Welcome to the working week.
There are 28 days remaining until the Sabres kickoff their exhibition game schedule on Wednesday September 15th in Montreal.
Center Cody Hodgson is still unsigned. His camp isn't speaking publicly about the negotiations. The Sabres have been conspicuously quiet as well.
The good thing is that camp isn't opening this week, or else we'd be talking about a potential locker room distraction.
The Sabres waited until September 15, 2013 to re-sign then RFA center Tyler Ennis. Hodgson and his agent know this and they are going about it business as usual. Hodgson is working out and getting himself in the proper physical and mental frame of mind for the coming season. He's going to have to be in the best shape of his career because now more than ever, Ron Rolston is going to demand more from the 23 year old center. He'll enter training camp as the #1 center. Whether or not he will maintain that role is entirely up to him. Mikhail Grigorenko and Zemgus Girgensons are going to do their best to open up eyes in this camp. They want to be the top line center, too.
You aren't the only hockey fans with free agency anxiety.
Toronto Maple Leafs fans have already gnawed their finger nails down to the cuticles, nervously waiting for their GM Dave Nonis to re-sign Leafs RFAs, center Nazem Kadri and D Cody Franson.
Nonis told NHL.com this weekend that the summer of 2013 has been a real financial challenge for he and his 29 NHL GM counterparts around the NHL. There are fewer dollars in this free agent market than there were last summer. Therefore, more NHL players are left in limbo.
Bottom line: Less money in the market.
Nonis said that he isn't bothered by the stretches of silence in his negotiations with Kadri and Franson.
"There have been quiet periods [in the negotiations], but that doesn't bother me at all," Nonis said. "That's par for the course in these types of situations.
I also think it's a different year a little bit with the cap dropping [from $70.2 million to $64.3 million]. I think there is recalibration that needs to take place on both sides. You look around the league and I think that's happening. There are a lot of good UFAs [unrestricted free agents] that aren't signed because of the amount of money left in the marketplace."
Nonis has approximately $5 million in cap space to sign Kadri and Franson with. Its likely that he will have to trade a contract (see John Michael-Liles' $3.875 million x 3 years) in order to create the proper amount of cap space to re-sign Kadri and Franson, and to have some cap cushion as the team heads into the regular season.
"From our standpoint, we have enough cap space in our minds to get both players signed and that's what we intend to do."
"There are definitely ways of making it work. That's our intention, said Nonis"
The Leafs GM said that he expects to see Kadri and Franson at Leafs training camp.
Darcy Regier and the Sabres expect to see Cody Hodgson at Sabres training camp. Regier has one thing that Nonis doesn't right now, and that is $10 million in available 2013-14 cap space to use to invest in Hodgson's next contract.
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Happy 31st Birthday, Steve Ott.
Born on this day in Summerside, PEI in 1982.
I can think of a great birthday present for the soon-to-be UFA.
A brand new, multi-year contract to stay in Buffalo.
Ott will become a UFA on July 1, 2014. I feel like this has been forgotten with all of the talk of the Miller and Vanek expiring contracts.
Darcy, do the right thing. Give Ott his extension.
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