from Eric Duhatschek of the Globe and Mail,

Try this exercise before rushing to judgment on the $22.5-million (U.S.) the Philadelphia Flyers paid to sign Vincent Lecavalier to a five-year contract Wednesday – which, admittedly, seemed like an odd NHL marriage at first blush:

What is the actual value of a No. 2 centre, with Lecavalier’s size (6 foot 4, 208 pounds) and pedigree, on the open market?

And just for a moment, forget Philadelphia’s salary-cap issues, or its inability to land a starting goaltender beyond Steve Mason.

If you were evaluating the transaction strictly as a hockey deal, you’d have to say it was a defensible acquisition for a team that believes it has to bounce right back into the NHL’s elite after a miserable season in which it missed the playoffs.

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from Damien Cox of The Spin at the Toronto Star,

Nobody should feel bad for Vinny Lecavalier. He's doing the Bobby Holik double-dip, getting paid tens of millions of dollars by not one but two NHL teams.

Lecavalier's going to get $22.5 million over the next five seasons from Philly at the same time he starts to draw on his buyout from Tampa Bay, which is about $30 million spread over 14 years.

Nice.

Still, remember all the nonsense in the last collective bargaining squabble over the players insisting on a "make whole" provision, that contracts that were signed before the lockout should and must be paid in whole down to the very penny?

It's was horse-bleep then, and it's even more so now.

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