Barry on the Sedins.. and Ohlund

Sedins staying put on trade day Jim Jamieson:

The agent for Daniel and Henrik Sedin said Monday that he doesn't believe there's much chance his clients could be moved in a pre-NHL trade-deadline deal and that negotiations with the Vancouver Canucks are hinging on a contract term both sides can agree on.

Both Daniel and Henrik are on track to become unrestricted free agents on July 1, but want to re-sign and would like to finish their careers in Vancouver. Both are completing contracts that pay $3.575 million US per season.

Calgary-based agent J.P. Barry of CAA Sports said that Wednesday afternoon trade deadline doesn't represent a pressure point for Canucks management to either have a deal done or make a trade to avoid the prospect of losing the twins to another team for nothing in the summer.

"I never really anticipated a chance of a trade, quite frankly," said Barry. "In this situation, it's more about us finding a common ground. I'm sure that will probably continue after the trade deadline.

"I get the sense from both sides that there is a willingness from both sides to make something happen. It's just a matter of taking the time to understand the landscape in front of us and come to a deal that's mutually acceptable."

Barry said he has had some discussions in recent weeks regarding the Sedins, but classified them as "basic."

"It's an ongoing dialogue about the economy, the salary cap, what the world's going to look like, what it takes to make up a team, but no progress about the actual contract negotiations," said Barry.

Barry said a successful deal with hinge on term, with the value of the contract driven by that.

"All the discussions today have been on longer-term deals, in the range of three-four-five (years)," he said. "From our end, it's more toward the five-year range. A longer term deal could equal one (salary) value (per season) and a shorter-term deal could equal another, but we haven't come to any agreement on a term yet."

Henrik said he and Daniel are seeking a deal longer than three years.

"We want to play our whole careers here and we're going to play longer than three more years," he said.

Barry said no talks were presently scheduled for the Sedins or defenceman Mattias Ohlund, also due to become an unrestricted free agent.

Barry said Canucks management wants to wait until the end of the season to see how "Mattias is playing, how the rest of the defence is playing and whether or not they make any changes" before talking further about Ohlund.

and now a little love for Henrik and Daniel Sedin

These Sedins never get any of my attention. Now that they're the main scoring line, however, they sure have the attention of other teams' main defence. The 'cycle' has not been able to flourish this year because they've been so well-checked. Hopefully the addition of Mats Sundin will ease the opposition attention on the Sedins so that the cycle may flow freely once again.

I'd like to take the time to praise them for being so resilient, talented, hard working, and blessed with high endurance.

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."

Henrik Sedin and Mattias Ohlund

Man, I don't think I have problems telling the Sedins apart when they're together but when they're apart, it's a little harder.. Here's a great photo by Jeff Vinnick of a Sedin and Mattias Ohlund during the father/son road trip (apparently neither the Sedins nor Ohlund had a family member present). During my search as to visual clues to tell the difference, I found this 2006 article by ESPN's David Amber which had some pretty funny quotes.

Q: Last season, you played with Anson Carter on a line affectionately called "The Brothers Line." How did he influence you on and off the ice?

Daniel: He helped keep us focused. He told us to have fun, but he was also really prepared, he would always watch loads of tape before games, working on the power play and things like that.

Henrik: Off the ice, he tried to get us into hip-hop music and things like that. We tried to do our hair in dreadlocks like his, but it didn't work out [laughs].

Edit: I was pretty sure it was Henrik and now I'm EVEN MORE pretty sure. hahahaha.

A dose of early Sedins

So their 'dancing Swedish twins' commercial apparently wasn't their first foray into commercials.. Here is a Swedish commercial that they did during their MoDo days (pre 2000).