Blueshirt Boggle

Trying Other Caps on For Size

The drama generated by each new round of CBA talks -- the false drama of sides posturing to make the best impasse case next fall -- is sure to resume later this week. In the meantime, there have been a few articles on salary caps in the NFL and NBA that may prove instructive for fans contemplating the potential impact of a cap on the NHL.

In the spotlight during Super Bowl week are the Patriots and Eagles, two teams that have defied generally accepted wisdom and have been able to win consistently under a cap that forces most other NFL teams to recast themselves every season.

In a very long article in the Star-Ledger, a couple of key passages stick out. "What quickly became clear," write Kimberly Jones and Steve Politi, "is that the old way of constructing teams -- drafting wisely and locking up players for their careers -- would not work. 'Now you can't do that,' [Giant GM Ernie] Accorsi said, 'because you're going to lose [them]. That's the problem.' With good draft picks, you become everyone else's farm system -- unless the talent evaluators recognize the keepers and the capologist knows how to creatively lock them up."

Bill Polian, president of the Indianapolis Colts, had a lot of choice words. "If you drafted well in the old system, you were assured of being on top for a reasonable period of time. If you draft well in this system, you will lose players on a regular basis. What happens is, you either keep some of your stars or more of your role players. You can never, ever, have a complete team. So it's just one Band-Aid job after another, year to year. That's what free agency breeds: movement and lack of continuity. Then when you add the salary cap to it, it forces you to make choices among key, quality players."

Under a salary cap, everyone agrees, these "capologists" become as critical as the talent evaluators that have traditionally been responsible for team building. "Because he knew those 262 pages contained the formula for winning in the NFL," says the article, "[Joe] Banner -- the salary cap expert for the Eagles -- has decoded it better than most. Banner, a 51-year-old former radio producer who admits he enjoys solving complicated math problems, said, 'You have to have the guts to bet on your belief in those players and sign them to long-term deals.'" In other words, forget about drafting wisely, just roll the dice on unknowns after you're forced to let your good players go.

But while the Eagles get the accolades for what they are accomplishing now, they will soon end up like Dallas and San Francisco, teams that locked up their stars when they had them and are suffocating under the cap since losing those players. That's because the one player that puts them over the top, Donovan McNabb, has a "12-year, $115 million contract [that] looks like a cap-killer, the richest contract in NFL history at the time. But Banner structured the deal with a signing bonus and incentives [to] take up only 10% of the cap room." So Banner is a genius today, but in a few years when McNabb is history but still taking up 10% of the Eagles' cap room...

Yeah, that's what the NHL needs. More of the same in a second article by the same two writers, plus a third reporter.

Stephen Smith uses the NBA cap as a touchstone for the NHL's woes in his column. Though he neglects to get into specifics to back up his lengthy whine, he nevertheless makes the salient point that Bettman has forgotten that he helped engineer the NBA's soft cap, and that NHL players would probably be happy with a cap that allowed some flexibility in it.

Contraction of a Different Kind

Larry Brooks looks at the issue of current contracts and whether the clock continues running on them during this missed season. "The NHL entered this lockout," Brooks writes, "with three specific agendas : a) hard cap system ; b) break the union; c) not play this year in order to erase previous commitments of at least $1.12 billion." It's hard to imagine any court in the two lands upholding that practice should it be challenged.

So let's see: PA offers 24% cut in all existing contracts, NHL intends to not honor an entire season of contracts they agreed to. Tell me again why the majority of Canadian fans side with the owners, calling players the greedy party and questioning their dedication to the game?

Actually, now that we think about it -- seems to us the owners can have their cake and eat it too if they come to an agreement to save this season. With a pro-rated season at about one third of its normal length, plus the 24% rollback, they can take a whole season off everyone's contract at minimal cost -- cost that will more than be made up by playoff revenue, of which the players get no more than a tiny share.

