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Sunday, June 24, 2001
Biggest deal: Sens saved from dealing with Yashin
By Rob Parent
Special to ESPN.com
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SUNRISE, Fla. -- It was to be a weekend of hype and glory for the NHL's
power broker teams. A draft dotted with the shifting of centerpieces. A time
for Jaromir Jagr, Eric Lindros, Alexei Yashin, Dominik Hasek and Mike Peca
to finally be assigned new homes in affluent neighborhoods like New York, Los
Angeles, Toronto or Detroit.
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Instead of another monied team taking the opportunity to bulk up with any one of those available big-name players, the biggest winners were two small-market clubs, one whose power usually translates better in the regular season, the other a team that hasn't played beyond the regular season since 1994. |
What developed instead on this weekend of reckoning at the NHL entry draft
was a reaffirmation that this is a league still far from coping with its
economic growth spurt. Instead of another monied team taking the
opportunity to bulk up with any one of those available big-name players, the
biggest winners were two small-market clubs, one whose power usually
translates better in the regular season, the other a team that hasn't played
beyond the regular season since 1994.
In one nimble-toed afternoon Saturday, the Ottawa Senators not only
cleansed themselves of what they deemed as an organizational pariah, they
made themselves a stronger team in the process.
The Senators, faced with the universally acknowledged task of ridding
themselves of restricted free agent and former year-long holdout Yashin, were
able to do just that and improve themselves at the same time.
They found that Islanders general manager Mike Milbury was delighted to
part only with defensive goliath Zdeno Chara and little used Bill Muckalt to
obtain an actual star for his team. But Milbury glossed over the fact that he
also had to give up the No. 2 overall pick.
Thus the Senators used it to bring in Jason Spezza, who at 18 has drawn
comparisons to all the game's great skaters. That kind of hype is normal at
these annual summer gatherings, even when there are draftees with the
atypical talent of Spezza. But now he'll be walking into a situation where
he's regarded as the replacement for the great Alexei, which begged the
question, could he handle such pressure at such a tender age?
"I'm trying to fill the void," Spezza said. "I'll go in there and ease my
way in and try and do as much as I can."
What he should do is prepare himself for hero worship. For in Ottawa, any
replacement for Yashin is likely to be a friend of the crowd's.
Even if his teams have usually found a way to melt down in the postseason,
Senators general manager Marshall Johnston should be targeted with a few
hometown cheers himself. Although Yashin is a player of immense offensive
gifts, his baggage is seen by most teams as impossible to carry.
In fact, Milbury was continuously asked that same question. The one about
this new superstar with a history of being tough to please who he has to sign
to a new contract?
"I'm looking forward to sitting down with him and his agent and getting a
new contract done as quickly as possible," said Milbury. "No, really I lied.
I'm not looking forward to it at all."
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Mother Teresa would have a bad reputation in Ottawa. The way they've gone through players and coaches and managers? You can't walk down the street there without sneezing and having something go wrong. ” |
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— Mike Milbury, N.Y. Islanders general manager |
But the questions of Yashin's "reputation" kept coming, until Milbury's
winning smile faded. So did his patience.
"Mother Teresa would have a bad reputation in Ottawa," said Milbury. "The
way they've gone through players and coaches and managers? You can't walk
down the street there without sneezing and having something go wrong."
Asked what he thought Milbury meant, Johnston paused, then concluded:
"Mike forgot to take his Valium pill. I can say that because he could never
catch me on the ice and I don't think he can catch me now."
The laughs only get louder. But when Milbury left the room on Saturday, he
set about getting serious.
For as the draft was winding down the next afternoon, Milbury consummated
a deal with Buffalo to bring in yet another unsigned Group II free agent, one
Michael Peca.
For him, the cost was Milbury's first-round selections (fifth and eighth
overall) in the 1999 draft, Tim Connolly and Taylor Pyatt. Peca will make
them a quickly forgotten memory on the Island, and if Milbury actually
achieves contract agreements with both Yashin and Peca this summer, the
Islanders' long period of postseason inactivity might also become a thing of
the past.
As for the Senators, Johnston made some serious strides in brightening
their on-ice futures, too. While dumping a player who has long wanted out,
Johnston still was able to add a long-missing physical presence to his
defensive corps with Chara and a gritty veteran to a third line in Muckalt.
As a bonus, he found a secure home for yet another potential superstar ...
but one that seems thrilled to be in Ottawa.
"It's pretty special for my family," said Spezza. "It's close to home and
I'm really excited."
Then there are all those older excitees.
In their own quests for changes of venue, the surviving collection of
multimillionaires up for auction remained in a vast limbo. In addition to the
escapes of Yashin and Peca, the only other exodus of All-Star note was Valeri Bure's release from Calgary to join his brother Pavel in South Florida.
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It might not do as much for the Panthers' win-loss record as Bill Torrey
would promise, but just imagine what it'll do from a marketing standpoint:
Torrey Productions, in cooperation with the Bernie Kosar Quarterbacks Club,
bring you hockey, South Florida Style. Starrrrrringggg the Bure Brothers! |
While it thrilled a surprisingly large and vocal audience inside the
National Car Rental Center when the trade (Bure and Jason Wiemer to the
Panthers for Rob Niedermayer and a second-round pick) was announced
Saturday, it also took away the defense-poor Panthers' best defensive forward.
