from Ken Campbell of The Hockey News,

So much for the untradeable player with the unmovable contract. That species of player, thought to be alive and well in the salary cap era, does not exist. In fact, he never has because GMs such as David Nonis and Jarmo Kekalainen can cook up deals like the one they did Thursday afternoon.

In swapping the ill-suited and much maligned David Clarkson for the seriously and likely permanently injured Nathan Horton, Nonis and Kekalainen conspired to help each other out of contractual straitjackets that were paralyzing their rosters. This deal was so much more than just swapping one bad contract for another one.

And it’s the kind of deal the salary cap and all the machinations the owners have tried to put in place since the lockout in 2004-05 have been trying to prevent. The salary cap, which causes more problems than it solves in your correspondent’s humble opinion, was supposed to prevent teams from buying their way out of their mistakes. It was supposed to take away that competitive advantage that the big-revenue teams used to enjoy.

But lo and behold, what we have here is legal circumvention of the salary. Brilliant, innovative and clever legal circumvention of the salary cap, but circumvention nonetheless.

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