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| Dallas Stars threw a boatload of money at Kari Lehtonen on Friday (Getty) |
With the NHL's CBA expiring on Saturday, you're probably going to see a lot of teams trying to sneak in new contracts that fit under the current agreement. This is a roundup of those moves.
Last update 5:52 p.m. ET
Teams spend over $106 million ... the day before players are locked out
Gary Bettman spent a large portion of his press conference on Thursday talking about how the league can't continue to pay players the amount of money they've been paying over the past seven years. On Friday, one day before the league locks the players out (assuming no deal is reached before 11:59 on Saturday), NHL teams responded by handing out over $106 million in salary, via CapGeek. Tthey also add that in the month leading up to the lockout teams spent over $339 million.
That total includes the four-year, $21.2 million contract the league-run Coyotes gave to 36-year-old Shane Doan.
Below is the list of contract extensions and signings that took place on Friday...
Shane Doan remains with the Coyotes
It's finally over. The Shane Doan free agency saga that is, and he's staying with the Coyotes. The team announced on Friday evening that its long-time captain has signed a four-year contract to remain in Phoenix. It's reportedly worth over $21 million.
Alex Burrows signs four-year extension with Canucks
The Vancouver Canucks are reportedly one of the finalists to land the services of free agent forward Shane Doan before Saturday, but before that happens (or doesn't happen) the Canucks announced that they have signed forward Alex Burrows to a four-year contract extension worth a reported $18 million. He's about to enter the final year of a contract that pays him $2 million per season. This new deal, which will start in 2013-14, will give him a $2.5 million per year raise.
Spending most of his time playing alongside Henrik and Daniel Sedin on the Canucks top scoring line, Burrows has scored at least 25 goals in each of the past four seasons (one of only 17 players in the league to accomplish that over that stretch), including the 28 he tallied during the 2011-12 season.
Since the start of the 2008-09 season only 22 players in the NHL have scored more goals than Burrows.
More than 60 players placed on waivers
Along with re-signings and contract extensions, a number of NHL teams have put players on waivers in an effort to make them eligible to play in the American Hockey League during a potential lockout. Some of the more notable of the 60-plus players that have already been exposed to waivers on Friday include: Jordan Hendry (Anaheim), Zach Boychuck (Carolina), Tim Wallace (Carolina), Marc-Andre Gragnani (Carolina), Bobby Butler (New Jersey), Colin McDonald (New York Islanders), Chris Conner (Phoenix), Alex Grant (Pittsburgh), Dylan Reese (Pittsburgh).
Along with the waiver moves, the New York Islanders also assigned recent first-round draft picks Nino Niederreiter, Ryan Strome and Griffin Reinhart to either the AHL (Niederreiter) or their junior teams (Strome and Reinhart).
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Capitals sign John Carlson to six-year contract
And the signings keep on coming.
Capitals general manager George McPhee announced on Friday morning the team has signed restricted free-agent defenseman John Carlson to a six-year, $23.8 million contract. The 22-year-old Carlson was Washington's first-round draftee in 2008 and just completed his entry level deal with a nine-goal, 23-assist campaign in 2011-12. In 186 career games, he has scored 17 goals to go with 58 assists.
He's a huge part of Washington's future and over the past two years has been a regular playing alongside the organization's other top young defenseman, Karl Alzner. Carlson's deal keeps him in Washington through the 2017-18 season whle Alzner has one year remaining on his contract.
Dallas Stars sign Kari Lehtonen to five-year extension
The Dallas Stars made Kari Lehtonen one of the highest paid goalies in the NHL on Friday by signing him to a five-year, $29.5 million contract extension. That comes out to a huge, and perhaps surprising, salary-cap hit of $5.9 million per season. That's the seventh largest among NHL goalies, just behind Minnesota's Niklas Backstrom and just ahead of Calgary's Miikka Kiprusoff.
General manager Joe Nieuwendyk said he feels Lehtonen's best days are ahead of him; for that type of coin, they'd better be. In 344 games with the Atlanta Thrashers and Stars throughout his NHL career, Lehtonen has posted a .914 save percentage to go with a 166-133-32 record. He's coming off what was his best season in the NHL, finishing with a .922 save percentage that was good enough for eighth in the league. But it's a mark he'd never come to close to reaching at any point in his career.
It seems like a risky move given Lehtonen's history of injury and what can only be described as a league average performance.
Red Wings sign Carlo Colaiacovo and re-sign Justin Abdelkader
The Red Wings added to their blue line on Friday in an effort to replace Nicklas Lidstrom by signing free-agent defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo to a two-year deal. He's a nice second-pairing defenseman, but the Red Wings' blue line certainly has a different look than the one that was playing for Stanley Cups a few years back.
The team also signed restricted free-agent forward Justin Abdelkader to a four-year contract. More here.
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