Monday's notes: St. Louis gets an offensive boost with McDonald's return

best urban legend ever

He reveled in a pair of Predators goals nine seconds apart in Game Three with such an explosion of emotion that he knocked then-captain Jason Arnott, who scored the second, off balance so that Arnott’s face hit the boards in front of the bench.

Boclair has completely lost it. IN FRONT OF THE BENCH? FACE HIT THE BOARDS? Jeez, David, pull up the YouTube clip. Check your failing memory.

Now, rewatching the clip, HERE, I am going to say, I think for the first time, that Arnott gives himself a concussion. He jumps into the glass, face-first, at 1:37. A second later, Radulov jumps on him, wraps his arm around Arnott’s neck and, if you watch closely, Arnott’s head never contacts the boards on his way down. In fact, it looks like Radulov’s arm STOPS Arnott’s head from hitting the boards. At 1:59 of the video, Arnott is on the bench, and he palms the front of his head, as if in pain. I have joked in the past about Radulov giving Arnott a concussion, but I never blamed him for it, as it was a celebratory accident. Now, it seems clear, to me, that Rads didn’t even do it.

- Rinne is signed for 7 yrs, $7M cap hit per year
- if we sign both Suter and Weber, it will be for at least 7 yrs and $7M-$8.5 per year each
- if Rads fulfills the last year of his contract, he will be a RFA. He’s worth at least $7M per year and would want a long term contract.

Can we afford to sign all of them? That’s at least $29M for 4 players. Is there enough money to sign 19 other players and stay under the cap (forget about cap mid point for revenue sharing)? Is there too much risk in signing 4 players to 7+ year contracts…think Rick DiPietro?

Seems like it would just encourage the clubs with unlimited funds to offer even more outrageous contracts than they already do. If the only thing constraining their spending is cap space (and not actual dollars) then they can afford to whiff on even a huge contract, knowing it can be bought out later and not hurt their cap numbers. This would almost certainly drive up the cost of signing superstar players and probably as a consequence drive of the cost of all players in general. Seems like the players are the ones who should want this (there really isn’t a major downside for them – they already can be bought out, albeit with cap consequences). It is the small market teams who will suffer most. I think this would would significantly affect the parity that the salary cap was supposed to ceate.

Really is a great read an gives an interesting insight on his personality and how he wasnt a lone gun like its been made to look like. I wasnt huge into hockey like i am now when this all happened so i never paid attention to it. But if the truth is there that he and suter and weber were that close it might help get him back. Now as far as his celebrations im fine with that just keep putting it in the net or helping put it there. The waiver thing is interesting because for any other player coming over here they would have to clear waivers but rads is the only one still under contract with a team in this league so he may not have to, we really dont know until we try. As for the rest about the team accepting him back most all the guys on the team except for a handful of guys (webs suts toots smithson leggy and marty) were here when he was so i dint see that being a problem.
Think of him on a line with wilson and hb…