The 2009-10 hockey season will be a tough act to follow.

Not every NHL season can include a two-week break for a spectaclar and dramatic international tournament, or a team winning the Stanley Cup for the first time in 49 years.

But there's plenty of days to circle on your calendar between now and next June, when the 2011 champions raise the Cup.

From the first day of training camp, to the Ovechkin-versus-Crosby Winter Classic, to the start of next summer's free agent market, here's a look at the key dates on the 2010-11 hockey calendar.

Photo: Rick Nash and the Blue Jackets play Dan Boyle and the Sharks in Stockholm to open the new NHL season. (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images).

Plan Your New Hockey Season originally appeared on About.com Hockey on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 09:53:33.

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After watching several teams stuff millions of dollars through a gaping loophole in the salary cap, the NHL has had enough.

So Ilya Kovalchuk and the New Jersey Devils have been singled out for punishment: the NHL has refused to approve the deal.

As noted on Tuesday, Kovalchuk's 17-year, $102 million appeared to conform to the letter of the salary-cap law, if not the spirit.

After all, the league had previously allowed other lengthy contracts, which saw players like Roberto Luongo and Marian Hossa signed up to keep playing past the age of 40.

So why pick on Kovalchuk and the Devils?

Darren Dreger at TSN.ca provides the relevant excerpt from the NHL collective bargaining agreement.

It forbids any deal that "is intended to or has the effect of defeating or Circumventing the provisions of this Agreement or the intention of the parties as reflected by the provisions of this Agreement..." (italics mine).

Without a technical violation to point to, the league presumably bases its objection on the intention of the CBA and the salary cap.

A few past contracts might have looked dodgy, but this was the one that provoked the NHL to "draw a line in the sand," as Eric Duhatschek puts it at GlobeSports.com.

But intent is a nebulous concept. And who can say with absolute certainty that Kovalchuk won't play for another 17 years?

It's been reported that the NHL Players' Association could file a grievance to uphold the contract.

It's more likely that Kovalchuk's numbers will be rejigged to the NHL's liking, while every other team silently thanks the Devils for identifying how much they can get away with when they start shoving cash through the loophole.

See also:
Previous Story: The Kovalchuk Contract and the Salary Cap Loophole.
The NHL Salary Cap Explained
2010 NHL Free Agents and Signings

Photo: Kovalchuk at Tuesday's ill-fated contract celebration in Newark (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images).

How Kovalchuk and the Devils Ran Afoul of the NHL originally appeared on About.com Hockey on Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 at 09:42:55.

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A reader writes:

The Devils have officially lost it. 17 years for Kovalchuk? They're paying him until he's 44 years old. How many goals will he be scoring then? Most. Insane. Contract. Ever.
- Lonnie, St. Paul, Minnesota

That opinion of Ilya Kovalchuk's monster contract with the New Jersey Devils is echoed in countless messages and comments posted since the news broke on Monday.

As Lonnie points out, Kovalchuk will be into middle age when the 17-year deal finally expires. His days as hockey's most productive scorer will be long over.

But assuming he keeps scoring for another 8-to-10 years - he's the only player to top 40 goals in each of the last six seasons - the deal works brilliantly for both parties.

It's all thanks to the machinations of the NHL salary cap:

• Calculating Ilya's Cap Hit. The contract pays $102 million over 17 years. A quick division (102 by 17) reveals a total of $6 million per season against the Devils' salary cap. That's how cap numbers are figured: it's the average annual value of a contract.
• How Ilya Gets his Money. Check the breakdown of the numbers and you'll see that most of the cash is paid out in the first half of the contract. By the time Kovalchuk turns 35, his pay begins a steady and swift decline. Remember, this has no bearing on his salary cap number.
• An Escape Clause for the Devils. If Ilya retires, the contract and the cap hit disappear. Poof. If the team wants to buy out his contract because he's old and useless, the buyout will be very cheap in salary cap terms, because the late years of the contract are at rock-bottom salary.
• An Escape Clause for Ilya. On paper, he owes the Devils six seasons at less than $1 million per if he plays into his late thirties and early forties. But having already collected the bulk of his $102 million, he could choose to retire to his Mediterranean villa or Aspen ski chalet and skip the bargain years.
• So Everyone Wins. Ilya gets the fat paycheck he wanted, averaging $10 million per year for the next eight years. But when you add the late, low-paying years into the overall value, he counts just $6 million per year against the Devils' salary cap.

