Mats Sundin seriously signed with Vancouver??!

Oh don't tell me you're not thinking it. Everyone thought he'd go with New York!

So, ok, Mats will take $10 mill next year... How is that going to effect the signings of the Sedins and Ohlund? Well, I never had much faith that the Sedins were going to get re-signed, unfortunately. I had more faith that Ohlund would be but there's so much talk of him being involved as trade bait, it can't all be coming from nothing. I wonder if JP Barry's clients are miffed at some of his other clients' contracts.

EDIT: See? Kuzma's put some thought to this too. Here's a snippet of his article.

"We're not making any progress," said Barry. "We're trying to talk about the league in general and the difficulty here is that we're talking about two players, not one.

The thought of giving up a no-trade clause bid won't wash with the twins.

"That's almost a non-starter for these guys," added Barry. "They've been pretty clear about that since the day they entered the league."

Meanwhile, extending Ohlund might also be a slippery slope. At 32, he's not considered old, but Gillis is loathe to extend older players to multi-year deals. But Ohlund, who is earning $3.5 million in the final year of his deal, could command up to $5 million on the open market.

"You see high-calibre defencemen playing into their late 30s," said Barry. "We're not looking at a seven or eight-year deal. Mattias is probably looking at a four- or five-year deal."