This is exhausting. The wait for the Weber decision is absolutely killing every Flyers fan in the Greater Philadelphia area. I find it especially painstaking because I believe the Pred’s decision has already been made. Darren Dreger from TSN has also said he believes the decision has been made. The longer it goes the better it is for the Flyers because the way I see it the Predators would of matched it right away if they could of. There is always the other side of that coin though and they may know they can match it, but they are deciding if it is in the best interests of the organization to do so. Hang on everybody we may be rolling right up until the Wednesday deadline.
On the CBA front the owners have just been ridiculous so far. It is truly amazing how much greed controls the world. You give already rich people just a small taste of success and they want the whole pie. The NHL is clicking on all fronts right now. The Winter Classic is a huge success. The competition within the league is very high. Every postseason the US tv ratings have gone up since the lockout. So now owners all of sudden want drastic changes to the way the revenue of each team is doled out. The first part of the issue is they want to reduce player compensation by 24%. Not a reasonable amount to drop to in just one season. You can’t expect this t0 happen and I don’t know what owners are for this, but I sure as hell know it’s not Snider. The reason is I know this is because he has a $110 million question mark floating around the Predators owners box. Eddie doesn’t have a problem paying players. Some owners do though apparently. The salary cap, because of this reduction in players compensation would drop to $50.8 million. It was right around $70 million last season. Again I say to the owners good luck. The Players Association has shown in the past they are not afraid to take their pucks and go home so the if the owners want the sport to continuing gaining popularity and in turn continue being a cash cow they better meet in the middle or there will be no hockey next season. Under the guidelines made by the owners for the CBA they players would be receiving the lowest compensation since 2002-03. And we all know what came a couple years after that.
Quick note on Carcillo’s comments about Lavy. He said he has zero respect for Laviolette and also stated that maybe if they had better goaltending they would of put up a fight in the 2010 Cup Finals. Shut up Carbomb. Lavy is one of the most respected coaches in the game. Especially amongst active coaches. Carcillo, plain and simple, is a punk. We all knew it while he was here. There is no reason to be burying a former coach just to get a rise out of a Blackhawk crowd. These comments came at a Blackhawks convention during a fan panel. It’s not unheard of for great coaches to be disliked by former players. It actually happens quite regularly because for some reason successful coaches tend not to be soft when it comes to telling players EXACTLY how it is. Carcillo received quite a few benchings from Lavy when they were both here. I’m sure that had something to do with it. As for his comments about Leights say what you want about his talent, but he had an amazing run during those playoffs. The goaltending on both sides was atrocious during that Cup Final so I can’t say Leights lost that Cup for us (no matter how weak that last goal was). That whole series was a shooting gallery. How about Carter pumps that puck home right in front of the net? When a team loses a series there is always multiple reasons why. It’s just too complicated for Carbomb to understand. He was also quoted at the convention saying “Thinking… is not that good in hockey, or thinking in general for me.” Yeah we got that Dan.
-John LaMarra
Twitter – @popesnipes77
E-Mail – lamarrajunior@yahoo.com