Saturday, July 2nd - NHL Free Agency opens.

As a salary-capped sport since the lockout in 2004-05, I find the NHL's off-season far more interesting than I used to.  More players move every year.  Deals get scrutinized.  Competitive balances can shift.  And every year, it seems, one or two lucky guys strike a crazy deal.  This year has started off no different.

Leading the charge is the Florida Panthers, an often irrelevant hockey team that this writer believes should be relocated back to a better fan base, either in the northern United States or in Canada.  But their GM shows no lack of enthusiasm, as he made some of the bigger splashes yesterday.  After making some trades to acquire young guys like Tomas Kopecky and Brian Campbell, they signed Sean Bergenheim to a one-year deal and stalwart defender Ed Jovanovski to a four-year deal.  With their top goaltender leaving, they also signed Jose Theodore, a former Hart and Vezina winner, to a two-year deal, giving him an opportunity to recapture his old form.  He also pulled Kris Versteeg from Toronto.  These are bold moves - a real flurry of activity.  There's no guarantee any of it will result in a better Panthers team, but it's clear that GM Dale Tallon isn't sitting on his laurels.

The Jaromir Jagr saga ended as the Penguins and Red Wings both left the table, balking at the high price his agent was apparently asking.  The Philadelphia Flyers, though, swooped in and scooped him up - at the price of $3.3M for one year.  That's a huge gamble on a 39 year-old who hasn't played in the NHL in 3 years.  Come next March or April, this will look either brilliant or foolhardy.  There's little middle ground.  Former Stanley Cup hero Maxime Talbot ended up being signed by the Flyers as well, leaving two former Penguins in Flyer orange next year.

Despite this being a weak free-agent year for the NHL, according to some, that's not stopping GMs from dishing out money where they need it.  With a small crop of defensemen available, those who are unsigned are pulling in staggering contracts.  Particularly astounding to me was Christian Ehrhoff signing with the Sabres for a 10-year, $40M contract.  This is a recent fad of the NHL, to lock guys up for long term, but that's more often been reserved for true franchise studs - guys like Henrik Zetterberg, Marian Hossa or Roberto Luongo and is typically meant to be a contract that those men end their careers with.  I'm not sure what Buffalo is thinking here - Ehrhoff is a solid defensemen, but I don't consider him to be proven in the way that justifies a contract like that.  The other surprise was James Wisniewski signing a 6-year, $33M contract with Columbus.    He'll make $7M next year, a number higher than what Nicklas Lidstrom re-signed with the Red Wings for.  Wisniewski is young, only 27, and this is his first true taste of having the limelight directly on him.  If he withers under it, this deal will look real bad real fast in Ohio.

The other signing I want to touch on is that of Ville Leino, also to Buffalo.  He signed a 6-year, $27M contract very similar to Wisniewski's.  I like Leino; liked him in Detroit and thought he was a positive presence in Philadelphia.  I think he's earned a shot to be a top winger for any team he plays on, but like Wisniewski, this is a contract he's meant to play up to, something to keep him reaching.  Is he worth this much right off the bat?  I think not - like Wisniewski, it's a contract levied against upside.  If Leino reaches that upside and grows as a player, he can be productive on a top line and justify the contract.  But, again, if he withers under the limelight, this deal will look bad fast.

I saw some folks in the Detroit unhappy with Jonathon Ericsson receiving a pretty significant deal from the club - 3 years at $9.75M.  The Red Wings aggressively re-signed the four men they knew they needed to - Lidstrom, Ericsson, Patrick Eaves and Drew Miller.  Lidstrom is a staple and, with Rafalski's retirement, a necessity this year.  Ericsson benefited as well - with Rafalski gone and the free agent market weak, he had to be re-signed and he ended up getting more money out of the circumstances than he might have otherwise.  Ericsson has a high upside; he's young and has room to improve, but has good players around him to continue to learn from.  His contract is a relatively minor cap hit, as opposed to the Wings pursuing a free agent like Wisniewski or Jovanovski.  Unless they make a surprise hit signing in the next couple days, it'll leave them with cap space during the season, as well, allowing them more room to make in-season changes as necessary.

A key thing to remember in free agency, as in any economic system, is that supply drives demand and demand drives price.  If supply is low, demand is high, price is high.  That's the case this year with defensemen in the NHL.  Top-3 blue-liners are few on the market and those who are, even those who are borderline 3/4 guys are reaping the benefits of that.  The same phenomenon is often seen in the NFL when a particular position is weak in free agency.

