Money Matters

Ingmar Bergman Shoots...And Scores has a good analysis of the overall salary commitments of all 30 teams including divisional averages and players still unsigned.

Some interesting things to note related to the Leafs:

• All five teams in the Northeast will spend over $40M this year giving the division the highest average spending in the league.
• The sens currently are only $29K behind the Leafs so they can stop crying poor and be glad that all of their whining about the 'Old' NHL paid off. The irony of course is that the salary cap made them lose a young player (Havlat) that they developed just as they would have under the old system. As Oscar Wilde said, "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."
• Last year's surprise package, Buffalo, not only is developing some of the world's worst jerseys (and most heated backlashes) but they are also losing some vital pieces of their team. Jay McKee split for St. Louis, J.P. Dumont is now a free-agent after the team rejected his $2.9M arbitration award, and their cap figure stands at just over $41M with Ryan Miller, Dmitri Kalinin, Adam Mair, and Jeff Jillson all unsigned. Good news for the Leafs.
 
• Bad news for the Leafs: Harry Sinden is calling it quits. This will invariably improve the team as this Beantown fixture will not be around to pennypinch his stars (while inexplicably opening the purse strings for guys like Martin Lapointe) and hamstring the Bruins. At least the improvement will not come this year.
• Somehow Stajan is still unsigned. That will eat up most of the cap space that we have left. JFJ needs to get this done.

We are now less than a month away from opening night with the sens and I could not be more excited. Thank God the Premiership is starting up and that can keep me occupied until October fourth.