7
The deals are coming so fast and furious now, it's hard to keep up with them all.
One interesting development today — an unexpected goaltending shuffle that saw eight teams and counting end up with new netminders.
The dominoes started to fall once the Washington Capitals lost their two top men, Olaf Kolzig because he decided he wanted to go elsewhere, and Cristobal Huet, because he wanted to test free agency.
So Kolzig went to Tampa as the back-up to Mike Smith and Huet signed a four-year deal averaging $5.6-million (all currency U.S.) with the Chicago Blackhawks where, if they can't move the final year of Nikolai Khabibulin's contract (for $6.75-million), they'll have more than $13-million of their payroll committed to goaltending.
Related Articles
Clearly, the Blackhawks did not believe they could go to the next level, without an upgrade in goal.
The Capitals then turned around and signed Jose Theodore as their new No. 1 man, for two years and $9-million in all. Not bad for someone who was close get getting bought out a year ago. Theodore clearly didn't think he owed Colorado anything for helping to get his career back on the rails.
Toronto gets Curtis Joseph back to play behind Vesa Toskala; Detroit picks up Pittsburgh's former back-up, Ty Conklin, to play behind Chris Osgood and ex-Leaf Andrew Raycroft lands in Colorado, to play behind Peter Budaj and possibly push him for the No. 1 job.
Alex Auld then signed a two-year deal with the Ottawa Senators to back up Martin Gerber.
Patrick Lalime also signed a two-year deal, with the Buffalo Sabres.
Not sure what's happening to the Avalanche, which in the last two days, lost Andrew Brunette to Minnesota, Kurt Sauer to Phoenix and Jeff Finger to Toronto, all as unrestricted free agents, in addition to Theodore. Right now, they're looking at a goaltending tandem of Budaj and Raycroft; a top-six defence corps of Adam Foote, John-Michael Liles, Ruslan Salei, Scott Hannan, Brett Clark and the often-injured Jordan Leopold; and no definitive word as to whether either Joe Sakic or Peter Forsberg will return next season.
Hard to think the addition of Darcy Tucker is going to make up for all those losses. It could be a long year for new coach Tony Granato.
