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Sunday, March 09, 2003

By Dejan Kovacevic, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

The NHL's trading deadline generally is a time for excitement throughout the league, when fans are abuzz with anticipation about which players their team might get and how it might elevate their chances at the Stanley Cup.

This year is different.

The sentiment is one of fear in Pittsburgh, San Jose, Calgary, Phoenix, Los Angeles and many other cities. Fear that one or more of their favorite players could be dealt away for little more than cash and promises. Fear that their teams could plunge into a rebuilding stage as quickly as Alexei Kovalev releases a slap shot.

And for many of the league's general managers, it is growing evident, the apprehension as 3 p.m. Tuesday approaches is no different. Which is why there might be less activity at this deadline than any in memory.

No general manager relishes making a salary-dump deal, yet that seems to be all there is to be had in this seller's market.

Craig Patrick has indicated that Martin Straka could be had for the right price, although he isn't saying if that price has a dollar sign before it, as it did for Kovalev. The Sharks' Dean Lombardi said that Owen Nolan's exit for Toronto might not be the last for his veterans. The Coyotes' Mike Barnett is loath to give up Sean Burke and Teppo Numminen, but he is not hanging up on bidders, either. The Kings' Dave Taylor already has shipped Dmitry Yushkevich to Philadelphia and is still holding his trump cards, Zigmund Palffy and Aaron Miller. The Flames' Craig Button has yet to firmly reject the notion that he could give up Jarome Iginla.

The list of significant players who are available actually is long enough to blanket this page, but the list of potential buyers barely fills a phrase: Rangers, Flyers, Stars, Devils, Avalanche, Red Wings, Blues and Maple Leafs. That is because those are the only teams whose payrolls approach or top $60 million and, thus, can afford to take on the excess of others.

And that is the problem for the sellers.

The buyers know that the sellers have highly limited options to dump salary, as was the case here with Kovalev and Jaromir Jagr. As a result, the returns being offered are getting lower and lower, and the sellers -- with no choice but to abide by financial limitations -- are taking what they can get. All Nolan, a 323-goal scorer who was a team captain, netted was a prospect, a fourth-liner and a draft pick. All Yushkevich netted was two low-round picks.

Almost extinct are trades in which teams give up players for players of equal value. Also fading are the days where teams with anything less than staggering budgets get involved for the bigger names. Even teams that currently fancy themselves contenders step lightly through the market. The Senators last week had to ask several players to defer money so they could acquire Vaclav Varada, a good addition but hardly a game-breaker. The Canucks, the league's hottest team, say they are unwilling to pursue anyone to add to their bottom-feeding $30 million payroll.

As with just about everything else that is wrong with the NHL's economic state, the laughably imbalanced trade market will need to be addressed in the new labor agreement once the current one expires in 2004. In addition to creating better sharing of revenues and restriction on the growth of salaries, the league also should form a new bylaw which requires Commissioner Gary Bettman to veto any trade which does not meet a specifically worded set of criteria to judge what is a reasonable hockey exchange and what is a salary dump. If there is controversy, let it be put to a vote of the Board of Governors.

Only then can trade deadline day go back to being a bit more fun.