Steve MacIntyre had a Gordie Howe hat trick within the course of one period, notching a goal, an assist, and a fight in the second period to lead Hartford to a 6-1 bounce-back win. Brandon Dubinsky, best known as a playmaker, set up Portland's OT game winner with eleven second left in the extra session. This and other prospect news -- Nigel Dawes and Ryan Callahan registering multi-point games, for example -- in the next Ranger prospect update, Monday probably.

It has little to do with the Rangers other than the mention of some of the colleges Ranger prospects play for, but check out Shawn Roarke's column at FoxSports.com to get acquainted with the latest addition to Blueshirt Bulletin's roster of contributors. Most recently a writer for NHL.com, Shawn makes his BB debut in the next issue with a look at what Brian Mullen is up to, and has a few really interesting things in the pipeline for future issues.

Saturday Night Frights

We were ready to roast the players for turning down a $38-40 million soft cap up to a hard cap of $50 million, as was rumored going into yesterday's NHL-PA meeting. But that is not what the PA turned away from, once again citing philosophical differences. Tom Gulitti of the Record lays out the bullet points succinctly:

- A $42 million hard salary cap per team.

- Percentage of league revenue allotted for salaries limited between 53 and 55. If the percentage reaches 55 percent, the $42 million cap would be lowered.

- A individual salary limit of $6 million.

Regarding that last point, Bobby Holik told John Dellapina of the News, "I just want to know how they can change guaranteed contracts like mine and other people's. Legally, I mean, not whether it's right or wrong." (Dellapina will have a complete article on Holik in the next issue of Blueshirt Bulletin.)

The key point in the entire scenario is of course the second one. A $42 million hard cap might be a fair compromise. But not if it's not a true cap, not if it can be lowered in the event teams supercede the 55% league total. Even the 55% total would be easily palatable if it was 55% of true revenue. But it's not -- it's 55% of the NHL's made-up calculation they call "net revenue", perhaps unaware that net and revenue are oxymoronic (or maybe not even oxy).

There's no out here, not for us fans. As Gary Bettman told Stan Fischler and TSN.ca, "We won't compromise on the cap. If this is going to be an ideological question over the cap, then it is not going to be." In other words, "B'dee, b'dee -- that's all, folks!

Mark Everson of the Post considers a new wrinkle in the unlikely event the season is salvaged at this late date -- whether the players, would don't get paid for the playoffs, would agree to go through a complete playoff season after a brief pro-rated regular season.

His fellow Post writer, Larry Brooks, has some pointed comments for the big market owners who are now clamoring for the NHL to compromise. "Of all the people on either side of the aisle who have the right to be bitter," writes Brooks, "these are the last of them. They freely chose to cede control of their league to small-market yahoos. These guys who own the franchises that have made millions a year were willing to sell out their big-market fans so they could stuff millions more into their own pockets. In their own way, they are every bit the hockey bums that Karmanos in Carolina and Jacobs in Boston have been revealed as." True. But if they change their minds and force the issue, sanity might win out in the end.

Pat Lafontaine was in Westchester yesterday dedicating one of his good works, and Andrew Gross of the Journal News asked him about the NHL. In addition to extensive comments on the lockout, he also said "he believes widening the rink to 92 feet from 85 feet, regulating the size of all equipment, and eliminating clutching and grabbing tactics and the neutral-zone trap should all be considered" to improve the game on the ice once it gets back onto the ice. "I would love to see everything skill oriented — end-to-end hockey,'' LaFontaine said. Well, body checking is pretty cool too. We don't need to see everything skill-oriented, just a better balance between the physical aspects of the game and the skill side.

With so much reading on the local front (unusual for a Saturday, normally the slowest news day of the week), no need to link to outside sources. However, the introduction to Terry Jones's column in the Edmonton Sun is worth a peek for its reference to current and former Rangers: "How will we know when it's over? When Sportsnet sends Nick Kypreos home? When Mark Messier puts his equipment up for auction on eBay? When Theo Fleury and the Horse Lake Thunder are awarded the Stanley Cup?" The rest can be skipped -- or, if you need more to fill in all the extra time left over in the absence of hockey, you can link to a bunch of other articles from there.