It's a loophole, and not a small one.

By adding very cheap years to the end of a contract - with the unspoken understanding that the player could be gone by then - a team can minimize its cap hit while the superstar maximizes his pay.

Canucks' goalie Roberto Luongo and Blackhawks' scorer Marian Hossa have signed similar deals.

You can't blame a well-heeled team for taking advantage of every possible loophole.

But this nudge-nudge-wink-wink numbers game has the look and feel of a dirty trick, wouldn't you say?

Dirk Hoag at On the Forecheck has a good assessment of the not-so-healthy implications of what he calls "sham contracts."

See also:
The NHL Salary Cap Explained
2010 NHL Free Agents and Signings

(Photo: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Ilya Kovalchuk and the NHL's Salary Cap Loophole originally appeared on About.com Hockey on Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 at 10:13:05.

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It's hockey's version of the hostile takeover, and a tool neglected by most NHL teams.

Using an "offer sheet" to poach a player from an opponent is considered dirty pool by some of the league's power brokers.

But there's nothing dirty about it. Luring restricted free agents with offer sheets is a tactic spelled out in the rules of engagement: the NHL collective agreement.

And if the tactic upsets a few people, so what? NHL teams aren't in the business of making opponents happy.

The San Jose Sharks gave it a try last week, with an attempt to grab defenceman Niklas Hjalmarsson from Chicago.

As a restricted free agent, Hjalmarsson shopped his services around, and on Friday he signed a four-year, $14 million offer sheet with San Jose.

The Shark attack wasn't just an attempt to bolster the blue line.

It was also designed to turn the screws on the Blackhawks' precarious salary-cap situation.

By the terms of the CBA, Chicago had seven days to match the offer, or wave goodbye to the player and take a couple of draft picks in return.

The 'Hawks avoided the deadline drama by announcing Monday that they will keep Hjalmarsson and squeeze his $14 million price tag into their payroll.

You can imagine how thrilled Chicago management must be to have a Western Conference rival negotiating contracts for them.

Whether the incident leads to bad blood between the two teams remains to be seen.

After all, it was Edmonton's offer sheet to Dustin Penner back in 2007 that set off one of the NHL's most colorful feuds in recent memory.

In a league where competing general managers usually act like chummy, back-slapping, tee-time-sharing members of the same country club, a little more bad blood would go a long way towards livening up the dog days of summer.

Restricted Free Agents and Offer Sheets Explained

(Photo: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

The NHL Needs More Offer Sheets originally appeared on About.com Hockey on Monday, July 12th, 2010 at 20:44:02.

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It's a tough way to get a raise.

You and the boss don't see eye-to-eye, so you hand the decision to a complete stranger.

After laying out all the reasons you deserve a healthy salary bump, you listen while the boss rhymes off all the reason why you don't.

Turns out the boss has never been very impressed with your work. He just never mentioned it until now.

In the end, you take whatever raise the stranger gives you and resume life as a devoted, hard-working employee of the corp.

That, in a nutshell, is how NHL salary arbitration works.

Cases are heard behind closed doors. But it's easy to imagine what an unpleasant experience it must be.

Last week, 31 NHL players decided they aren't happy with the money they've been offered, and elected arbitration.

You can see the complete list at NHL.com.

In the worst case scenario, salary arbitration can fracture the relationship between player and team, as happened last year with Nikolai Zherdev and the New York Rangers.

So it's no surprise that one player on this year's list, Jeff Schultz of the Washington Capitals, has already avoided arbitration by signing a new deal.

If history is any guide, most of the others will find a compromise and sign a contract before the arbitrator steps in, and avoid the sez-you-sez-me showdown with the boss.

How NHL Salary Arbitration Works: What evidence is and isn't admissible in the team-versus-player stand-off.

Photo: Philadelphia hothead Dan Carcillo is among the players who filed for arbitration this summer (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images).

The Sez-Me-Sez-You of NHL Salary Arbitration originally appeared on About.com Hockey on Thursday, July 8th, 2010 at 09:37:34.

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July is traditionally the fattest month for NHL free agents.

The shower of cash from teams driven to madness by off-season optimism and desperation is a wonder to behold.

But a new trend is emerging. This summer, many players are settling for less.

