Morning report
Once again, it's quiet around the league this morning, with Washington's two-year signing of Keith Aucoin being the only real news. Seems as though half of the league is on Mats Sundin Watch '08, waiting for the dominoes to fall after that.
Not the Kings though. We'll see what happens today. I'll be surprised if there's not some Rob Blake resolution, one way or the other, but obviously there's no guarantee of that. And we'll keep an eye on which second- (and possibly third-) tier defensemen start signing.
Keep the questions coming in the ``open forum'' post. Plenty of good ones already. I'll start answering soon...
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About Rich Hammond
Rich Hammond has covered the Kings, on a full-time or part-time basis, since the 2000-01 season. He was the beat writer for the entire John Torchetti era and has witnessed Bob Miller singing country music in a Nashville honky-tonk bar. A native of Los Angeles, Rich has worked at the Daily News since 1999 and also serves as the paper's deputy sports editor. E-mail Rich at rich.hammond@dailynews.com.
Waiting for "dominoes to fall"? Who are you, Spector? AAUUGGGHHH!!!
Rich, what makes you think there has to be a resolution for Blake today ?
Let's talk Comparable Contracts with our RFA's. The best way to do it I think is to look at age and draft year. These guys sign their first contracts around the same time. Some may say once a young player establishes himself they can compare their numbers in the same period of time to veterans, but seeing as where they're not UFA's they don't have quite as much leverage as a UFA (Kevin Lowe and Mike Gillis not withstanding).
Very quietly, The Canadiens signed Andrei Kostitsyn yesterday to a 3y/$9.75 mil dollar contract. They were born literally two days apart, their GP/G/A/P numbers are fairly similar. If anything, O'Sullivan gets more ice time because he kills penalties and takes faceoffs.
I think it's a good comp contract for Patrick and I think the Kings should try to get something done for slightly more than this number for at least the same term.
For Kopitar, Paul Stastny is the only guy his age that has accomplished as much as he has from the same draft year and does the things that Anze does (Forgetting of course that Sid Crosby on another planet and really isn't a fair comparison to Anze YET!). I think Stastny's contract will be the key to Anze's and vice-versa.
For JMFJ, The problem is that most D-Men taken in his year, were held back a year (i.e. - didn't play those damn 6 games at the end of the 06-07 season) so their contracts aren't up for a while. The guys include Marc Staal in NYR, Matt Niskanen in DAL, Kris Letang in PIT (Sadly Luc Bourdon would have been comparable I believe). The one defenseman Jack's age that has more NHL experience and whose contract expires with Jack's is Marc Edouard Vlasic. So keep an eye on his contract situation. Currently he makes HALF the money JMFJ is making.
They have to offer 5 million plus to get closer to the floor.
Its pretty sad actually that the Kings who play in the 2nd largest market in the US, and currently have the lowest payroll. Before I would compare the Clippers to the Kings. But no more, the Clippers are signing Baron Davis to make a strong playoff push in the next few yrs. So I like to compare the Kings to the Tampa Rays..After 11 God awful years, they are finally playing well. I don't know about you guys I would love to see the playoffs before this decade is over. Watching the highlights of the 2001 Kings/Wings Series on the NHL network, made me so emotional. I miss the days when their was that much excitement with the team
which dominos are left, exactly? Markus Naslun? LAWL.