Deadline

Well, the NHL trade deadline is less than a week away. I've read an awful lot about the Sens and Bryan Murray. He's obviously going to ship several players. Kuba, Neil, Schubert, as there hasn't been much talk about re-signing them. The Sens currently have too many defensemen, so Bell is probably going to go too. The bigger deal would be if Spezza goes. 100-point scoring forwards don't exchange hands too often. I don't think he's necessarily a trade deadline move, but after this summer his no-trade clause kicks-in. If you want to move him, the window is closing. Otherwise you live with the $7-million x 5 years.

The tanking of the economy will be brutal on the Salary cap. As team revenue is tied directly to the Cap. So, as the revenues go down, so does the cap. Next year, those big money players will eat up an even bigger percentage of your team's money. Any new signings will have to be proportionally smaller. So, those long term, big money deals are probably a thing of the past.

The Sens are already committed to paying Alfredsson, Heatley, Fisher, and Phillips long term, big money, no trade deals. It wouldn't surprse me to see Spezza moved, purely on a competitive basis. If you keep him, the team will be locked into 6-8 guys with little money for anyone else, which means rookies, 2-3 year players or has-beens taking up the remainder of your roster.

We'll see...