lmm

so, you are saying that Tampa has a trade in place before today's signing?

my new favorite Cancuk

this is a very reasoned post, unlike so many posters believe the Canucks can do no wrong and that other GMs are stupid. Speaking of Canucks doing no wrong. Linden was painted as a saint before he came in a Pres. How would you feel if you were in Messier's spot^? The Captain of your new team "Offers" you the C, but not really. With all the continued talk about the Canucks being a "class" orginisation and Linden being "All World" class, this paints Linden in a very poor light. What if this happened on your kid's team or in your job? Would you respect those who act in this way? It is oxymoronic to think there is such thing as an insincere goodwill gesture. How dumb do you think other GMs are? -NEWS FLASH- Loui Ericksson has sucked for 4 years and is on the wrong side of 35. Maybe we should also give him the "C" so other teams think he is our true leader?

saying you are right, what then? Ceirelli and Serge become free agents? or what?

Back on topic Using Cap Friendly and a very rough count 9 teams are a combined $12 mil over the cap the bottom 4 cap teams could each absorb all $12 mil. Further the bottom 4 teams have 16 roster spots open Total there are 48 roster spots open and there are 20 RFAs unsigned and Sportsnet lists the 17 top UFAs unsigned unused cap $114 Mil so $114M unused cap - $12M over cap = $102m available cap 48 roster spots avaiilable - (20RFAs + 17 UFAs) = 11 extra roster spots available With the bottom 4 cap teams having 16 availale spots, any one of, or a combination of all 4 teams could make significant improvements In fact the 8+9th lowest cap teams, Boston and Chicago could eat all of the over cap In answer to the OP, Singing in my best Ella voice, " Nothin's gotta give, nothin's gotta give , nothin's gotta give"

thanks guys 2 things I am getting from this 1 this is a little off from my question. we seem to have veered into cap circumvetion. like Team signs player X ( lets say Mike Hoffman) to a $1 mil contract and , nudge nudge wink wink buys his wife a house . Using Hoffman's wife is prob risky, but what evs. This is a situation where player, aGENT, and team are invovled And I can see why that contract would be voided, however, I do wonder how it would have been ratified in the first place. So that is interesting, but not answering my question. My Question was meant to be about teams going over cap and the penalties 2 what I get from this is there are minimum fines but that they are open ended and at Gary and Bill's discretion Lets use Tampa as an example Tampa is currently under the cap limit however they are also under the roster limit and have 2 high profile RFAs to sign Now assuming the contracts are not invalid, like the Hoffman example above, Tampa signs both player and ends up $ 2 mil over cap. First day of the season they would be fined and lose picks at Gary's disgression first game of the season they forfit A team like Tampa could probably forfit 15% of the season and still win the cup, (that would look bad) so I ask you both what do you think would happen next? Would the NHL void contracts to force Tampa below the cap and if so how would they decide which contracts to void? I am not suggesting Tampa would enter this situation intentionally, but what if they had a deal in place, and it fell through last minute, etc with so many teams over cap, it looks like a game of musical chairs, I could see someone left out.