It is Gary’s World and the rest of us are just living in it. That’s the takeaway from the NHL’s announcement commissioner Gary Bettman had reconsidered the penalty he had imposed on the Devils regarding the Ilya Kovalchuk circumvention case, and would thus return a first-round draft pick to New Jersey.
This was a thank you from Sixth Avenue to owners Joshua Harris and David Blitzer, who swooped in at the last minute — perhaps responding to the commissioner’s plea — to once and for all provide the remedy to the migraine headache the franchise had become under the ownership of Jeff Vanderbeek.
This was Bettman engaging in the power politics that define his reign and explain his mastery in the Boardroom throughout three lockouts, the last two of which yielded smashing victories for owners of disparate interests with one common bond — the commissioner who either invited them into the league or into its inner circle.
Want an All-Star Game in your city? Vote with me. Want an Entry Draft in your town? Vote with me. Want to recover a first-round pick? Buy this team.
This brings an entire new meaning to the phrase “debt service.”
When, pray tell, will the Devils begin the process of attempting to wrap up Jaromir Jagr, their best player by leaps and bounds, for next season?
“I like it here and I want to stay, but there’s no rush,” Jagr told The Post on Wednesday. “I’ll be here when they want to talk. I know I’m going to play in the NHL. I’m going to play in the NHL for as long as I can.
“I love it,” said No. 68. “What else am I going to do, get fat?”
The 2014-15 cap is expected to be fall in the range of $68 million to $71 million, several sources have told The Post, the final calculations prior to July 1 hinging on various factors, most prominently including the value of the Canadian dollar; whether or not to include the new Canadian TV contract in this year’s revenue; and whether to tack on the five-percent growth-factor escalator.
So Flames general manager Brian Burke was unable to trade pending free agent Mike Cammalleri, but it was the Islanders’ Garth Snow who became an international punching bag on all the Wednesday trade-deadline TV shows across Canada for his failure to strike gold for rental agent Thomas Vanek.
The original deal in which Snow acquired Vanek for Matt Moulson and a couple of draft picks represented a worthwhile gamble, but did not address the team’s fundamental flaws on defense and in goal that ultimately became the iceberg that would sink the perpetual Shipwreck Franchise.
And who, as Snow might want to know under different circumstances, is going to reimburse the Islanders’ season ticket-holders for that?
Look, it wasn’t the eminently reasonable request for a no-trade clause that doomed Ryan Callahan’s future as a Ranger. It wasn’t that at all, for by the time that became a point of discussion, the ship had already set sail for Tampa Bay.
Even a day before the deadline, league general managers were beyond skeptical GM Glen Sather actually would trade Callahan. Maybe that’s why an auction never developed for the former captain and why Sather had only two credible offers, the one from the Lightning and one from the Sharks that contained an only mildly appetizing helping of futures.
The Post has learned Anton Stralman rejected the Rangers’ offer prior to the Olympics for an extension believed in the three-year, $9 million range, which is somewhat shocking. The Blueshirts, who have righty Kevin Klein on the third pair at $2.9 million, will take another go at it after the season. If they succeed in extending Stralman, that would seem to throw a detour into Dylan McIlrath’s path to Broadway.
The night of Martin Brodeur’s (not) final start as a Devil, no one at The Rock was less sentimental than the man of the hour himself, who continues to live in the present and wants to have a future, while everyone else was pigeon-holing him in the past.
So if Sean Avery dances with the (other) stars with a jingle in his step, maybe that will represent the sound of the approximately $100,000 worth of coinage he just won in a grievance against the Rangers and NHL dating back to a 2011-12 suspension while in exile in Hartford.
Complete dysfunction in Vancouver, where the owner who was essentially responsible for hiring John Tortorella as head coach inserted himself into trade deadline personnel decisions, refusing to authorize GM Mike Gillis to trade Ryan Kesler, who had asked out.
No, this isn’t routine and yes, it is only a matter of time before Gillis asks, or is asked, out.