Bulin Wall and more

The Chicago Blackhawks ended all the speculation about Nicolai Khabibulin when they inked him to a four year, $27M deal. Things are really starting to shape up in Chi-town. With the exception of the contract they gave Martin Lapointe, I like everything they've done so far. Actually, I think this Khabibulin contract is too big. That's an awful lot of money to pay a goaltender. He's awesome, but I think that's kind of excessive. The bright side is that the Bolts just got worse.

Other stuff:

The Toronto Maple Leafs re-signed thug right wing Tie Domi to a two year contract valued at $2.5M. He refused more lucrative offers from the Penguins and a couple of other teams. As one Hurricanes fan put it (and I'll paraphrase and extrapolate) it's better off that he stays in Toronto. If he were to sign somewhere else, fans would have to boo their own player all season long.
With two seasons, Domi should approach the NHL all-time penalty minutes record. He's currently third on the list with 3,406 minutes. Dave "Tiger" Williams is tops on the list with 3,966. He's been close to 200 minutes per season, although he had a jaw-dropping 365 minutes in 80 games during the 1997-98 season. Two more seasons like that, and he's golden.

There's still lots of teams in the hunt for Paul Kariya, who has been a point-a-night player, but struggled with injuries in 2003-04. The Edminton Oilers are rumored to be in the hunt for him. However, they've blown their budget on Pronger and the highly over-rated Michael Peca. They would have to pull a Philly maneuver to make cap room. They need to be careful though. They may find themselves in a situation where the trading partner has the upper hand, as Philly did. As the rumor goes, there are six teams making a serious charge at him, and that he is showing a lot of reciprocal interest with Nashville. I don't know.

Eric Lindros is still a hot commodity, although there isn't a lot of buzz about him. I know there were the injuries, and I know he's prone to concussion, but this is a guy who can give (and historically HAS given) his team more than a point-a-night. I'd guess that he's got three or four years left in him. His price would probably be around $2M, and he would be worth every penny. I don't understand why there isn't a lot of clamor.

Speaking of injury-prone players, I still don't know what's going on with Jason Allison. The rumor was that he was all set to sign with Toronto, physical pending. That was like three days ago. Maybe he's not as healthy as they thought. Hmmm.