Here's how ridiculous things have gotten. They offer Keith Primeau 4 figging million per year for 5 yrs and he turns it down because it eats into one year of his restricted free agent eligability. Give your head a shake man.
For four million per year you can put me in a tutu and call me Sheila for heaven's sake.
Here's the part that makes me laugh. <<Otherwise, he will have to wait four years until his free agency expires to be signed by another team.
Reynolds said waiting four years is possible, but Primeau would rather be playing for another team.>>
Your dreaming Keith if you think for a minute you'd be worth 4mil four yrs from now. Your no Wayne Gretzky.
Primeau through in Carolina?
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - All-star Keith Primeau will be skating again, but
not for the Carolina Hurricanes. Instead of waiting to be traded or for a break in contract negotiations, Primeau will leave the NHL and join the Canadian national team, his agent said Tuesday.
Primeau, the 27-year-old former team captain who played in Hartford,
Conn., before the team moved to North Carolina, became a restricted free agent this summer.
Contract negotiations stalled after Primeau decided to not take an offer to stay with Carolina the next two years for $6 million. He has not played with the team this season.
''They said the only way Keith will play for us is if he plays at $3 million and we are not trading Keith Primeau, so he can sit at home all year,''
Primeau's agent, Todd Reynolds, said in a telephone interview from
Toronto. ''If he's going to do that, then he has to start playing hockey, and that's why he's going to be joining the national team.''
Carolina general manager Jim Rutherford believes the offers have been
fair.
''They've played a risky game when you withhold your services,''
Rutherford said. ''What they hope for is we're going to change our position, but we've made it clear all along that we're not going to.
''We have a business to run here, and we've set what we think what Keith Primeau is worth to our franchise, and there is nobody else in the league that has told me what we should be paying him.''
Reynolds said Primeau's playing for the national team isn't intended to force Carolina to trade him. ''The point is to stay in game shape, and it doesn't benefit anyone for Keith to play for the national team - really, except for himself,'' he said. Primeau probably will join the Canadian team in a week at no salary, Reynolds said. The national team, which competes in international events such as the Olympics and World Championships, is now playing in England.
Primeau and his family will move to Calgary, Alberta, where the national team is based.
Reynolds said the Canadian team extended Primeau an open invitation
about a month ago, and Primeau joined it to stay in shape while awaiting contract developments.
''He can play for the national team for a day, for a month or for a whole year,'' Reynolds said. ''He would rather play for an NHL team, of course.''
Under the rules for a restricted free agent, Primeau would have to be
traded by Carolina or signed to an offer sheet to play for another NHL
team this season. Otherwise, he will have to wait four years until his free agency expires to be signed by another team.
Reynolds said waiting four years is possible, but Primeau would rather be playing for another team.
''He wants to play,'' Reynolds said. ''He wants to get a fresh team and a team that is willing to pay what he is worth.''
Rutherford has said that if Primeau signs an offer sheet with another NHL team, the team would match it. But Primeau has received no offer sheet since becoming a restricted free agent July 1.
Primeau rejected a five-year, $20 million offer this past summer because the deal would have taken him one year past when he could be
unrestricted. Then he turned down a two-year, $7 million deal.
When he rejected that offer, the Hurricanes stripped him of his team
captaincy and reduced the offer to two years for $6 million.
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