BY BRIAN MURPHY, Pioneer Press
July 16, 2005

General managers and some of their newly hired "capologists"
descended upon NHL headquarters in New York Friday for a weekend
seminar on the salary cap that is expected to define the new
collective bargaining agreement.

If owners and players ratify their tentative deal next week, it will
start the clock on the shortest and wildest offseason in the 87-year
history of the league. Thirty general managers have to learn a
totally new business model while retrofitting existing rosters and
payrolls to comply with a reported salary cap range of $21.5-to-$39
million.

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The disparities among teams are enormous.

The Boston Bruins, with just three players under contract at a
meager $1.5 million, have the most flexibility and work looming to
assemble a team in the next two months. The Philadelphia Flyers have
$33.7 million committed to 13 players, leaving them less than $6
million to sign 10 more.

A buyout provision would allow teams such as the Flyers and Detroit,
which is saddled with a $32 million payroll and eight open roster
spots, to pay off expensive players at two-thirds their contract
value to create breathing space under the cap.

But those teams would be forbidden from re-signing those players at
a lower price. Buyouts could add more free agents to a pool that
already includes about 400 unrestricted players.

"You're going to see a huge redistribution of talent," said Gordon
Saint-Denis, an investment banker who has arranged financing for NHL
franchises and consulted with owners who are buying and selling
teams. "Based on what I'm hearing, the 2004-05 contracts will be
voided, and big-market teams will have the buyout mechanism to get
under the cap. A lot of players in big markets could be
unrestricted."

Which means general managers would have little time to make pivotal
decisions that could impact their franchises for years.

"I've been in the game a long time. I've never seen anything like
this," Columbus Blue Jackets GM Doug MacLean told the Columbus
Dispatch this week.

Wild general manager Doug Risebrough and assistant Tom Lynn are in
New York taking the crash course conducted by Bill Daly, the NHL
vice president who led the owners' negotiating team.

With 10 players signed for $13.8 million, the Wild have ample cap
space. They can extend about $7 million worth of qualifying offers
to seven restricted free agents, negotiate with their lone
unrestricted free agent, left wing Andrew Brunette, and still pursue
players on the market.

Re-signing all of their free agents would pull the Wild just above
the $21.5 million floor while leaving prospects such as forwards
Mikko Koivu, Stephane Veilleux and Kyle Wanvig to compete for the
remaining jobs.

So look for Risebrough to kick a few tires but not necessarily tear
through the checkbook in this buyers' market.

"I'm not sitting here thinking I have to redo it all over again," he
said. "I think you have to present continuity, not flexibility."

Other GMs have no choice but to shake up their teams. That means
several stars are in for a pay cut or change of address once the
signing derby begins.

Brian Murphy covers the Wild and the NHL. He can be reached at
brianmurphy@....