Rumors from around the league

Another year and once again apparently the Flames are looking to move Jarome Iginla because of budget issues. I'm not sure why Jarome ever even resigned in Calgary. Sure he's the captain and the fan's absolutely love him, but with his style of play he'd be a fan favorite in any city and probably a big part of the leadership inside the dressing room. Now I'm not going to say Jarome is greedy but would any other team have given him max money? Sure he's a great player but there are only two players in the league that deserve max money and neither of them get it. It is rumored that this time around Jarome has been asked to waive his no trade clause and he has said he would waive it for only a select few teams. Carolina, Colorado, Montreal, Vancouver, Anaheim and New York. The problem is that Mr.Kershaw wants to move him to Atlanta.

Other players rumored to be on the move are Doug Weight, Tim Connolly, and Milan Hejduk. Now if your going to acquire Doug Weight, you really better not give up a whole lot. Really the guy isn't even half the player he once was. If I was GM of a team I wouldn't give up more then a late round pick. The guy really isn't anything more then a 3rd liner at this point in his career. Connolly is another guy that is likely over priced as rumors have the asking prive at the equivalent of 3 first round picks. Now Tim is a very skilled player but, really??? Judging on talent, salary and asking price Milan may be the best bargain. I haven't heard the asking price yet, but from my experiences Kowalchuk is a fairly reasonable guy.

Free Agency: The good, the bad and the ugly part one

Even though this years free agent class was not what you would call strong, hell I'm not even sure you'd say it was weak. To be completely honest it was and is crap. However there was still a huge amount of excitement leading up the silly season. I mean how could you not be excited to find out where Teemu Selanne will sign before he retires? So lets take a look at what went down yesterday.

I will start with the good. HFSN was good, the ongoing tweets that Vin and Ken had throughout the day was real good. I especially liked the report about the Panthers not sending in the correct paper work on their bids.

The bad, well this one might go to the HFNHL itself. The Islanders signed two restricted free agents to offer sheets. The compensation for both being a second round pick. The Islanders have two second round picks so giving up the required compensation isn't a problem, but where this gets bad is... The league doesn't appear to have any rules regarding what club will receive what pick.

The ugly, this is an easy decision for me to make. 4 years at 4 million per for Michael Ryder? You have to be kidding me. I know he has the ability to score 30 goals, but this guy will disappear more then David Copperfield. Making it more likely that he struggles to score 20 goals and stay out of the dog house.

Look out for part two the free agency blog where I will examine the winners and losers of the silly season when it comes to a halt.