If not number one, certainly up there!

Our boy CP is at the game in Montreal here are some snaps:

Before the Game

Tribute to Buds

For the record, Shoalts is one of the daily guys I actually think is pretty good. He is no Lance, but hey, who is?

Anyway, right from the get go in today’s piece about Mats (and I know he didn’t write the headline) he is off base on Mats.

“Time running out for Sundin to climb off the fence”

Here’s a little newsflash. Mats can probably take as long as he wants to get off that fence. Do you think for one second that if he announces on Friday that he is retiring that this is the end of this story. I guarantee you not (Hello Brett Farvre). I am not suggesting he will want to unretire. I am suggesting that there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that he won’t still be mentioned in hockey papers around the NHL as a potential savior for any given team.

“There was supposed to be a meeting yesterday between Sundin and Claes Elefalk, the Sweden-based representative of CAA Sports LLC, the agency that represents him. It was hoped Sundin might indicate which way he was leaning. But J.P. Barry of CAA Sports, Sundin’s chief representative, said the meeting was postponed until today because Sundin was entertaining other visitors at his home near Stockholm.”

There is why Friday is a soft deadline. Neither Barry nor the soon to be Mrs. Sundin is going to move Mats on this one. He is going to get enlightenment from some supreme being that is going to tell him what he wants to do and that is going to happen on Mats’ watch, and no one elses. Ya think for one second Mats told his buddies, don’t come today I have a meeting with my agent about a soft deadline…. Mats is driving this boat.

“Perhaps it is Sundin’s loyalty to the Leafs that is dragging out his decision. If he really can see himself only in blue and white, then he knows his Stanley Cup hopes are dead at 37, given the state of the team.

The decision, then, is whether he wants to be a mentor and elder statesman on an also-ran, or go to one of the contenders that can fit him under that pesky cap.”

Nahhh, I think it’s trying to decide if he wants to a) get his but in shape and go through all the physical rigors of another season and b) if he wants to put him with all the bs of an every day hockey player again..ie dealing with the media and the fans. i truly don’t think for one second this is about where to play, I really don’t think the guy is sure he wants to play.

“In any event, Sundin has to decide soon. A lot of NHL GMs are on vacation right now, but in the next couple of weeks, arbitration decisions on players will start coming in and the GMs will have to finalize their rosters. They simply won’t have time to wait any longer for Sundin’s decision.”

Here is where Shoalt’s goes really astray. The teams that want him will wait. There is no other asset or combination of assets out there that come close to #13. Mats was and is the big FA fish of the season. More importantly, the cash isn’t the driving force in Mats’ life. It is for his agent and for his bride to be, but he has so much cash socked away it is almost irrelevant. I guarantee you he will take a prorated amount if he waits as long as half way through the year. Teams were offering silly packages for Forsberg not knowing if he was healthy enough to play. With the exception of Steve Simmons, no one is questioning Mats’ health. The guy was simply awesome on a horseshit team last year.

The argument the other way is that teams will spend their money elsewhere. Are you suggesting that the night before training camp, Sundin tells JP Barry he wants to go to Montreal, to get a deal done (after saying he doesn’t want to play on or after the passing of the soft deadline) that Gainey doesn’t find a way to get it done? We all know the answer to that and it is the same for most teams. If a guy like Sundin suddenly want to play for you and it doesn’t cost you anything in terms of a trade to get him (I know you may need to dump a guy or three) you move heaven and earth.

So while we all want this to end soon there is no real need for it to end. Even if he says I am done, don’t bet on not hearing about #13 going somewhere again.

Don’t forget to vote in the where is Mats going poll:

Hardly scientific, not even sure its relevance, but a Swedish newspaper this week ran a poll (who doesn’t love a poll right?)

The question was, what should Mats Sundin do:

a. play for the maple leafs
b sign with the rangers
c. retire
d. other
e. play for Montreal

The results are in, if only we had a dry erase board to show them. Anyways, according to the poll, of which 32,000 people responded… a whopping 37% think Mats should sign with the Buds, 27% think he should play with the Rangers, 19% think he should hang em up, 11% think he should other, what ever the hell that means and 6% want him to sign with the Habs.

Could be worse then being a leaf I guess. Sorry Vancouver, your 20m offer isn’t enough to get you anything more then an “other”

Gotta love how the folks at the national post spin the results into this gem:

“It seems Swedish hockey fans think Mats Sundin should play with the Toronto Maple Leafs, or not play at all. More than half of the nearly 32,000 respondents to a poll this week on the Web site of Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet chose one of those two responses.”

I mean, why didn’t they say, 63% of those responding think he should do something other then play for the Maple Leafs? A little starved for a story aren’t we?

Lots to chew on from #13 this am eh?

Mats has “broken his silence” to a Swedish newspaper (we think) I guess Damien, Lance or Steve were all too busy at Woodbine….

here are quotes as reported by TSN:

“I will make a decision in the end of July or beginning of August,” Sundin told the newspaper. “If I am going to play it’s for the full season and I want to be there from the beginning of August.”

“Yes, I know that I have probably screwed a bunch of teams by not making a decision, but hey that is life.”

Sorry, couldn’t help myself with the last one. Seriously though, we aren’t exactly sure which teams for sure he has told keep their respective lines in the water cause he may want to play with them. There are at least 3 that we know of for sure, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. All three have acted in accordance to what they have been told and what they are to believe is their likely status in the Sundin saga (I refuse to call them sweepstakes). Assuming he comes back, he will only sign with one team, thus leaving at least 2 in the lurk. Mats isn’t going to play for chicken feed so, all the teams have set aside Sundin Bucks. Those Sundin Bucks could have been spent in other ways had Big Mats just made up his mind already. By the way a Sundin Buck is worth 2x the value of a Schrute Buck.

Oh well, sounds like the archipelago is balmy this time of year….