Around the MLB -


Philadelphia 7, Toronto 6 - In a back-and-forth game, a two-run RBI single wins it in the top of the ninth.
Chi. White Sox 6, Chi. Cubs 4 - The White Sox take the first in the crosstown rivalry with a monster 4-run seventh inning.
Washington 2, Pittsburgh 1 - The Nats capitalize on stellar pitching to win on a walk-off RBI single.
San Franscio 4, Detroit 3 - Great starting pitching is spoiled by both bullpens with a combined 5 runs scored in the ninth.
Cleveland 8, Cincinnati 2 - Cleveland gets 12 hits and scores 8 to take the first game of the Interleague Ohio rivalry.
NY Yankees 5, NY Mets 1 - The Yankees take the series opener with the Mets after scoring 3 in the first.
St. Louis 5, Tampa Bay 3 - Multiple ejections for Tampa aren't enough to spur them to the win after both teams score 3 in the seventh.
Atlanta 4, Baltimore 0 - Jair Jurrjens is dominant in this one-hit, complete-game shutout that saw him strikeout 8 for his 11th win on the year.
Boston 7, Houston 5 - A six-run rally in the seventh, beating up on Houston's bullpen, secures the win for the Red Sox.
Texas 15, Florida 5 - Nelson Cruz celebrated his 31st birthday with 6 RBIs to back up a solid start by Alexi Ogando.
Colorado 9, Kansas City 0 - Juan Nicasio allowed 3 hits over 8 scoreless innings, leading the Rockies to the shutout.
Minnesota 6, Milwaukee 2 - Francisco Liriano pitches a strong game to give the Twins a taste of revenge after being swept by them earlier this week.
Oakland 5, Arizona 4 - Rich Harden makes his first appearance in 2011, throwing six innings and allowing two runs.
LA Dodgers 5, LA Angels 0 - Hiroki Kuroda threw seven innings of scoreless ball to help the Dodgers take a shutout win.
Seattle 6, San Diego 0 - Jason Vargas threw his third shutout of the year, pulling the complete game and allowing six hits and seven strikeouts.

Monday, June 20th - Returning hockey veterans and changing baseball coaches.

Leading off with two bits of hockey news...

It amazes me the durability of some NHL players.  I think the sport can be the most brutal of all popular American sports, yet the NHL often boasts the oldest and most veteran players of sports - Mark Recchi just retired and he was 43, for example!  Anyway, two pieces of news regarding a couple of these ageless wonders:

First, probably to the surprise of no one, Nicklas Lidstrom plans to return for his 20th season with the Red Wings, at the ripe old age of 41.  This is actually more significant than last year; with the retirement of Brian Rafalski, had Lidstrom gone as well, the Wings would be facing a sudden crisis on the blue line.  As it stands, the Wings can replace Rafalski through free agency (Rafalski's retirement freed up 6M) and worry about Lidstrom's roster spot next year... if not longer.

Second, Jaromir Jagr wants to return to the NHL.  Jagr is 39 and has spent the last three years playing in the KHL, which is, for lack of a better explanation, the NHL of Russia.  I wouldn't call it the same as Triple-A baseball, but somewhere between that and the NHL.  Anyway, Jagr has been productive there and voiced his desire to come back, provided certain teams were interested.  Among them, rumor has it, are the Red Wings, Canadiens and Penguins.  I particularly like the idea of him returning to Pittsburgh or donning the Winged Wheel - both are great spots for the veteran; he could mix in nicely with Crosby or Malkin in Pittsburgh, or with Datsyuk or Zetterberg in Detroit.  In both cases, neither team would be relying on him for maximum production and it'd be a relatively low-pressure situation.  I have no doubt Jagr will be back in the NHL next year - the question will be where.  I predict he'll land in Detroit, for a one-year deal similar to Mike Modano's last season.

Interesting news out of Cleveland...

Everyone is expecting the Indians to sort of fade out of the AL Central picture in baseball, but I'm of a mind that they're going to be around all season.  Their recent decision to replace their hitting coach makes me think that this is a team that's willing to shake things up to stay competitive.  Some people smell disaster there - you're atop your division, why make moves?  But I see a team still improving itself to try and maintain control on a division that can really go anywhere between now and October.  The Tigers are playing good baseball and even the Twins, who looked as hapless as any team could a month ago (more on them later this week), look like they could end up being a surprise threat as summer rolls on.

Speaking of hapless...

The Florida Marlins are 1-18 in the month of June.  Their record is 32-40.  Before this amazing skid, they were 31-22 and looking like a threat in the NL East.  So much for that.  But to add insult to injury, in the midst of what is now an 10-game losing streak, their manager, Edwin Rodriguez, decided to jump ship.  I always wonder about the mentality of that - obviously, you're probably avoiding an inevitable firing (although the Marlins were .500 under Rodriguez, dating back to last season), but as we've seen numerous times this year, baseball fortunes can change rapidly and unpredictably from month to month.  Perhaps the problems are deeper than he wanted to deal with.  It's one thing to have a bad month of ball; it's another when your skipper bails on you.