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Thursday, December 30, 1999
Yashin has company
Primeau holdout equally bitter
MONTREAL -- Like Alexei Yashin, the chances of Carolina Hurricanes centre Keith Primeau playing in the NHL this season have been placed on the critical list.
And in both situations, the actions speak louder than words. Clearly, the NHL is putting down the hammer and this is its way of fighting the ever-rising costs of doing business.
"In my view, it's (the NHL's) attempt to impose a salary cap," said Primeau's agent, Don Reynolds, yesterday from Toronto. "I don't know what else it could be because we've been close with deals with three teams and then we've had them pulled off the table at the last minute."
While the two situations -- Yashin is a holdout with a year left on his contract and Primeau is a restricted free agent -- aren't the same, both find themselves sitting in a similar spot as the season nears the halfway point.
Instead of trying to resolve the situations, Yashin and Primeau have both been told by their respective teams that they won't be welcomed back for the rest of the season and there's not a chance they'll be traded.
Yashin was slapped with his suspension by the Senators on Nov. 8 after he refused to honour the final year of his $3.6-million US deal, while Primeau's deadline passed at midnight Tuesday with no resolution on a deal.
Seeking a four-year, $17-million US contract from the Hurricanes, Primeau -- one of the league's top centres last season -- is determined to get what he wants before he returns to any NHL lineup.
"This really surprised me. I really just find this whole situation has taken some strange twists," said Reynolds. "In Keith's case, I can tell you that I was talking with the GM of another team just before the deadline and we were pretty close to getting a deal done.
"I was going to the Detroit-Buffalo game (Tuesday night) and I thought things were just about to be finished. I spoke with the GM and told me to call him on the way home. I did and he told me that (Carolina GM) Jim Rutherford had been told to pull the trade off the table by the owner, Peter Karmanos.
"I really felt like this time we were going to get a deal done and, I'm not at liberty to say which team I was speaking with, but I would imagine this would have been a pretty big trade for them."
As a restricted free agent, Primeau doesn't have much leverage because even if he does sign an offer sheet with another team, Rutherford and Karmanos have made it clear they will match any contract he gets.
At one point during the dispute, Karmanos even suggested that he would have to approve any new deal that Primeau signed with another team just to make sure that it was within reason.
That kind of thinking smacks of collusion.
"I had about 30 phone messages when I got in the office today and one of them was from a guy from the Federal Competition Bureau and he was saying something about collusion," said Reynolds.
"I'm not exactly sure what he was looking for and he said he would phone after the holidays, but if the Federal Competition Bureau is really looking at collusion, this could be pretty serious stuff."
Unless he reports to force the issue, Yashin won't have his case settled until he goes face-to-face with an NHL arbitrator next June to find out if he'll owe the Senators the final year of his contract.
In Primeau's case, his only right is to wait for the best offer. But it's doubtful he'll get one, because teams like Los Angeles, Philadelphia and the New York Rangers are being told to hold the line on restricted free agents.
"I'm still optimistic that something is going to get done in our case," said Reynolds. "I've seen these deadlines come and go before. To me, it seems like there's always a new one that comes along."
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