The Teemu Selanne Sweepstakes

Montreal- Montreal has the cap space to sign a big name player. They were missing one ingredient this playoff run. Selanne has not played in Canada since his days with the Winnipeg Jets. Rumour has it that fellow Finn Saku Koivu is encouraging him to come to montreal.

Anaheim- Anaheim has no cap space to sign Selanne. Unless he is willing to take an extreme paycut or start playing after the trade deadline. It is unlikely he will return to anaheim.

St. Louis- The Blues have most of their significant players locked up and a lot of cap space. They could be looking to bring in another superstar. Kariya and Selanne played well in the past. It might it be worthwhile to reunite the pairing.

Retirement- Selanee is 38 years old and did consider retiring last season. Going back to finland and being taxed heavily on all his past salaries could be an option. My advice to Teemu: if you do retire, put your money in an offshore bank account; the Cayman Islands seems to work well for many.

Florida- old people really like Florida. They already have fellow Finn Oli Jokinen. Lemaire should really try and make a push for Selanne, if keeping Jokinen is on his agenda.

-hark

What Shall Brian Burke Do?

Currently his team is sitting with a salary of 51 million dollars. He Still needs to sign Corey Perry. Does he let him walk as an RFA and accept compensation? Or do you trade away a player to free up cap space to sign perry? Given that the ducks have already lost McDonald, Bryzgalov and Penner, Burke will probably want to sign perry.

Teemu Selanne and Doug Weight are UFA's, and there will not be enough cap space to sign them. This will inspire future posts concerning their 'sweepstakes'.

Does Brian Burke disassemble the league's strongest defence to free up cap space? You can't trade Beauchemin because he only makes 1.65. Pronger and Neidermyer are almost untouchable. So the odd man out is Schneider and his 5.65. On offence you could also trade Bertuzzi. But with his 4 million dollar salary you would get very little return. Anaheim is in a very sticky situation.

I'm starting to think that Brian Burke might not be such a smart man afterall. Maybe Toronto Maple Leaf fans will agree with me in about 4 or 5 years.

-hark