Glen Sather (L) and Darryl Sutter.

BY MARK SPECTOR
sportsnet.ca

LOS ANGELES - As the draft passed with only one significant trade accomplished - Keith Ballard to Vancouver from Florida - Calgary GM Darryl Sutter laughed.

“The only splash I would have made is off the surf board,” he said. “No really. There’s not much happening here.”

Sutter drafted six players, including Paul Reinhart’s son Maxwell and Rob Ramage’s boy John. He is still looking for that elusive centreman for Jarome Iginla, but look at the market. Jason Spezza makes $7 million, and Marc Savard has a no-trade clause in Boston.

“We’re a good team, and we’re one player away from being a top team,” Sutter said post-draft. “I don’t know too many great players that are for sale. If you want a great player, you have to trade a great player. And we’re not trading either one of those two guys (Iginla or Miikka Kiprusoff).”

Floored by the Ceiling

There are more and more teams that pay no attention whatsoever to the salary cap. Ask a few GMs how many clubs are working under their own budget restraints, with payroll set by the company accountant, and you get estimates all over the map?

“Maybe 15?” figured Mike Gillis.

“Between 20 and 25?” offered Sutter.

St. Louis is under orders from ownership to keep the payroll low. They’ve got to make the $43.4 million cap floor, but that’s it.

In Anaheim, word is they won’t be spending the $6 million that was being paid to Scott Niedermayer before he retired.

“We don’t want to have happen what happened to us a few years ago,” said Ducks GM Bob Murray. “Where you wake up ever day and say, ‘Oh my God, if a goalie gets hurt, we’re really going to be in trouble.’ We’re not going to get there again. Budgets, we’re going to watch much closer.”

And on July 1, will Murray be out to land a replacement for his retiring captain?

“We’ll sit and watch for a little while,” he said.

Canuck Luck

You can’t blame Mike Gillis for not getting enough done here He was one of very few GMs to even engineer a trade of any magnitude, getting Keith Ballard while giving up Michael Grabner and Steve Bernier.

Now, he’s still got some work to do on his lineup if they’re going to catch Chicago — or not get caught in the West by a great looking Kings team that looks ready to make a splash in free agency.

“As it sits right now, we’re going to go through free agency and build our team in the summer,” said Gillis. “I thought there would be more trades, but there wasn’t. I’m happy we were a team that was able to make one.”

What happened?

What happened to all the trades go that we expected this weekend?

“I think the biggest influence is the (cap) floor, going up and up and up teams are looking at internal budgets a lot more closely,” he said. “That’s why there is so little player movement. You have to basically match dollar for dollar, and it’s really difficult to do.”

Brian Burke figures the rich teams are keeping the poor ones around on July 1, because of revenue sharing.

“I think lot of teams are in the card game now competing that wouldn’t be without significant revenue sharing,” he said. “A lot of smaller market teams are getting massive infusions of cash out of this system, and all of the sudden they’re into the bidding on July 1.”

Said Blues president John Davidson, “Four years ago when we got the Blues, the cap was at $39 million. Now it’s going to be almost $60 million.

“Everyone picks a number from their internal business, and that’s their number. You have to adhere to it, or your owner is very unhappy. And you don’t want them unhappy.”

Draft Stats

There were 210 players taken in the 2010 draft — 99 Canadians and 59 Americans. One player each went from Latvia, Denmark and Norway. The WHL had 43 kids taken, the OHL 42, the QMJHL 22.

By position: 68 defencemen; 42 centres; 37 right wingers and 31 left wingers. There were 21 goalies, or exactly 10 percent of players.

Florida took home the most players at 13, Ottawa the least, with just four. The Sens traded for St. Louis’ first-rounder from last year remember, David Rundblad.