Sports

Turning lockout’s key

David Clarkson, Ryane Clowe and even Vincent Lecavalier were anomalies on the free-agent market this summer. The 9.16-percent reduction in the cap from $70.2 million to $64.3 million won by the league via the owners’ third lockout served its purpose.

Teams with money didn’t have the space, while the teams with space aren’t the ones who traditionally spend big money. Thus, despite eye-popping cumulative numbers — incorrectly interpreted as a sign nothing had changed and the lockout was meaningless — the market became stagnant very quickly.

So people like Mikhail Grabovski, Ron Hainsey, Nik Antropov, Brad Boyes, Dan Cleary, Colby Armstrong, Chuck Kobasew, Filip Kuba, Ian White, Tom Gilbert, Ryan Whitney and yes, Scott Gomez, remain unsigned.

The questions are: a) how many of these veterans will accept one-year deals at significantly reduced rates in order to reestablish their value next summer, when the cap is expected to increase; and, b) when will these players grab the few remaining chairs before the music stops?

There still are approximately seven weeks until training camps open, still time for these players to negotiate deals. But unless they are willing to sign for Entry Level-like compensation, they may be out a while.

The NHL not only is a younger man’s league, it is a league in which teams are loading up with as many younger men’s contracts as possible — even more so this season with the availability of the Entry Level bonus cushion.

It’s just past the middle of July and nearly half the league is squeezed. It’s bargain-hunting time, if teams are hunting at all.

The cap is down, escrow is up, and the owners are protected at 50-50 regardless of the July 5 splash. What was the point of the lockout?

Asked and answered.

* The Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee got it right this year with the elections of Fred Shero, Chris Chelios, Scott Niedermayer, Brendan Shanahan and Geraldine Heaney, no arguments there, but its men’s division is evolving into an NHL-centric institution rather than a place for the best in the world.

No one who made his name outside North America has been elected since 2008 when Igor Larionov, who won three Stanley Cups with Detroit after establishing his brilliance in the Soviet Union, was accorded entry.

Indeed, there are just four players of international heritage — Larionov, Slava Fetisov (who won two Cups with the Red Wings), Valeri Kharlamov and Vladislav Tretiak — who have been inducted into the “Hockey Hall of Fame.”

Kind of near-sighted, no?

Anders Hedberg, whose scintillating careers in Sweden and the WHA preceded his creditable seven-year run on Broadway, is worthy of induction.

So is Alexei Kasatonov, Fetisov’s longtime Red Army and Devils partner on defense, and so is Sergei Makarov — the “M” to Larionov’s “L” on the Soviet’s KLM Line — who was a formidable player for the Flames when he came to the NHL late in his hockey life.

The hockey world is expanding every day. If the Hall of Fame expects respect outside North America, the selection committee cannot shrink-wrap the vote.

* More on the Hall of Fame: Ten of the top 12 goaltenders in games played during the Original Six Era (1942-43 through 1966-67) are in the Hall while just five of the top 39 goalies in games played since have been elected.

Dominik Hasek (next year) and Martin Brodeur (TBD) will add two to the latter list, but seriously, was Johnny Bower, four Cups and all, honestly a better goaltender than, say, Curtis Joseph?

Clearly it was a different world. Shooters had a difficult time lifting the puck. Goaltenders played bare-faced and with equipment barely discernible from that of their teammates. Courage likely was the greatest attribute of the Original Six netminders.

Just one look at the Stanley Cup Films from the ’50s now playing on the NHL Network and a gander at the shots that beat the greatest ever — including Terry Sawchuk and Jacques Plante — are enough to produce skepticism about the mythology of the position.

But mythology that we’re all eager to embrace is largely what the Original Six Era is about, isn’t it?

* Representatives from all corners of the league — including medical trainers, equipment managers, surgeons, physicians specializing in concussions, hands and wrists, a GM, a coach, a player, and NHLPA personnel — convened in New York on Wednesday and Thursday to deal with the NHL’s equipment issue.

The objective is to turn back the clock to the days not so long ago when equipment such as shoulder and elbow pads served as protection against injury rather than body armor that can inflict injury.

“Positive first steps but nothing headline worthy,” Shanahan, the league’s VP of Player Safety, told Slap Shots. “The key will be follow up.”

Finally, Clarkson wants to be like his idol Wendel Clark so badly, he’s going to sucker-punch Fetisov the first time they meet in Toronto.

larry.brooks@nypost.com