Losses all the way around among the major Ranger prospects last night. Hartford lost in Philly, Charlotte lost to South Carolina, and prize prospect Al Montoya lost to Northern Michigan. Better results in juniors, where Brandon Dubinsky scored in a Winter Hawk win and Nigel Dawes got the game winning goal for Kootenay. Other prospect action at NYR.com.

Glenn Gawronski takes a look at NHL players in the AHL and doesn't like what he sees from Jamie Lundmark, who, he writes, "remains a mystery. Injuries have certainly had an effect on him [not sure what he means, as Lundmark has not been injured this season], but he really should be more productive at both ends of the ice." R.J. Umberger, on the other hand, who was discarded for a second round pick that was wasted in moving up in the first round to get Lauri Korpikoski when better players were available, "has shaken off the rust and shown his first round talent. He isn’t very aggressive and doesn’t always initiate contact. But he’s a talent with above average puck skills."

The Devil's in the Details ... Is the season dead, or is it not? Will more meetings be scheduled, or was yesterday it? Did the league offer a hard cap or a soft cap yesterday? So far, all we have are rumors and speculation. So far, all we are left with is to twist in the wind.

If it's true that the PA turned down a hybrid proposal of a soft cap escalating to a hard cap at the relatively generous level of $50 million, then they are now the bad guys. That should be a system that is more than workable for both sides, giving both sides room to maneuvre, barring only the wild spending we Ranger fans know all too well. But the devil is in the details. If there was no soft cap gap, or if the hard cap threshold was too low ($42 million), or if linkage to arbitrarily calculated and sometimes suspect revenues remains too restrictive, then the players were right to walk away.

News reports place those details all over the place. The Post reports, "The league's offer is believed to force teams to spend a minimum, some $25-$30 million , then taxes payrolls [over] another level, perhaps $35-40 million, and places a hard cap between $40-50 million." By contrast, the Toronto Sun says, "Speculation was the NHL tabled a salary cap of $42 million per team, with a minimum spending amount in the range of $30-$32 million, linked to revenues at 54%, no luxury tax involved."

The Post report seems based on pre-meeting speculation, while the Sun report contains a package we haven't seen before. The Times seems to back up the latter in telling us that "the league dismissed a report that the league would present a new proposal with a soft salary cap, a luxury tax, a hard salary cap and a maximum salary of $6 million." The Record concurs: "One report said it included a team-by-team salary cap with no luxury tax."

We believe the NHL must have proposed another hard-cap system with no luxury tax. Larry Brooks has steadfastly maintained that in order to have any chance of declaring impasse and using replacements, the NHL cannot deviate from a hard cap proposal and can never utter the words "luxury tax". Plus, Spector has a credible report from what he calls a "very reliable source" that "lots of players called in Linden and asked for one thing: a soft cap around $40 M with a luxury tax on the back end. [They] said this would be good with them -- be damned what Goodenow says. At that time, Linden allegedly called Bettman and said that he wanted to talk a deal." It doesn't stand to reason that the PA would walk away from that kind of deal if that is what the NHL put forth.

Either way, as the News says, "the three-man NHLPA team shocked no one by refusing to accept the offer on the spot. [They] were expected to caucus with Bob Goodenow and the executive committee to decide whether to demand modifications or simply reject the entire notion." Stan Fischler says the same thing: "Optimists would [say this] is merely an adjournment to allow the NHLPA to digest the new offer, and return with a counter proposal as early as this weekend."

Former Ranger Matt Barnaby is not one of those optimists: "Somebody said we should get ready to go because we could have something in the next 10 days or so. I told him that's not what I'd heard. As far as I was concerned the season is d-e-a-d dead. Let's put it this way: It would be a shock to me if we played hockey this year."

The Ledger, via Devil reporter Rich Chere, takes a look at Lou Lamoriello's role in the negotiations. "Lou is a tremendous addition to the team because he's done great things over the years," Bobby Holik was quoted as saying. "He's better qualified than anybody. He's not known as a spender, yet he has had success."

