Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke is on record as stating that he would have to be “blown away” by an offer for veteran defenseman Tomas Kaberle if he was to consider moving his prized possession. Ever since Kaberle’s no trade clause expired, numerous rumors have surfaced regarding Kaberle’s future, including Burke’s comments that suggested at least five NHL clubs had shown some interest in acquiring the Czech native. Kaberle, 32, is thought to be a bargain at $4,250,000, especially when you consider what a good player Kaberle is on and off the ice and the offensive skill that he could bring to an NHL club. Still, after months of speculation and weeks with which to trade Kaberle, there has been no movement.  So, what gives? Could it be that Burke has overvalued Kaberle? While Burke may entertain an

The Ilya Kovalchuk saga is starting to look like a two team race with the Los Angeles Kings and the New Jersey Devils emerging as prohibitive favorites. Needless to say, there are plenty of NHL teams out there that would love to add Kovalchuk to the fold. With that in mind, let’s take a look at ten NHL teams that would love to sign Ilya Kovalchuk… Boston Bruins: The Boston Bruins were the NHL’s lowest scoring regular season team in 2009-10. As such, they would love to add a player who scored 230 goals over the last six NHL seasons, a player like Ilya Kovalchuk. Kovalchuk, a pure sniper, would benefit greatly from re-uniting with Bruins set-up man, Marc Savard, a player he once shared the ice with in Atlanta. Trouble is, like many NHL clubs, the Bruins do not

With the Chicago Blackhawks matching the four-year $14 million offer sheet  San Jose made to defenceman Niklas Hjalmarsson it has left them with just about $113,410 in cap space.  With this little cap room they still have some restricted free agents and their starting goaltender Antti Niemi to sign. Although there are rumours from various sources out there that if Niemi is requesting too rich a contract for Chicago’s cap situation they will look to deal him and attempt to sign Marty Turco instead. Let’s assume that Chicago buries Cristobal Huet’s ($5,625,000 cap hit)contract in the AHL or overseas and the have Corey Crawford at the NHL level as their back up ($800,000 cap hit).  That would leave them $4,938,410 in cap space to sign the likes of Jack Skille, Bryan Bickell, Jordan Hendry, and Antti Niemi. For arguments sake let’s

The New Jersey Devils are said to have offered free agent sniper a 17-year deal that would pay the crafty Russian over $100 million. The Devils have long been interested in Kovalchuk, but have yet to be able to get him under contract with competition believed to be coming from the Los Angeles Kings, New York Islanders and the KHL- who now appear to be out of the running for Kovalchuk’s services. TSN is reporting that Kovalchuk is scheduled to meet with the King’s management team today to have a face-to-face meeting. The King’s, who have been trying desperately to sign Kovalchuk for several weeks now, were thought to be out of the running for Kovalchuk as early as last week when King’s general manager Dean Lombardi stated, while the Kings were trying to get a deal done he would

Once again the NHL is waiting on the Kovalchuk saga to end prior to beginning the quest for other talents. Currently it is rumoured that the New Jersey Devils have offered a 17 year contract worth $100 million. While the rumoured deal with the LA Kings would be 15 years worth $100 million. The structure of the Devils contract offer appears to be front loaded money for the first 10 years of the contract and then the remaining seven years drop down to $1 million or $2 million per season. This would keep the deal to approximately a $5.8 million cap hit over the 17 year term. In Toronto, GM Brian Burke seems to have decided to sit on the offers for Tomas Kaberle at this time. Surely once Kovalchuk is signed some of the teams that missed out will

This past week, I found out that the Pittsburgh Penguins would be holding auditions for an ice crew. It seemed harmless enough, until I read about the audition requirements. The squad is supposed to be co-ed. But from what I read on the Pens website, it seems that the guys will be an afterthought and the focus here is on the females, thus making me believe that the Penguins were going an ice girl route. The girls are required to come to auditions wearing a crop top (or other midriff bearing shirt), yoga pants (which are usually tight fitting), and have appropriate hair and makeup styles. There are even certain requirements for manicures, and the application asks if applicants have had modeling experience. The Pens claim they are not trying to do go this route and will let the ice crew