Pair, to be fair, deserve share
The Bruins open training camp tomorrow morning, and unless there is a dramatic change in negotiations in the next few hours, they'll open for business without their No. 1 goalie, Andrew Raycroft, and their top young defenseman, Nick Boynton.
Until we see how this plays out, folks, push aside the prognostications that have the Bruins as serious Stanley Cup contenders. In the Black-and-Gold payroll pyramid, Raycroft and Boynton have to be factored into at least the top third, but general manager Mike O'Connell has them penciled in much closer to the bottom.
Raycroft and Boynton are being asked to accept the payroll consequences of the expensive signings of unrestricted free agents Glen Murray, Alexei Zhamnov, and Brian Leetch. The $12 million-plus it took to sign them amounted to about one-third of the total $39 million cap figure, and with cap room now squeezed, Raycroft and Boynton are looking at below-market offers.
Anton Thun, Boynton's agent, said Friday that he and O'Connell hadn't spoken for nearly two weeks about a new contract for the 26-year-old defenseman. Thun said the club has offered a one-year deal for slightly more than Boynton's qualifying offer ($1.33 million), but for now, the sides aren't close. Boynton will become an unrestricted free agent following the 2006-07 season.
''I don't think we are being unreasonable in what we're asking," said Thun. ''I've been in the business too long not to know the marketplace."
On a one- or two-year deal, the fair-market price for Boynton is somewhere in the $2 million-$2.5 million range. The numbers move up, as Thun acknowledged, if the Bruins want to structure a longer deal. Meanwhile, Thun believes someone could step up and offer Boynton a Group 2 free agent sheet.
''That wasn't very common in the old world," said Thun. ''Offers to guys like [Joe] Sakic and [Sergei] Fedorov served only to drive up the dollars for everyone, and clubs typically didn't get the player. Now, with the ceiling in place, it's pretty well defined what kind of dollars guys are going to make.
''So, if you're a GM, and you're choosing not to use the tool -- that of the offer sheet -- then you're opting not to do something that could make your team better. If I'm the owner, that's not making me very happy."
Jordan Neumann, Raycroft's agent, said he talked to O'Connell Friday, in part because of the one-year, $2.5 million deal Rick DiPietro agreed to earlier in the week with the Islanders. The Bruins, said Neumann, have offered Raycroft substantially more than his near-laughable qualifying offer ($450,000), but nothing close to what DiPietro will make.
DiPietro has the pedigree, because he is a former No. 1 pick, but Raycroft has the profile. To wit: his Rookie of the Year performance in 2003-04. That said, based on how Neumann is laying out the math, the Bruins are offering only about half of what DiPietro will make.
''In sympathy to the Bruins' position," said Neumann, ''we made a counter offer on Friday, at dollars that were significantly below DiPietro's."
Nonetheless, no deal. The Bruins have the cudgel in both cases, and it comes in the form of the new Dec. 1 deadline spelled out in the CBA. If the players don't come to terms by then, all negotiating is off, and they can't play in the NHL for the remainder of the 2005-06 season (a dreadful outcome for both parties). The days of a holdout Jason Allison forcing a trade to Los Angeles, where the Kings were eager to pay him upward of $8 million a year, are over.
So, for now, the hard line continues on Causeway. O'Connell offered Hal Gill $1.5 million and told the big blue liner to take it or leave it. No surprise, he took it. Now O'Connell is saying much the same to Raycroft and Boynton, his position fortified by the Dec. 1 drop-dead date.
Not a bad strategy, in theory, but one size does not fit all. Gill is not in the top one-third of the club's talent pyramid. He's not the starting goalie. He's not the club's best blend of talent and age on the back line. Sure, cap room is running tight, but to get Boynton and Raycroft back on the job, fitting comfortably into the overall payroll, it may mean trading a veteran body or two from the bottom of the payroll and paying a kid or two $450,000 a year to fill the roster spot. So what? Life in the big CBA city.
Right now, it would add a total of about $4 million to the payroll, or roughly $1.5 million more than the Bruins are offering, to get it done. The nature of the new world is that someone will have to bear the burden, but that shouldn't be two guys whose deals should have been tidied up long before, or at the very least concurrent with, the overpaid UFAs.
Neely builds on foundation
Less than two months to go before Cam Neely delivers his induction speech at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
''I'm working on it," said Neely. ''They give you a four-minute limit, and I guess, overall, that's good. Boiled all down, you've got to make clear that: 1. it's an honor and 2. lot of people helped you along the way. The trick is articulating all of that."
Neely, who turned 40 in June, in the meantime remains busy with the charitable foundation in his name at the New England Medical Center. In recent months, he also has been very active with a new business venture, Cornerstone Bancard, a credit card processing company that designates a percentage of profits for the Neely Foundation.
According to Neely, ex-Bruins Grant Ledyard and Rob DiMaio also have joined Cornerstone in recent months, and he hopes to bring aboard more ex-NHLers and other former professional athletes.
''Actually, it was Grant who brought Rob along," said Neely. ''And I think the discussion went something like, 'Rob, you know, eventually it's over, and maybe you ought to try this, start to get your head thinking this way.' "
DiMaio, 37, signed a two-year deal last month with Tampa Bay, the defending Cup champ. He spent the lockout in Europe, with playing stints in Switzerland (Langnau SC) and Italy (Milan).