Ken Dryden weighs in with his opinion, which seems to grow out of his own experience, when "in 1972 [he] took it personally when the Rangers messed up the pay scale by giving an inflated $175,000 deal to the less-talented Ed Giacomin. 'I knew I was better than Giacomin,' Dryden would say. 'And it bothered me.' So he sat out the whole season and returned to a sign a better deal than Giacomin's."

The Drudgery Report ... Compiling links every day on the lockout and on Ranger prospects is hard -- not hard as in laborious, but hard as in depressing. This situation is no fun. Locating the same sad stories over and over and commenting on them is no fun. But we've taken on that task in support of Blueshirt Bulletin, to bring together relevant stories in one place and shape them for you in an informative and hopefully enterntaining way (if that's at all possible).

We also think it important to shine a light on what we believe is happening and on what we believe must happen in order to not just get NHL hockey back on the ice where it belongs, but get it back on the ice in the manner that attracted us to this great sport in the first place. This kind of work is drudgery compared to watching, analyzing, and commenting on the game itself, but it has to be done.

Apathy is a role that has been taken on by the masses. Apathy and complacency have already eroded the impact we fans could have had on the Rangers over the past several years. But we stayed on message, and that message finally rang through the Garden loud and clear last spring. We will stay on message as long as this ruinous lockout continues -- that message is starting to take hold slowly but surely as well.

No news of progress from yesterday's meeting today -- only news of the meetings themselves. Former Ranger Tom Laidlaw, now a player agent, told USA Today that "no news is a good sign today. When they don't talk after a session, they are continuing to negotiate." Stan Fischler at MSGN.com similarly reports: "'The fact that everything is so hush-hush,' says one insider, 'is good news. This means that they are down to very serious negotiating.'"

That's the good news, the no news. The bad news is: "SportsNet has learned the NHL is preparing a proposal they intend to present to the NHLPA no later than tomorrow." The PA doesn't want a proposal, they want to negotiate. Observers have noted that the NHL must at some point formally propose the exact system they will want to impose next fall after declaring impasse. If this is that system, it's all over.

Joe Lapointe of the Times leads his story with what many are reporting, that Devil GM Lou Lamoriello was a surprise seventh attendee, invited by the NHL and welcomed by the PA. Sherry Ross at the News reports that "several sources have hinted the sides are inching toward an agreement, the basis a soft cap (at $38-40 million) and a dollar-for-dollar luxury tax up to a hard cap of $50 million."

Larry Brooks at the Post still wonders "whether the NHL is making a serious attempt to broker the deal or is simply engaged in another public relations maneuver." But he also reports "of a number of calls from moderate Board members in which they urged the commissioner to make the best deal possible to avoid the catastrophic results of an unplayed season."

Tom Gulitti of the Record adds that "the 24% percent salary rollback the players proposed would also be part of the plan, as would lowering free agency from 31 to 29 and an alteration of the entry-level salary cap system." Ross also added similar points: "a single [franchise] player exemption, salary arbitration, [and] individual player bonuses have also been discussed."

That's a lot of reading generated by the local papers. If you need more, you know where to go -- Slam! Sports, where every Canadian columnist and his uncle get a chance to opine. Some are optimistic, some pessimistic, some more entertaining than others -- but there's no denying the passion.

What happens if and when the games gets back on the ice? You've heard all the talk about a spalshy re-launch with shoot-outs and all. Here is what some hockey people -- Colin Campbell, Mike Murphy, and half a dozen coaches -- are talking about.

The Rangers announced the AHL all-star voting yesterday. The Hartford Courant has an article today on Hartford all-star starters Jason LaBarbera and Lawrence Nycholat. All of Team Canada was announced today, with no other Hartford players added. The Pack won their game in Norfolk, with Jeff Hamilton scoring twice in a shoot-out after Steve Valiquette battled his former team to a scoreless tie after regulation and OT. Ranger prospect report highlight Marcus Jonasen and Zdenek Bahensky.

Cone of Silence ... ... The NHL and the PA are meeting today at a secret location in the Toronto area, trying at the eleventh hour to save the season and save the league. No news yet from the meeting. In the meantime, some thoughts heading into it.

