Bye Bye Gabby

Marian Gaborik's contract is up at the end of the season. In case that means nothing to you, the Slovak Sensation is the leading scorer in Wild history and has been on the team since the first game in 2000. He's the star.

But if the Minnesota Wild organization is to be believed, the Slovak Sensation really doesn't want to play with the Wild anymore. And I tend to believe them. Apparently he's had enough of the State of Hockey.

According to the Wild GM Doug Risebrough via the Strib:

The Wild has indicated it's offering Gaborik a long-term contract in line with the highest-paid players in the NHL

What this means is that the Wild have most likely offered Gaborik a five to eight year deal worth somewhere in the ballpark of $8.5 million a year. And he's turned it down.

Now, Gabby is an amazing player, in the upper echelon among NHL athletes, but he is not worth quite that much money. Since Gaborik has missed 73 games in the last four seasons due to injury (and is already sidelined with an unspecified injury two games into this season), any other team in the NHL should be wary of signing him for $9 million a year. At that salary, the team would be wasting $109,700 per missed game. And since Gaborik has only been averaging about 68 games a season since he joined the NHL, at even $109,700 a game, he should only be making about $7.5 million a year.

So it boils down to a couple options:
A) Gaborik doesn't want to play in Minnesota and wants to go to a Stanley Cup contender
B) Gaborik just has an ego problem and thinks he's worth more than he is
or C) Gaborik's agent, Ron Salcer, is a completely unrealistic bastard

The Wild should be taking some blame here. Losing many of your best players from last year (Rolston, Demitra, Voros, etc, etc) certainly doesn't make your star player want to stick around. Brilliant move there, Risebrough.

No matter who's to blame, the Wild need to act fast. If they can't hammer out this deal (and since talks have stopped, that looks improbable) they need to trade Gaborik quick to get something good out of it. If the Wild wait until the trade deadline or until Gaborik gets hurt again, they going to get completely ass-fucked on a deal.

And don't trade him to Vancouver...

Oh The Irony

I'm currently watching game 3 of the NLCS. After both the Dodgers and Phillies brushed back batters, the benches cleared and a brawl nearly broke out. During the ensuing commercial break, the MLB played a commercial depicting two Little League teams wearing Dodger and Phillies uniforms shaking hands saying "Good game." I think they were showing how baseball players are good sports. Somehow, I don't think that's actually going to happen at the end of this game. Or if it does, it might end up like this:

Let's Play Hockey

The time between June and October should be a happy time - summer has arrived, school is out, and the lookin' is good down at Lake Calhoun. But I often find myself with a hole in my heart, longing for something more. A sheet of ice with 10 dudes kicking the shit out of each other. Thank god that hole in my heart is filled again. The NHL started up the regular season on Thursday and the Wild played their first game on Friday against the Bruins. The Wild looked pretty rusty the first period of play, but gelled the rest of the game. Though they lost a lot of amazing players, there's some good young talent that will problaby need some time to develop, but I think eventually they'll be pretty damn good.

Now the only problem is that I have to wait another 2 months to actually play hockey myself.

The goal chant is cool, but it gets old the 4th time in a row within 30 seconds...

Bathroom Talk

How every men's bathroom should be...
Two sports sections and two business sections - a good half-hour of "me time."