on Jan. 3.

On the surface, waiting until now to go to Sweden appears to be a strange decision. The NHL and the NHLPA appear two to three weeks away from a resolution this season to their bitter labour dispute.

Most expect we’ll know whether there will be a season before late January.

So why go now?

For starters, Raymond isn’t exactly the planning type. When the first weeks of the NHL season were cancelled Raymond said he had put zero thought into what he was going to do. He claimed he didn’t even know whether he was...

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Canucks prospect Corrado makes world junior final camp

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Frank Corrado won't be the first name or maybe not even the last name announced when Hockey Canada sets its final roster for the world junior hockey championship in Ufa, Russia following a four-day, 37-player selection camp that opens Dec. 11 in Calgary.

However, the Vancouver Canucks prospect defenceman will enter the conversation because the Sudbury Wolves captain has a way of getting noticed. It's why he was taken in the fifth round of the 2011 draft at the prompting of Canucks regional scout Dan Palango and why he scored the winning goal for Team OHL in a Super Series matchup against Russia on Nov. 12 in Sarnia, Ont. He was paired with Boston Bruins first-round pick Dougie Hamilton of the Niagara Ice Dogs which proved a dynamic duo.

"I never had a doubt that I could play at that level," Corrado said Monday. "You play with good players and Dougie is obviously very good, so it worked out well...

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Canucks should retire Bure’s No. 10, says old pal Igor Larionov

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Igor Larionov is called The Professor for good reason.

The former Vancouver Canucks centre not only looks the part, the respected Russian has always been a student of the game and excelled at his chosen craft with class and dignity.

He won three Stanley Cup championships with the Detroit Red Wings, is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and continues to shape young minds as a player agent.

Larionov represents Nail Yakupov and Alex Galchenyuk, who were selected first and third overall, respectively, in the 2012 NHL draft, and is an astute judge of talent. His prize pupil was former teammate Pavel Bure.

As The Great Debate rages as to whether Bure should have his number retired by the Canucks to join Markus Naslund, Trevor Linden and Stan Smyl in the Rogers Arena rafters, it’s not surprising that his former linemate believes that sheer electricity and notable numbers should account for the highest franchise admiration.

On Monday, Bure gave his acceptance...

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NHL proposal would hurt teams with long-term deals

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There wasn’t panic or rage over at Rogers Arena with the collective bargaining clause that threatens to work like a punch to the Canucks’ salary-cap gut.

There shouldn’t be. The so-called Roberto Luongo rule — or Ilya Kovalchuk rule, take your pick — is just a proposal at this point. And it’s one which, even if ratified, won’t start having an impact until this next CBA expires.

 

But what a proposal. It works like a time machine in an attempt to rewrite history. Remember the resolution the NHL reached over long-term deals in the Kovalchuk case?

 

Settled, right? Old news, correct?

 

Well, the league would like to reopen the case.

 

The so-called back-diving deals, like the contracts signed by Luongo, Kovalchuk, Marian Hossa, several in Philadelphia and two in Minnesota, would get a significant, long-lasting wrinkle if commissioner Gary Bettman has his way.

 

Essentially, in deals longer than five years, the average cap hit will continue to count after the player retires for...

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Fehr says 50/50 deal would cost players $1.6 billion over six years

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TORONTO -- NHL players' union head Donald Fehr says management's latest proposal would cost his members more than $1.6 billion over six years.

In a letter to players and agents, Fehr said the proposal owners made this week in what they said was an attempt to preserve a full 82-game schedule was an improvement over previous management offers but "represents very large, immediate and continuing concessions by players to owners."

"Simply put, the owners' new proposal, while not quite as Draconian as their previous proposals, still represents enormous reductions in player salaries and individual contracting rights," Fehr said in the letter, according to a report by TSN. "As you will see, at the five percent industry growth rate the owners predict, the salary reduction over six years exceeds $1.6 billion. What do the owners offer in return?"

In the midst of their third lockout since 1994, owners gave the union on Tuesday what the league called a "proposal to save 82-game season."...

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Edler injury revelation a troubling one

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By Jason Botchford

There are two key questions that rolled out of the Alex Edler reveal last week.

At No. 1, with a bullet, is should there be long-term concern about news he is rehabbing a bulging disc under team supervision?

The obvious answer is obvious: of course.

Edler underwent surgery, because of a bulging disc, in January 2011. He continued to experience back spasms throughout the next season. He missed practices and was forced to leave a game in December. And he just happens now to be looking for an extension that would make him the Canucks’ highest-paid defenceman.

That’s enough for at least mild concern, even if the Canucks brass says it has none, believing his current back issue is temporary.

“After consultation with our doctors and the back specialist, they think it’s something which will correct itself,” Canucks assistant GM Laurence Gilman said.

But even if we assume this isn’t another Cody Hodgson situation and the doctors and specialist are spot on...