Larry Brooks thinks he smells a rat. "Something doesn't sound quite kosher, here. It almost seems like a set-up," he writes today. Still, he thinks Harley Hotchkiss can be a hero if he can find a way to sell a compromise solution -- "not to the union, which has signaled its willingness to compromise by offering givebacks, but to Gary Bettman and his cartel of hawks, who would only accept a hard cap." But, he warns, "there's more to it than Hotchkiss having the chance to be a hero. First, Hotchkiss must get permission to be a hero."

John Dellapina at the News reports that "among the countless rumors was one that had more moderate voices from both sides joining the three-on-three. As of last night, there was no confirmation of that." He also says that no new offers are expected from either side, but "that had to be considered a positive development. 'A proposal does not do anything for us,' Linden said. 'We have a better chance working in a room and working mutually together on this.'"

Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun has consistently been one of the most informative Canadian columnists during the lockout. His column today sums up many of the rumors and expectations for today's NHL-PA meeting. "That's probably good news that they're not going to bring a proposal," Garrioch quotes Bill Guerin as saying. "That will allow us to have good conversations to see if we can find a solution to this thing." Garrioch continues, "Sources say the league might challenge the union to hold a secret ballot on whether they would accept a hard salary cap. It's believed one of the concepts by the NHL would [be] a $45-million hard cap [with] a revenue-sharing component between $35 and $45 million. Mario Lemieux was in town, but both the NHL and NHLPA said he won't be joining today's meeting."

Jason LaBarbera and Lawrence Nycholat have been voted starters for Team Canada in the AHL All-Star Game. Jeff MacMillan is profiled by Bruce Berlet in the Hartford Courant. Roman Psurny's two assists lead a short edition of Ranger prospect notes -- Psurny and his coach are both the subjects of interviews in the upcoming issue of Blueshirt Bulletin. Weekly prospect update is also available today.

Another day, another player in trouble. Pulled over for an expired registration while driving the vehicle of former teammate Andreas Lilja, Peter Worrell tried to pass himself off as Lilja. Police didn't buy that he was a Swede and arrested him. See, that's why we need a salary cap, to keep these irresponsible players from thinking they can go through life impersonating Europeans.

Whose Ploy Is It Anyway?

Larry Brooks believes the latest round of talks is just another NHL ploy to create the appearance of negotiation -- posturing for impasse declaration, no more, no less. In addition, he says, "This is about an attempt to shape perception among the growing, but still in the minority, group of owners who are very unhappy at the likelihood of a stillborn 2004-05."

Scott Burnside at ESPN.com also wonders whether it is a ploy -- a PA ploy to galvanize the players' resolve and create panic among owners. Trevor Linden's dire message to players is known to have caused concern among some team executives, which is probably how this meeting came about so quickly. Was it a ploy, or a real reaction that has created some real fallout? Either way, Burnside writes, "A top power broker close to both sides of the issue said 'it's incumbent on the NHL to show some good faith in relation to the negotiating process,' as opposed to simply dictating terms."

Usual slew of stories at Slam! Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun pretty much sums it all up in three word bytes: "Is it a move to save face or to save the season?" he starts out. "Will the NHL's offer bridge the gap between the two sides and save the season?" he asks. "A source said the league might be forced to make another offer in order to declare an impasse in September."

Lance Hornby's Toronto Sun article quotes one-time Ranger goalie Glenn Healy extensively. "Healy has said in the past that 'the owners want players to eat haggis' in the form of a hard cap. 'Haggis can be tasty to some people, but this is beneath haggis,' Healy said. 'The owners could offer a cap of $32 million, with a luxury tax that could take it up to $46-48 million.'" [For a closer look at what haggis is, click on the image above]

Al Strachan argues hard for a soft cap too. We have always believed that a soft cap will save the day.

For local area reports on the upcoming meeting, see Joe Lapointe at the Times, John Dellapina at the News, and Tom Gulitti at the Record. Good recap of where we are now by Spector at FoxSports. Stan Fischler's current views at MSGN.com.

