and the winner of the Sidney Crosby sweepstakes is....

["Richard"]

Just found this while surfing...
The interesting thing that could happen for the Caps revolves around Jaromir Jagr's contract. The Caps are reportedly still on the hook for half of Jagr's contract after trading him to the Rangers. That money will likely count toward their cap number, something they no-doubt don't want to have to worry about.
Can the Caps buy out their portion of his contract? Does it depend on what the Rangers do? Stay tuned to this one.

-fox sports

I remember when Jagr got traded to NYR everyone was "how can they justify paying this guy 11m a year... well washington was paying 1/2 his salary for the rest of the contract... meaning after the roll back, NYR are only paying him 4.2M. What do you think? Should the caps be allowed to buy out there half? So if only 4.2m of the 8.4m counts towards the rangers cap they are in pretty good shape after a few buyouts of some other players. If the rangers are stupid enough to buy him out when they only pay him 4.2m and it only counts at 4.2 against their cap then obviously WASH would jump at buying out there half as well... since they are paying him anyway. To me, this seems to be the wierdest situation that has come up so far with the cap

[broken27]

There are a lot of situations like that. Often a guy like Jagr can't be traded otherwise. Hell, Mike Keenan is collecting paycheques from St. Louis, Florida, and at least two other teams I can't recall at the moment.

How will Jagr's contract affect the cap? Well, the way I see it is:

Jagr plays for NY Rangers, thusly is their $11-million headache ($7.8 as per league new maximum 20% rule). Washington might have to PAY Jagr some cash, but as he is not under contract to the Capitals, he does not have any impact on their cap situation.

Dan

[powerlefty]

There are a lot of situations like that. Often a guy like Jagr can't be traded otherwise. Hell, Mike Keenan is collecting paycheques from St. Louis, Florida, and at least two other teams I can't recall at the moment.

How will Jagr's contract affect the cap? Well, the way I see it is:

Jagr plays for NY Rangers, thusly is their $11-million headache ($7.8 as per league new maximum 20% rule). Washington might have to PAY Jagr some cash, but as he is not under contract to the Capitals, he does not have any impact on their cap situation.

Dan

Dan,

I thought I read somewhere that Jagr's contract was grandfathered and the $7.8M does not apply to his current contract since 76% of $11M was ~$8.4M. Are you aware of this?

[mberube]

You guys are forgetting something. If and only If the rule change (or enforcing the rules like hooking and interference) is enforced by the refereeing the game should help Mario play longer. He has been waiting for this for a long time. Hell, he could be playing for another 5 years.

I don’t see anything negative with Mario along side Crosby for that long. Personally, I think Crosby and Jagr are apples and oranges. Crosby’s native language is English not Jagr. The Americans will adapt very easily to Crosby.

I’m not sure this kid will be a super star but he has been one everywhere and at every level he has played. To me that is a no trade deal for Pitts especially playing on the first line with Mario and Mark. If this kid shows up with his talent this season, I bet That Mario will be there all the way and not for a game here and there. At least I hope.

This is a win win situation for Pitts. The kid is exited to play for Mario and Mario is exited to play with the kid.

Mario got a call on his cell at 4:01pm on Friday from Brisson (Crosby’s agent.) and then talked to Crosby personally.

[broken27]

Even if they open the game, Lemieux is WELL beyond being a serviceable player, and is only embarassing himself by playing 5-10 games per season.

His injuries are never the result of violent play... In fact, it seems to me that his injuries are just excuses for not playing while he rests up for the Olympics (or whatever tourney is being played at the time).

As for comparing Jagr and Crosby? You're right... They're nothing alike. One has 6 scoring titles at the NHL level and one hasn't even played a pro game yet. Funny how the one that hasn't played yet gets more accolades than the one who dominated the 90s.

Dan

[mberube]

You misunderstood me. I was not comparing the talent or the level of play between Jagr and Crosby. I was just saying that Jagr is European and was not very fluent in English at the beginning. In my opinion this could be the cause why Jagr was not close to the fans like Mario.

As for your opinion on Mario, well that’s your opinion. My opinion is that Mario is not was he used to be but still a very good player. I rather have hi on my team then against me. You don’t score that amount of goals if you are not good.

As injuries caused by hooking and interference, I never talked about him getting injured in relation to the rules not being applied. All I am saying is that no hooking and interference gives him more ice to play with the puck.

Mike

[broken27]

Mike, you inferred that Lemieux's career could go another 5 years if they open up the game. That is why I correlated hooking/hitting/slashing to his injuries. Fact of the matter is, he is just broken down... The guy has been through plenty with the Hodgkin's and back problems, so I think he should have retired two seasons ago... At this point, it's clear he'll play at least one more, and even his biggest fans should hope he calls it quits after that... Last thing you want is him to retire like Mike Tyson...

Jagr being European should have had little to do with it, and had little to do with my very first point about Jagr leaving Pittsburgh. The fans LOVED JJ when Mario wasn't there. He was a HUGE star, and was at the peak of his game, winning scoring titles and Hart Trophys. I'm talking about when Lemieux came back, and people just totally shunned Jagr from that point forward.

I might be the only person who believes this, but I think hockey needs MORE hot-dogging... More "Jagr Salutes" and goals like Crosby scored in that 7-0 romp this season (Don Cherry gave him crap for that one)... It's the only way to make the game grow in the States, where they love their WWF crap... I'm not saying make it into a laughing stock spectacle like wrestling, but a little more pizzazz from Kovalchuk and the other premier scorers (who ALL have egos, regardless of how they display them) would not hurt things... Leave the good sportsmanship to golf.

Dan

[broken27]

Dan,

I thought I read somewhere that Jagr's contract was grandfathered and the $7.8M does not apply to his current contract since 76% of $11M was ~$8.4M. Are you aware of this?

You're correct. My bad. Forgot about that. Actually, I wonder what the stipulations for grandfathering were... Is it only NEW contracts that cap out at $7.8M?

Dan