Neely, his career cut short at least a couple of years by hip and knee injuries, knows he is headed for hip replacement surgery. A recent visit to the doctor's office, though, left Neely at least a half-step ahead of the operating table.
''They told me there's still a few miles left on this one," he said. ''I was doing some channel surfing the other day, and don't ask me why, but I got hooked on watching a show on hip replacement surgery. Didn't look like much fun. I'll try to keep this one as long as I can."
Defensemen reach end of the blue line; Sweeney next?
The lockout ended up being a silent killer of careers for three pretty good defensemen -- Scott Stevens, Al MacInnis, and James Patrick -- all of whom announced their retirement last week.
It wasn't equivalent to the stunning blow four summers ago when Ray Bourque, Paul Coffey, and Larry Murphy all called it quits (that trio was last seen in November 2004, entering the Hall of Fame). But it's rich blue line stock, nonetheless.
Stevens and MacInnis are both locks for the Hall. Patrick's career didn't match those two back line icons, but he played very well over a very long time, debuting with the Rangers in spring 1984 after playing for the Canadian Olympic team.
Combined, Patrick, Stevens, and MacInnis played 4,331 regular-season games and another 527 in the playoffs.
Closer to home, ex-Bruins defenseman Don Sweeney, who played for the Dallas Stars in 2003-04, is not among the 15 back liners auditioning in Big D this week. According to Peter Fish, agent for Global Hockey, the agency that represents Sweeney, the 39-year-old defenseman is home on the North Shore, mulling his next option.
''I don't think he's going to play, and if he were, the only place would be Dallas; he liked his time there very much," said Fish. ''They're taking a look at what they have, and there is still a chance they'll call.
''But if they don't, that's OK. Right now, Don's just sitting back, decompressing, figuring out what might interest him -- maybe broadcasting, coach, or something in finance."
Etc.
A $6 million man?
Laugh of the week, before he bolted back to Mother Russia, was Red Wings center Pavel Datsyuk claiming that he was worth Joe Thornton/Dany Heatley money (in Thornton's case, that's better than $6 million per year). Then came reports -- unconfirmed -- that Datsyuk was wooed by $6 million to play for Avangard Omsk (his prior Russian club, Dynamo, was later reported to match the offer). ''If he can get $6 million in Russia, I say, 'Go get it,' " said Wings senior vice president Jim Devellano. ''I'll help get you to the airport." A report in the Booth News Friday had it that Datsyuk could still play in Detroit -- answer possibly to come today -- and the Wings have offered him a two-year deal worth a total $7.6 million, a boost of $2.3 million per year over his last deal in Hockeytown. ''He's a good player, and we need him," noted Devellano. ''But a whole coaching staff got [fired] because we didn't have any success in the playoffs [in '03 and '04]. Guess what? Pavel has zero goals in the last 16 playoff games."
Big wheel
Within hours of Datsyuk reportedly heading home, the Wings came to a four-year agreement with Henrik Zetterberg. The 24-year-old left wing will earn $10.6 million over the life of the deal, starting at $2.4 million this year, and topping out at $2.9 million in 2008-09.
Overtime work rules
Still no word on whether the tiebreaking shootout will have shooters going without helmets. The preseason, no doubt, will bring a few tweaks to the process. But the crux of it is: If the score is still tied after the five-minute session (four skaters aside), each team will designate three shooters, each one to break in alone from center ice (similar to a penalty shot). Provided one team has outscored the other after three shots per side, that team is declared the game's winner -- but only by one goal, no matter how many goals are scored in the shootout. If the shootout tally is deadlocked after each side makes the initial three attempts, then the shootout becomes sudden death, with the home team allowed the final shot. As for helmets/no helmets, the league and the Players Association have yet to agree. From a marketing standpoint, it would be a huge boost, especially for TV, for players to shed the helmets and allow fans to put faces to names.
The Crosby kid
Bruins fans could get their first look at phenom Sidney Crosby when Boston faces Pittsburgh in a Sept. 21 exhibition game in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., home to the AHL Penguins. If not, the Bruins play in Steel City Oct. 8, their third game of the season. Crosby formally signed his entry-level deal Friday, and bonuses (such as being the first Canadian-born US president) could drive his rookie earnings up to $4 million for the year. His base pay, determined by the CBA, is $850,000 for 2005-06.
Flyers grounded
Not a great start for new Flyers Peter Forsberg and Derian Hatcher, both brought in as UFAs. Forsberg will have surgery tomorrow to clean up an ankle infection, and will miss at least the first two weeks of training camp. The slow but rugged Hatcher wrenched his left knee at the US Olympic camp in Colorado Springs, and initial indications were that he will miss upward of three weeks.
Headaches ahead?
Among the interesting story lines to follow in Bruins camp: the play of star left winger Sergei Samsonov. After watching from the sidelines for much of the lockout, the Magical Muscovite finally signed on with Moscow Dynamo, but headaches -- initially rumored to be concussion-related -- limited him to three games. According to his agent, Neil Abbott, Samsonov's pain was migraine-related. Pain is pain, of course, and a migraine can be as debilitating as a concussion. If there is a recurrence, no matter what the root cause, the impact on Boston's offense could be profound.
Obstructed view
We'll soon see how committed the league is to its zero-tolerance approach to interference and obstruction. With the red line now extinct, and ''hands off" truly the underlying rule of the game, it should be fun again. But 10 years of the trap was a horrible price to pay.
Kevin Paul Dupont's e-mail address is dupont@globe.com; material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report. 
