The waiting game

Well, Dany Heatley sounds like a gem. Two seasons ago, he signed a 6-year, $45 million contract extension with a no-trade clause with the Senators. Last season, he was named Alternate Captain. Then he decided he wasn't happy with this team (who was building around him) and wanted out. He complained to everyone, and requested to be traded. This in the face of his $4 million bonus coming up July 1. Other teams, such as ours, tried to make deals for him, but none of them made Bryan Murray terribly happy - mostly because Michal Rozsival doesn't exactly make up for Dany Heatley. Then, at the zero hour, Ottawa struck a deal that satisfied them sending Heatley, who had said he wanted to "move West," to Edmonton. And they all lived happily ever after.

No wait, that's not what happened at all! Heatley refused to waive his no-trade clause! After complaining about the team, and asking to move West, now he refused to waive his no-trade clause! So Ottawa couldn't send him to the Oilers! What the fuck is this guy waiting for?

So, as it turns out, the NHL has ruled that as long as Heatley is moved by midnight EDT tonight (July 1), Ottawa's off the hook for the bonus. Which gives them some more maneuvering room. But what the hell are they supposed to do? Either Heatley is using his contract to strong-arm Ottawa into not getting a fair deal for him, or he's holding out on the no-trade clause to make sure he gets the $4 million from the Sens as opposed to from his new team. Who the fuck does that? I was all about picking up Dany Heatley, but trading Gomez's $7.4 million contract for Heatley's $7.5 is starting to sound pretty unattractive to me.

Meanwhile, we're waiting to see what happens. According to Larry Brooks, off-loading Gomez saved us $5.5 million, giving us about $13 million to play with. This is some room to play, but not a ton. Last year, at this time, Sather dropped a whole lot of money on very little defenseman. There's buzz, as you'd expect, about the Rangers trying to spend some of this on a "power forward" or whatever term you want to use - a Martin Gaborik or the Sedins or even, as Brooks suggests, Brad Richards. I'd love to see another big move here - rather than Sather eating most of this money on one big guy, he now has the freedom to make a trade - try to get Rozsival (as Redden is completely untradable) and his contract off to someone in exchange for an expensive-ass forward, leaving us some playing room. We'll see how good Sather is at his job. RFAs go unrestricted in 2 hours.

And Dany Heatley's bonus gets paid at midnight.