from Michael Traikos at Canada.com,

“Certainly there are players who can help teams,” Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland said. “But they’re not franchise players.”

And yet, that may not stop some teams from paying them franchise dollars. Supply and demand can make general managers do funny things. And a shallow talent pool has suddenly made big fish out of a number of mid-level free agents.

“I don’t like to overpay. That’s not in our vocabulary,” said Arizona Coyotes GM Don Maloney, who on the weekend traded for Chris Pronger, who is no longer playing because of injuries, but still has a cap hit of 4.9-million, in order to reach the salary-cap floor that will rise in 2015-16 to $52.8-million from $51-million.

“We can’t chase it. You sign bad deals and a year from now you’re like, ‘Why did we do that?'”

Chances are someone will pay (or overpay) for Green or Beleskey. Someone will get caught up in the frenzy and sign a contract they will soon regret. Which is why smart general managers might be better off doing what Brian Burke did several years ago: Accept a chance to visit Canadian troops in Afghanistan on July 1 and wait for the free-agent dust to settle.

“I had a bunch of general managers tell me that they’re not going for the flavour of the month. They have no appetite for that,” said agent Rick Curran of the Orr Hockey Group, who represents free agent defenceman Christian Ehrhoff. “What they do want is the guy they’ve been looking at and following for the last six months and are hoping that for one reason or another he doesn’t re-sign.”

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