Robert Tychkowski on the other hand has some good comic relief. "BEER CAP: There needs to be a limit on what they can charge for watered-down draft that makes you feel like eels are having a jacuzzi party in your gut the next morning." More things like that. "CAROLINA CAP: Set a limit on teams from Carolina: None. Oops, seems we're one 'Cane over the cap. See ya later. Get out of the league. Nobody likes you, nobody wants you, your uniforms suck and you're boring."

The Pack are packed and ready to hit the road. The team bus heads out to Norfolk for the start of a seven-game road trip, and then works its way back up the Eastern seaboard. Jozef Balej stayed behind with a back injury, and Ryan Glenn heads to Pennsylvania to participate in the ECHL all-star game, which he made while still with the Rangers' farm team in Charlotte. Thomas Pock, after a brief stint in Charlotte to begin his recovery from injury, will rejoin the Pack in Norfolk. Ranger fans in the region who want to possibly check out the Pack attack, check out the itinerary here.

Snow Day

With Hartford's game postponed due to snow, with no new Ranger prospect report at the Rangers' web site, with most of American sports consumed with the start of the Super Bowl countdown -- and without even a single commentator weighing in at Slam! Sports -- there is almost nothing to report on today.

Except that both the AP and CP are saying today that the NHL invited the PA to a new set of talks this week, and the PA accepted. The meeting will be held at a secret location, and once again take place without both Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow. One can only speculate that Trevor Linden's dire message to the players that all negotiations were at an end, coupled with reports that some team executives wanted to call a Board of Governors meeting this week to find out why Linden believed negotiations were at an end, led to Bettman taking the evasive maneuvre of asking to meet with the PA. Better to get slapped down by the opposition than by your own constituents.

It is believed that this time the NHL is set to propose a soft cap in the mid-30s that hardens in the mid- to upper-40s of millions of dollars. We believe a) with some players wondering why the PA wouldn't accept a hard cap if that was the best deal possible, and b) that a soft cap was the players' compromise goal all along, that such a proposal will form the basis for a new CBA sooner rather than later. Now the NHL has to come through, and not just present a new variation of a hard cap.

For the fifty subscribers affected by the USPS snafu -- replacement copies for those with current addresses went out last week and should have arrived at most destinations by now, while those with address changes, because of the higher processing time, all went into the mail today. Once again, our apologies for the delay.

Fleury Beats Rangers!

"It felt great, it was a long time coming," said Theo Fleury after scoring a goal and assisting on two others to lead his team to a 6-5 win over the Rangers. The Spirit River Rangers, that is. In his debut for the Horse Lake Thunder, after a long battle to gain eligibility to play in the North Peace senior league of Alberta, Fleury did well. No word on whether he broke any sticks or performed any chicken dances.

All the talk all weekend, from players and from pundits, was doom and gloom. The only ray of hope comes from the most impeccable source, Russ Conway of the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune. Conway reports that a Board of Governors meeting was called for next week because "some upper-echelon team executives were concerned that some players thought that there would be no reason to conduct more immediate meetings or negotiations." The NHL's denial of such a meeting may prove true if Gary Bettman is successful, as he has been in the past, in calling them off to avoid having to face the music in front of the owners. Conway followed up that Saturday report with an excellent piece on Sunday.

Back in New York, Larry Brooks has published many excerpts of Trevor Linden's audio message to the PA, which he claims to have heard in its entirety. "Asked how teams such as Toronto, Philadelphia and Colorado would get under the cap," Brooks reported Saturday, "he [Linden] was told some of those players 'would be shipped to Pittsburgh and Nashville in a dispersal system.'" Linden's message went on to say, "I see absolutely no basis for a deal at this time. The league is not interested in a compromise of any sort. This fight will continue deep into next season."

On Sunday, in a column that included several other items (including one players' anonymous comments on why Gary Bettman should be fired) Brooks reports, "Linden told Daly that if the league is going to make another hard cap proposal, 'Just send it by e-mail so we don't have to waste any more of our time traveling to see it.'"

