Very good news on the homefront.
The Hurricanes have re-signed Kevyn Adams to a two-year deal. We don't yet know the terms of the deal because the club does not disclose that, but the speculation was that he would get something like $750k per season. This is an absolute steal for a player who works exceptionally hard on every shift and has a fantastic attitude.
I won't kid anyone by saying that Adams is a good goal-scorer. He'll likely have somewhere in the neigborhood of 15 goals. What he brings, though, is incredible tenacity, and a never-give-up outlook. A perfect example of this is Kevyn's shorthanded goal with less than a second remaining in an overtime game at Atlanta on March 5, 2004. He was among the league leaders in shorthanded goals with five.
There has been a good deal of speculation that Kevyn will be wearing an A on his sweater this year, while Brind'Amour wears the C. I am a very vocal supporter of that.
Check out this stunning goal Kevyn scored against the Rangers on January 8, 2004.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
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5 comments:
This is a good signing. He's good defensively and brings energy to the ice.
I see that the Cane's lost Craig Adams to Europe (and the Canuck's lost Magnus Aarvadson)
We figured Craig wouldn't be a part of our plans. He doesn't have much game, to be honest. He'll never be anything more than an agitator.
I like him. He's a rough-and-tumble kinda guy who'll go toe-to-toe with anyone. He's got a lot of heart, but he has zero offense. I'm not happy to see him go, but I'm not sad either.
Kevyn, on the other hand is my favorite Cane. I would have cancelled my season tickets had they let him slip away.
Hard to imagine C.A.s style fitting in Europe.
K.A. is a realy good signing. Every team needs that sparkplug kinda guy. He is to Canes as Maltby is to Wings.
I know i sound like broken record, bu the talent drain thing is really starting to scare me. the Cap's and 'Canes are both said to believe the salary cap will be smaller next year. Hence holding their payrolls down in order to have money to spend next year when everyone else is hard up against the cap.
If cap really is smaller, look for talent drain to be much worse next year. Actually, could still get worse this year. Datsyuk is almost surely gone. Mogilny and the Bures are becoming a distinct posibility too.
Still hoping for the miracle that brings Datsyuk and Bykov back from Russia. Getting depressed. Starting to think I should have stuck to my pledge to only follow college hockey this year. BYAHHHH!
I don't agree. The point, Mark is that salaries have not been commensurate with talent, nor have they been appropriate with respect to revenues.
In the old days, teams could simply outbid other teams for the rights to a player. Salaries became artificially inflated in this manner. Was player XYZ really worth $10M per season? No. It's just that team 123 had more money than the other teams in the bidding war.
I don't think there's goig to be a talent drain, just as I don't think that league expansion has thinned the talent pool. Sure, there will be a few who will be able to go to (or stay in) Europe and make a ton of money, but that kind of money isn't as widely available as it is/was here.
What I think will happen is that the younger players will come to grips with the fact that a $10M/year contract isn't feasable anymore, and it isn't going to happen for them.
And Pavel Bure? Please, Mark. He hasn't played at all in two and a half years.
And if there's such a "talent drain" and if the money is so much better in Europe/Russia, then how do you explain Oleg Tverdovsky returning from Russia to the NHL? Why did Ovechkin abandon his five-day old contract with Avangard Omsk to come to the NHL and play on the cruddiest team in the league? They just want to play in the NHL.
I think it's a matter of preference. Some of the players you mentioned are near the end of their careers due to age and/or injury, and would like to go back home for the sake of going back home. I don't think the state of the NHL has as much to do with it as you do.
Time will tell. I do know this. There is more money in Europe, especially Russia, Switzerland and Sweden, than you think there is.
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