As of Sunday, 44 unrestricted free agents had signed new contracts (give or take a fringe player or two).

Using salary numbers compiled from various media sources, here's how the market is looks:

• 20 Forwards Signed
  - Based on average annual salary, nine get a raise over last season, eight take a pay cut, and one guy signs for the same money (two salaries not available).
  - Only Matthew Lombardi and Manny Malhotra increase their annual pay by $1 million or more.
  - Taking the most dramatic haircut is Olli Jokinen, who made $5.5 million last season. His new salary in Calgary is $3 million.

• 16 Defensemen Signed
  - Eight players increase salary over 2009-10, while five take a chop, and one guy holds the line (one not available).
  - Anton Volchenkov, Jordan Leopold, and Kurtis Foster all get raises of $1 million-plus.
  - Dan Hamhuis climbs from $2.5 million per year to $4.5 million in Vancouver. But the big winner is Zbynek Michalek, who gets a 166 percent pay increase to jump from Phoenix ($1.5 million) to Pittsburgh ($4 million).
  - The big loser so far is Pavel Kubina, with a new deal averaging $1.15 million less than he made a year ago.

• 8 Goaltenders Signed
  - Three get a raise, four get a rollback, and one salary is unchanged.
  - A solid year pays off for Antero Niittymaki, who averages $2 million per year in San Jose after playing for $600,000 in Tampa Bay.
  - Several guys with decent track records settle for less: Dan Ellis takes a $500,000 pay cut moving from Nashville to Tampa Bay, while Chris Mason gets the biggest chop: after making $3 million last season with the Blues, it will take him two years to collect $3.7 million in Atlanta.

Early days yet. But of the 40 free agent contracts we know about (as of Sunday), only half include a pay increase, and rare is the blockbuster deal we've come to expect at this time of year.

2010 NHL Free Agents and Signings
NHL Free Agents Explained

Photo: Moving from Nashville to Tampa Bay, Dan Ellis will see a a 25 percent drop in his paycheck (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images).

Summer of the Pay Cut originally appeared on About.com Hockey on Sunday, July 4th, 2010 at 21:14:34.

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Ilya Kovalchuk aside, there's a lack of star power among the 2010 NHL free agents.

Maybe that will limit the number of ridiculous contacts handed out this week by overanxious general managers.

Maybe this is the year a lot of useful players will get what they're worth and deliver on modest expectations.

Most of the rich teams are short on salary cap room, and by now a few teams surely understand that the modest, almost unnoticed moves in July tend to pay off better than the over-hyped vanity signings.

Blair Betts gives the Flyers more bang for their buck than Peter Forsberg did, and John Madden was a big piece of a Blackhawks team that could have won the Cup without Bryan Campbell or Cristobal Huet.

But there's a thin line between useful and expendable. Players marked by limited ability or diminishing returns are living on borrowed time in the NHL.

Why give serious money to a veteran goalie who's never won anything, a scoring winger who won't fight for the puck, or a plugger who plays nine minutes per game when you can pay a rookie small change (relatively speaking) to do almost as well?

Even if the kid doesn't pan out, at least folks accept that he's a kid. They aren't pointing and laughing because you signed a 30-year-old bum to a six-year deal.

Common sense falls by the wayside when the fur starts flying on July 1. So this year's free agent class will surely produce its share of disastrous, payroll-draining contracts.

But looking at the list of players available, you have to wonder how many have played their last NHL game.

• 2010 NHL Free Agents: Centers and Wingers
• 2010 NHL Free Agents: Defensemen and Goalies
• NHL Free Agents Explained
• Restricted Free Agents and Offer Sheets
• More on NHL Free Agents

Photo: Aging Stars for hire. Jere Lehtinen, Mike Modano, and Marty Turco are all without contracts for next season (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images).

A Modest Free Agent Year? originally appeared on About.com Hockey on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 at 12:59:08.

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Another NHL Entry Draft is in the books, having generated a tsunami of hype and little else.

Nowhere else on the hockey calendar is so much media attention squandered on so little.

So intense is the coverage, and so meager the pickings, that team execs sounded apologetic about their failure to provide anything worth writing about.

"It's very difficult to trade players at the draft unless you've already laid the groundwork," Columbus general manager Scott Howson told GlobeSports.com.

Desperate columnists tried to fill the void by declaring it the "sunbelt draft" and swooning over supposed surprise picks.