It might not do as much for the Panthers' win-loss record as Bill Torrey
would promise, but just imagine what it'll do from a marketing standpoint:
Torrey Productions, in cooperation with the Bernie Kosar Quarterbacks Club,
bring you hockey, South Florida Style. Starrrrrringggg the Bure Brothers!
Thrills, chills, wizardry ... and a whole lot of missed coverages in the
neutral zone!
What was rumored prior to this trade was that the Panthers were going to
use Niedermayer as bait to bring in Peca. He would have instilled a central
fiber Florida still lacks. But he wouldn't have sold many tickets.
That's never a problem on the Island. They never sold tickets there no
matter who played for them.
What now for those elitists in limbo? Let's take it on a case-by-case
basis:
Jagr is the biggest name no one was talking about, primarily because
Pittsburgh general manager Craig Patrick, who never has much to say, isn't
seriously talking trade yet.
That's because the logical destination for Jagr's act is King Glen
Sather's Broadway Bucks Revue. And the Rangers president and master showman
hasn't committed on whether to put his financial focus on Jagr, or keep
flirting with Lindros.
Lindros might like Sather's occasional calls, but he isn't taking them
seriously. He still wants to play in Toronto even though both Flyers
president Bob Clarke and Maple Leafs boss Pat Quinn have said that won't
happen. Eric said Detroit is his second choice, and although Clarke has
talked with Red Wings GM Ken Holland, they weren't very serious, either.
"It's highly unlikely he's going to be a Red Wing," Holland said of
Lindros. "I don't know if we're interested."
Who is? Certainly New York, and now Dallas. Of course, Eric doesn't have
any interest in playing in a dust bowl. And the big city doesn't much appeal
to him, either. For the Flyers, who might have filled Lindros' hole at center
by acquiring longtime unsigned Czech wonderboy Jiri Dopita from the Panthers
yesterday, that's too bad.
Sather is prepared to give them Petr Nedved and Pavel Brendl in exchange
for Lindros. Nedved might be a walking advertisement for Advil, but he's not
in the migraine class that Lindros and Clarke hand out to each other.
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At some point, Eric (Lindros) has to realize that if he wants to play hockey he's going to be traded to where we can make the best deal. "Nobody else in the NHL tells you where they're going to play. Why should he be different? He isn't the greatest player in the world. ” |
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— Bob Clarke, Flyers general manager |
"At some point, Eric has to realize that if he wants to play hockey
he's going to be traded to where we can make the best deal," said Clarke.
"Nobody else in the NHL tells you where they're going to play. Why should he
be different? He isn't the greatest player in the world. He's a top player, but
he still has to play hockey to do it and he has to be on the ice and do it."
The best bet for Clarke would be an agreeable nod thrown by Lindros to
Dallas. There, GM Bob Gainey was planning to talk to Lindros personally, but
hadn't as of yesterday.
Clarke has his fingers crossed that Gainey gets somewhere, because the
talk is that Dallas might be willing to send top-notch offensive defenseman
Darryl Sydor and talented young forward Brenden Morrow to the Flyers in a
conditional deal. That seems like idle and wild speculation, but the sky's
the limit in that chaotic negotiation.
Then there's Hasek, who seemed poised to wind up in St. Louis after the
Blues stirred the crowd Saturday by trading goalie Roman Turek to Calgary for
a bunch of guys no one in Florida ever heard of.
Surely, at any moment Hasek's own escape from the small-market clutches of
Buffalo would be complete. This has been an ongoing effort by Hasek,
highlighted by this two-word retirement announcement, something he's very
experienced in:
Asked at the NHL awards dinner if he thought the Sabres could win the Cup,
Hasek said, "No comment."
See 'ya.
And yet, no deal was done. Why? Because the Blues are waiting around to
see if they can woo Patrick Roy out of Colorado first. While it seems they're
a team without a goalie (that Brent Johnson guy doesn't count, does he?),
they also have enough patience to pick a goalie of their choosing. After all,
be it Roy or Hasek, it's going to cost about $10 million. Might as well make
a smart buy.
"It's the economy of our game now," said Quinn. "But you know, with so
many of these top players out there with free agency, they may find the
number of teams that can afford them is limited."
So they sit. Hasek on Buffalo's on-the-outs shelf, Jagr poised to
parachute pad in Pittsburgh ... and Lindros in Toronto still knocking on the
door of the Air Canada Centre asking to come in and play.
It might be debatable who came out of this weekend as a winner or a loser:
Is Ottawa really better off without Yashin? Are two Bures two too many for
Florida? Should Atlanta general manager Don Waddell have traded his top pick
instead of doing the seemingly right thing and using it on promising Russian
teen Ilja Kovalchuk? Can the Islanders actually make the playoffs?
The debates reign. But what is clearly a no-brainer is that in the
continued explorations of Lindros and Clarke, no one is winning.
Rob Parent covers the NHL for the Delaware County (Pa.) Times. He is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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