With Joe Sakic now signed in Colorado, Mats Sundin may actually end up being the bigger story — at least up here where three Canadian hockey teams and thousands of Canadian hockey fans await the verdict on his future.
Last year it was Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne blazing the trail for aging NHLers when they put the pro in pro-rated, playing half a season for the Anaheim Ducks. Brian Burke says it was a bad idea and that he’ll never let it happen again.
But there are a whole host of bad ideas that were proven to be just that many times before NHL general managers clued into just how terrible the plans were in the first place. (See: Bobby Holik, Jose Theodore, and Peter Forsberg).
Let’s just say the novel idea of the new “senior citizen season” will get a lot more popular before it runs its course.
Selanne scored 12 goals in 26 games last year, and Niedermeyer had 25 points in 48 games, so if it was a bad idea, then it could have been a lot worse. At the very least, it’s an idea that begs to be utilized again, somewhere. Just not under Burke’s watch, and he’s not interested in No. 13 anyway.
Which brings us back to Mats.
His agent says he will have a decision before training camp. But who’s to say it will be to play a full season? Keep in mind that Mats has probably changed his mind more often than he’s changed his shorts this summer.
If he hadn’t he would have made a decision long before now, meaning the chances are good that he’ll change his mind again, even if he’s previously ruled out the idea of a pro-rated season.
If Sundin wants to return to address the unfinished business of winning a Stanley Cup, it makes sense for him to hedge his bet by holding off as long as possible to see who the real contenders are, even if that means returning mid-season.
But will there still be a taker by then? If there are five teams in the running for his services right now, the chances are extremely good that at least one of them will say to him, ‘We’ve got your number, we’ll talk again in December.’
The odds of this happening are even better if that team is on the bubble.
Why on earth would Sundin gamble in October that the Philadelphia Flyers are going to the Cup next June? Take the five teams in the running right now – Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Philadelphia, and New York.
What are the chances that the season won’t be going according to plan for at least two of these teams by January?
And what if Vesa Toskala turns into Roberto Luongo and rescues the Leafs from certain obscurity?
It’s happened before.