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NHL lockout might be a good thing for rehabbing Canucks

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VANCOUVER — Maybe this lockout isn’t so bad, after all.

You can sure spin it that way in Vancouver because a delayed start to the season does have some benefit for the Canucks, who would otherwise be without their do-it-all centre Ryan Kesler, and two of their best defencemen, Alex Edler and Jason Garrison.

Both Edler and Garrison were injured in preparing for the season and both are still on the Vancouver payroll, getting treated by staff, Canucks GM Mike Gillis said in an interview on TEAM 1040.

The most alarming injury is of course Edler, who, Gillis said, hurt his back during offseason training, and now has a “slightly bulging disc.” This is the same Edler who had a significant surgery in early 2011 to repair a bulging disc. He missed 10 weeks of the season.

After the surgery, Edler didn’t miss any games this past season, but he missed practices and had to leave one game he started in December...

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NHL talks like watching paint dry

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Mike Gillis lauded the refurbished Kensington Park Arena on Sunday, a project in which Vancouver Canucks Sports and Entertainment and RONA worked in unison over five months to improve the ceiling, lightning and foyer of the Burnaby facility.

Meanwhile, representatives for NHL owners and players met for five hours in New York on Sunday and did the same by slapping a new coat of paint on peripheral issues — health and safety, drug testing and player movement — rather than fixing the fiscal foundation in hopes of making meaningful process to end the lockout.

The two sides weren’t scheduled to meet Monday but that could change with a phone call.

So the Canucks general manager will travel to the Chicago area, where the AHL affiliate Wolves have opened a camp bolstered by 23 Canuck players and prospects because the collective bargaining impasse has wiped out the preseason and could soon affect regular-season games.

The Canucks were scheduled to host Phoenix in exhibition...

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Canucks lock up Alex Burrows for four years, at $4.5M a season

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The Canucks signed a top-six forward who can play with the Sedins, but it wasn’t Shane Doan.

Doan’s long, drawn-out decision was finally made and, to anyone who had been following it closely, there was little surprise.

Loyal to the end, Doan went with his heart and decided to stay in Arizona. Though that does mean there’s a chance he could end up playing in Quebec in two years.

The Canucks finished as bridesmaids in the Doan sweepstakes. But they did manage to grab the bouquet.

Finally closing the gap with Alex Burrows, the Canucks signed the former East Coast Hockey League player to a four-year, $18-million extension.

Burrows was looking for $5 million a year and settled for $4.5 million. Not bad for a player who many believe has been wildly underpaid for four years, during which he was paid $8 million. Total.

“From where I came from, I’m still really happy [with that deal],” Burrows said Friday.

“I was the happiest guy when...

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Gallagher: It’s time to consider getting rid of the NHLPA all together

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When you watch how the collective bargaining negotiation process works in the NHL now that the Players Association has accepted the poison pill of a salary cap, you have to wonder whether the NHLPA hasn’t outlived its usefulness.

The question here is not should they de-certify as a gimmick or a negotiating ploy, but should they just shut down for good or, at the very least, shouldn’t there at least be a serious study done looking at what would happen if there was no association whatsoever?

This is not to disparage the people in the association now or or in the past, or to question how much good this organization has done the players over the years, nor is it to say the owners might actually legally find more ways to mess with the players in the future were there not a union of some sort. But seriously, what does the union do for the players right now?

On the surface...

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NHL owners may not agree, but they all want the same thing: money

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Ever wondered what it’s like when an owner runs into a player he’s had under contract during or after one of these protracted CBA disputes in the NHL?

Take the Vancouver Canucks, for instance. What’s it like for Manny Malhotra, who is fairly prominent in the players’ negotiating hierarchy, to run into Francesco Aquilini at a function or in the hallway of Rogers Arena once things are settled?

The reason we ask here is simple. Aquilini is one of a group of 30 people who will be meeting next week to discuss their strategy whereby they are essentially trying to re-write contracts which they have already signed with Malhotra and his teammates in an attempt to weasel the aforementioned player out of somewhere between five and seven per cent of the money they’ve already agreed to pay him.

What would the player’s response be? What would you normally expect them to say to somebody who has just arbitrarily decided not to...

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Shane Doan: Worth more than $3 million a year to Canucks?

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We are still waiting on Shane Doan, are we not? Some team, at some point, will fork over millions of dollars for a 35-year-old Doan. He will be 36, plus a few tenths of a year, when the NHL season finally does get under-way.

Doan's entire career can be summed up in a word: durability. Not since he turned 22 has Doan played fewer than 72 games in a regular season, which has helped him put up 11 20-plus-goal seasons. That's eighth among active players.

Doan has been a slight plus-possession player his entire career, faring a little bit better at controlling the shot clock than his teammates. He is not elite, was never elite, and will never be elite. Doan is a durable leader who plugs away at the opposition, being above average for a very, very long time.

A noble player, that's Doan, and some team will fork over millions. That team may be the Vancouver Canucks. It could...

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