Hockey world waits for Sundin

Mats Sundin will surely laugh all the way to the bank if teams are willing to pay players like Jeff Finger $14 million for four years. Reuters

For the past 10 days or so, the hockey world has been like a couple of guys sitting on a park bench, basically doing nothing except chatting about an invisible fellow named Mats Sundin. He is the Scandinavian Godot, except there is the possibility that he will actually show up, oh, any day now.

The NHL's free-agent period opened at noon EDT on Tuesday, but Sundin operates on EST -- Esoteric Sundin Time. He refused to be rushed into signing with the Montreal Canadiens, who prior to the NHL draft acquired exclusive negotiating rights from Toronto to sign Sundin until the free-agency period. Even now, despite a market that has too many dollars chasing too few quality free agents, he shows no sign of rushing into anything.

Assuming he chooses to return to the NHL -- after 78 points in 74 games last season, retirement certainly seems premature -- Sundin can be picky about his future in terms of length and money.

In the days leading to the start of free agency, the prevailing theory was any dawdling by Sundin, a guy who puts the pro in procrastinator, might cause the money to dry up. With teams filling their free-agent shopping carts, the thinking went, Sundin may have to settle for a little less if he decided to play in the NHL.

Wrong.

While there might be some overlap in teams chasing the only two impact forwards available -- Sundin and Marian Hossa -- pent-up demand and six-million-plus bump in the salary cap for 2008-09 has created a seller's market that is mildly frightening.

When the Chicago Blackhawks give goalie Cristobal Huet an average of $5.635 million for four years -- Huet might be a tremendous teammate, but he is a 45-game-a-year goalie who is not known as a pressure performer -- or Toronto pays gritty but lugubrious-skating defenseman Jeff Finger $14 million for four years even though Finger was borderline in Colorado's top six after the Avalanche's deadline deals for Adam Foote and Ruslan Salei last season, the hockey world has spun off its axis.

Prior to trading Sundin's rights to Montreal -- the Leafs get nothing because the Canadiens failed to sign him before July 1 -- interim general manager Cliff Fletcher was ready to pay $7 million for one year. That offer now looks as quaint as a Commodore 64. Mike Gillis, the Vancouver Canucks new GM, was willing to go $20 million for two years, a premium for a team that bumbled its window for a legitimate Stanley Cup run, at least in part, because of the lack of a No. 1 center.

Sundin, 37, might be a fit in Vancouver with its Swede-heavy team (including core players such as Henrik and Daniel Sedin and Mattias Ohlund), but if his goal is a run at a Stanley Cup as something other than a rental player, he would be better off with the champion Detroit Red Wings, America's and Sweden's hockey team.

The Red Wings re-signed defenseman Brad Stuart, a second-pair defenseman for four years, but they have ample cap room in 2008-09 before they have to pay serious money to Conn Smythe Trophy-winner Henrik Zetterberg. The curious thing: Sundin does not have an especially close relationship with many of his countrymen. He is a give-it-all guy who plays for the team. That's it. He is an equal-opportunity enigma in that way.

Sundin can now sit back and ponder his future, knowing the free-agent market will not shrivel enough to have much of an impact on him. And as fellow high-end free agents like Hossa and defenseman Brian Campbell sort out their futures, Sundin, when the mood and his biological clock strike, will make his choice.

We'll all know when that papal puff of white smoke starts drifting over from Stockholm.