Joe Lapointe of the Times, in his recap of Linden's dire message, points out that over 350 players are already in Europe and these developments will spur another 50 to sign soon. That's about two-thirds of the league. He also reports than an agent told him that "European teams are champing at the bit to negotiate with these players for next year." Over at Newsday, Alan Hahn argues that the season should be cancelled at this point even if there is agreement on a new CBA, to give everyone time to properly re-launch the league. Unfortunately, there will be no season, no new agreement, and no re-launch any time soon.

In a Globe and Mail article (available only for pay), Stephen Brunt looks at the NHL's legal picture. He says the next NHL proposal is going to be its full proposal. "It will be the last thing the owners put on the table," he writes. "They'll call it their best offer, because when the time comes to declare a labour impasse, that's the one that applies." He then goes on to consider the possibilities for impasse and the PA's possible responses, including the drastic step of decertification. In an interesting article that gathers the off the record thoughts of the players as a group, ESPN analyst Darren Pang goes back to a 2003 information package given to the media by the NHL and finds a lengthy definition of impasse, which he reprints.

Spector takes a sobering look at two issues in his latest FoxSports column -- how the players' rumoroed proposal of agreeing to a cap after three years if their plan failed could easily be undermined by free-spending owners, and how difficult it will be for teams to be put together quickly in the event of a season re-start because of the 200 free agents still out there and teams like the Rangers gutted to the point where they have no real team at this time.

The Wolf Pack appear to be the kind of team that can't be beaten at home but struggles on the road. They lost Friday night in Worcester, but came back to win at home Saturday night, even though barely 1500 fans made it to the game because of a snow-storm that gripped the area. Former Pack defenseman and Ranger prospect Mike Mottau scored against his former team Friday night. Jamie Lundmark appeared to continue his emergence from hibernation with three assists in the win Saturday night. Charlotte won its seventh straight Friday night, with the hot Lee Falardeau scoring again. But the streak ended Saturday night as Columbia built a 4-1 and checked every Checker comeback attempt in the third period.

Catch up on a plethora of other Ranger prospect action at NYR.com -- Friday night's round-up is here, Saturday night's here. If you're getting tired of our current prospects and want to start thinking about who our next top prospect will be, check out Kyle Woodlief's Red Line Report (his post-WJC entry) at USA Today, and hope that if the Rangers don't get a shot at Sidney Croby that they somehow land Gilbert Brule.

The Last Straw ... ... If it's true that Trevor Linden offered the NHL a hybrid CBA where the players' salary rollback was given three years to live up to PA projections and would be replaced by a salary cap if it wasn't working, and the NHL refused to even consider it, then that has got to be the last straw.

Gary Bettman challenged the union to guarantee its proposal, and now it appears that they have done exactly that. So why isn't good enough? Most observers thought the rollback itself was enough to form the basis of a negotiated settlement. Backed by a salary cap guarantee, it is the clear solution to the impasse. Failure by the NHL to jump at it is proof that it wants impasse. "By offering that kind of deal, the players are making it easier to understand the owners' motives in continuing this lockout," writes Chris Stephenson in an entertaining column at Slam! "The owners' goal is to break the union. Nothing short of complete capitulation is going to be acceptable"

That's apparently what Linden is telling players in the wake of a frustrating second day of negotiations. "The season is over," a PA source told our John Davidson, "unless the NHL changes its rigid stance." The CP story reporting this news continues: "The league, Davidson reports, is sticking to its stance of a hard salary cap for individual teams, very little revenue sharing among clubs and absolutely no luxury tax."

An article by The Hockey News sheds more light on what Linden believes happened at the meeting: "He was insulted when told players would have no more say in how the NHL is run than auto workers have say over how an auto company is run." Linden was also told by NHL counsel that "the league would use a dispersal system to shift players from high-payroll teams to low-payroll clubs to get all teams between the salary floor and ceiling range." Vincent Damphousse and Todd Marchant add their views, based on what they heard from Linden.