As of today, those kids go from being toy soldiers - pushed around in exercises like the now-ubiquitous online time-waster, the "mock draft" - to being flesh-and-blood hockey players.

Which means many, if not most, will never be heard from again.

There's likely no way to curtail the useless hype that surrounds the draft every year.

But the NHL would be doing everyone a favor if it tinkered with the format and found a way to speed up the proceedings.

Surely the venue could be arranged more efficiently.

It's hard to beat the excitement of watching men in suits make the long trek to the microphone to reveal their first-round pick, followed by the even longer trek of the spotty-face teenager so named, who has to find his way from the lower bowl to the stage.

But the spectacle wears a little thin after the first couple of hours.

Anyway, that's that for another year.

• 2010 NHL Entry Draft: The First-Round Picks.

Photo: Photographers capture the excitement of last week's pre-draft workout (Jeff Gross/Getty Images).

Sleepytime at the NHL Draft originally appeared on About.com Hockey on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 18:51:07.

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A busy week of postseason housekeeping in the hockey world. Summer refits began in earnest, with core players traded, rewarded or simply cut loose.

The NHL set next season's salary cap and released the schedule, the champs did some salary-cap pruning, the Stanley Cup claimed a place in Chicago's Gay Pride Parade, and the MVP debate was put to rest for another year.

Meanwhile, the Hall of Fame debate keeps raging, and will do so indefinitely.

On Tuesday, the Hockey Hall of Fame invited Dino Ciccarelli, darned good player of the 1980s and 1990s, to join the fold.

Predictable outrage and condemnation followed, with columnists stumping for Pavel Bure, Joe Nieuwendyk, and other rejected favorites.

But the year-by-year controversy misses the larger point.

Ciccarelli doesn't belong among hockey's so-called immortals, nor do those other guys.

Nor do 25-to-40 percent of the players already in the Hall of Fame.

With its bar set so low for so log, the Hall flunked its credibility test many years ago.

As has been argued on this site and elsewhere, it's much too late to do anything about it now.

We can only stop taking it seriously and greet its annual decisions and dreary induction ceremony with a shrug.

On the positive side, the Hall runs a really neat exhibit. Not to be missed if you visit Toronto.

Photo: Ciccarelli as a Florida Panther in 1998 (Elsa Hasch/Allsport/Getty Images).

It's Too Late to Save the Hockey Hall of Fame originally appeared on About.com Hockey on Thursday, June 24th, 2010 at 15:37:55.

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It's remembered as the "Crosby Draft" not the "Pouliot Draft."

But those who follow the fortunes of aspiring, pimply-faced hockey heroes will know that Benoit Pouliot was the fourth player selected at the 2005 NHL Entry Draft, after Sidney Crosby, Bobby Ryan, and Jack Johnson.

With that pick, the Minnesota Wild likely expected more than 18 points in 69 games scattered over four seasons, which is what they got from Benoit before dealing him to Montreal last November.

In retrospect, Minnesota should have grabbed Devin Setoguchi, Anze Kopitar, or T.J. Oshie instead.

Of course, the Wild were hardly the only team to make a mistake with their top pick five years ago.

The first round from 2005 includes plenty of names long since forgotten - Sasha Pokulok, anyone? - while future NHLers like Niklas Hjalmarsson and Paul Stastny fell to the second round and beyond.

But that's half the fun of the draft - watching in the years after to see who can defy the odds and complete the long climb to the top, and which can't-miss prospects will miss by a mile and leave the scouts scratching their heads.

With the 2010 NHL Entry Draft beginning Friday, here's a look at recent draft history, with its motley cast of hits and misses. You be the judge...

• 2004: The Capitals best draft ever?
• 2005: Kopitar falls to 11th overall.
• 2006: Bob Sanguinetti or Claude Giroux?
• 2007: Zach Hamill cracks the top ten.
• 2008: John Carlson looks pretty good at 27th overall.
• 2009: Jury's still out.

See also:
2010 NHL Entry Draft: First Round Order of Selection.
NHL Draft Day Basics: Rules, draft order, eligibility, and more.
How Many Draft Picks Make It? Evaluating the 1990s.
2010 Prospect Rankings from NHL.com.

Do You Know This Man? originally appeared on About.com Hockey on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 16:48:19.

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