On Campbell, Hossa, Sundin, and Other, Former Mistakes...

The Rangers would be in a terrible position if they decided to throw $8M a year at Marian Hossa or Brian Campbell (or Mats Sundin, for that matter). Yes, they are all good players, but that's a lot of money. Remember when Eric Lindros made $8M, and Bobby Holik made $9M? The Rangers were a bunch of expensive, overpaid, underachieving, non-performing jokes.

The Salary Cap Era was supposed to change that. Payroll got cut from over 80 million dollars a year in 2003-04 to less than half of that in 2005-06. Ticket prices went down 10%, roughly $4-$16 a ticket depending on how rich you are, but not because of the work stoppage, but because they didn't make the playoffs for the 7th straight season.

I don't need to run this down for you. You know how bad things were in NY. Hockey was off the radar because both teams were ridiculous.

So, the Cap Era is ushered in, the Rangers restock their farm system, build a Czech-centric team around Jaromir Jagr, and have a dream season, followed by 2 more seasons of making the playoffs.

Now, if all the rumor-mongers are to be believed - and by no means am I saying this is true, but you can see it all playing out, can't you? - GM Glen Sather will be making pitches to any of these 3 players.

Hossa has averaged a point per game in his career 4 times (including once when he had 80 points in 80 games). Last season, he had 66 points in 72 games. Jason Arnott and Ales Hemsky were on the same pace. Yet, if someone offered Arnott $8M a year, he would be put in an asylum. Hossa is 29, no doubt looking for atleast 6 years. He will be an expensive cap hit when he's putting up 25 points a year at age 35.

You should also ask Carlos Beltran, Stephon Marbury, Dwayne Wade, and Lindros about how that old adage goes. Something about phoning it in when a player already has his big guaranteed paycheck.

Campbell is a good defenseman with a nice scoring touch. Lucky for him that Dan Boyle re-signed with Tampa Bay in February, so he is the only one of his kind on the free agent market, making him a very rich man automatically. Yes, Buffalo could have had him at $5M/year last summer, but they rejected his offer, and now someone is going to offer him (along with his 8 goals last season) a huge contract in both length and cash.

New York used to overpay for defensemen with marginal-at-best talent, or have we forgotten Stephane Quintal, Bruce Driver, Mathieu Schenider, Ulf Samuelsson, Vladimir Malakhov, and Boris Mironov. It was because of these players like people like Sergei Zubov, Mattias Norstrom, and Marek Zidlicky, all once drafted by the Rangers, were shipped off.

Sign Campbell, have him stick around, and Sather will wind up trading Mike Del Zotto, Mike Sauer, or Bobby Sanguenetti for a 2nd round pick in 2 years.

And yes, Sundin is a good player as well (and in the 90s he was amazing), but when the team is trying to get younger, does it pay to sign an expensive center when we already have 4 solid centers? (Yes, I consider Blair Betts "solid", considering his role as a 4th line center and an exceptional penalty killer at a very reasonable price.)

Need I remind you how bad hockey was in these parts when Oleg Kvasha and Alexandre Daigle were marquee names?

* * *

With Ryan Malone off the market, the Rangers best moves are to send offer sheets to Corey Perry, a young RW, and Jay Bouwmeester, whose name is fun to spell. Brooks Orpik, whose stock rose with one shift in Game 3 of the Finals, wouldn't be bad, although I am still bitter of him breaking Erik Cole's neck. Mark Streit and Ron Hainsey would be good choices if the price is right. Wade Redden was bad at 31. How awful is he going to be at 35?