The owners have now been completely stripped bare. Their motives have now been cleared of PR camouflage. Meanwhile, another owner -- this one not yet even an owner -- is in legal trouble, prospective Vancouver partner Francesco Aquilini being accused of having acted in bad faith in shutting out other prospective partners from the deal he entered into to acquire equity in the franchise. This on top of recent revelations of debt management problems that have caused equity changes in Phoenix -- equity shift to an owner under SEC investigation for insider trading.

Fans who have supported ownership have to look in the mirror at this point. Would ownership have been this rash and emboldened without the overwhelming public support they enjoyed, especially in Canada, until recently? That support is eroding -- in an NHL Fan's Association E-mail sent a few days ago (January 18) that has not yet appeared on their web site, they report that "a majority of you (59%) still believe there should be a hard salary cap in the NHL (89% thought there should be a hard salary cap or strict luxury tax when asked a few months ago)." That's a huge drop in a short period of time, no doubt precipitated by the NHL's response to the PA's 24% rollback proposal. And that number will continue to go down as fans begin to realize at a much quicker rate now what is really driving this heinous lockout -- unabashed greed on the part of a select group of billionaires and near-billionaires.

John Dellapina at the News and Tom Gulitti at the Record provide local coverage of yesterday's "philosophical differences" meeting.

What the television hockey media are doing to make up for lost NHL games is the topic of a lengthy Times article. The lead-in finds John Davidson in Vancouver coaching one of the teams in the CHL's top prospects game, a junior all-star event (except for the absence of Sidney Crosby), instead of calling Ranger games. Davidson was also supposed to be the lead analyst at NBC in their first year doing NHL hockey.

The Rangers should have some decent inside information on some of the prospects available in the next draft, whenever that might be, from JD. The only players to qualify for the game are those eligible for the next draft. Vancouver hometown hero Gilbert Brule (pronounced Bru-lay), expected to be one of the top picks, made a big splash, in the absence of consensus top prospect Crosby, with a hat trick.

Most telling passage in the article: "replacement programming has rated higher than Coyotes games, but in Detroit, nothing has adequately replaced [the] Red Wings' scintillating ratings." So in a market the NHL never should have been in, that got its team from a Canadian market under suspicious circumstances that included possibly defrauding the Province of Manitoba, where the team was used primarily to leverage a massive real estate development deal that has so little to do with hockey that the arena is a million miles away from what fan base there is, with owners mired in debt or allegations of financial malfeasance, random sports programming does better than NHL hockey. Meanwhile, Hockeytown suffers. This is what Gary Bettman has wrought, and his ruinous lockout is designed for the sole purpose of propping up the Phoenixes of the world rather than letting them waste away as they should.

Another Times article takes a look at the city's fervor in pushing through the West Side Stadium under the guise of needing it to solidify its Olympic bid. Part of the reason for the push is fear that the opposition of Ranger ownership could stall the stadium if the bid is accepted, Ranger ownership of course opposed to the stadium because of the potential competition for arena events currently monopolized by Madison Square Garden.

Excellent look at career-ending injuries for AHL prospects by Bruce Berlet in the Hartford Courant, including former number one draftee Steve Cherneski, concussion-plagued enforcer Richard Scott, and Dan Blackburn. Charlotte won its sixth straight on a pair of goals by Mike Wirll, the second the overtime game winner. Light news on the prospect front today, most of it from Scandinavia.

Theo Fleury has been cleared to play in an Alberta senior league. After all the brouhaha, the NHL told Hockey Alberta that they don't consider Fleury a locked out player -- which means, I suppose, Fleury can take to the NHL ice all by his lonesome, if he really wants that kind of publicity, which we know he doesn't because he whined to the press about it long and hard. Well, at least Amnesty International can stand down now that his human rights are no longer being violated. I wish we could stand down too, but now that he will be playing, no doubt the media circus will follow his every step.

A fan ripped the leaders of the NHL and NHLPA in his obituary. Ottawa native Archie Bennitz would only watch hockey on TV. But in the months leading up to his death at age 84, Bennitz was angry at being uable to see NHL games. So he asked his son to add his final riposte to his post-mortem. That will likely be the NHL's obituary too, the way negotiations are going.