Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Oilers GM Craig MacTavish sums up the reason$ behind a quiet summer in terms of player movement

08/01/2013 at 1:39am EDT

Edmonton Oilers GM Craig MacTavish made an appearance at the Oilers' summer hockey school on Wednesday evening, and he discussed Ales Hemsky's untradeablity with TSN, oodles of topics with both the Oilers' website and the Edmonton Journal, and while the main topic of his conversation with the Edmonton Sun's Derek Van Diest involved establishing a "new culture" during training camp and the exhibition season, I thought that the following quote summarized the reasons why it's been so very, very quiet on the unrestricted free agency front of late:

There’s also the issue of Ales Hemsky to deal with. However, with uncertainty around the league heading into the season, particularly due to the reduction in the salary cap this upcoming season, MacTavish may have to bide his time before completing the finishing touches of his revamped hockey club.

“I think it’s a much different environment this year,” he said. “It really is a matter of supply and demand. There’s not a lot of demand because of the fact that everybody is operating with a reduced payroll and the supply is decreased because of buyouts and so forth. It’s probably not a great time to be a player, or maybe a player agent. It’s a tough economic time for those players and you see a lot of good players that are still out of work and that gives you a pretty good indication of what the appetite is to add salary or payroll right now.”

Or, as Capgeek put it...

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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