Good day back in the Cities.

Bad news. Miikka Kiprusoff was in the zone this morning. You would not believe some of the saves he was making. Jarome Iginla had an open-net one-timer from the left circle. Kiprusoff had to be two feet to the left of the far post. Iginla got every ounce of the puck, and Kiprusoff sprawled out of nowhere with his blocker to punch the puck into the netting.

Doug Risebrough and Flames GM Darryl Sutter watched the Flames’ skate together this morning. I’m hearing Dion Phaneuf for Marian Gaborik is imminent.

Wild draft picks Carson McMillan and Cody Almond have been hanging around the Wild practices the past few days. They match up against each other in a massive WHL game between the Calgary Hitmen and Kelowna Rockets tomorrow. McMillan, who will be attending tonight’s Wild-Flames game, plays for Calgary; Almond for Kelowna. Almond won’t be at tonight’s game because the Rockets play at Red Deer tonight.

Brent Burns is feeling A-OK. I don’t know if he was really sick or we were getting bad information because every time he came within a foot of me today, he fake coughed. But he’s in for sure.

Same lineup tonight, Jacques Lemaire says, meaning Colton Gillies and Kurtis Foster out.

I’ve gotten a couple emails on cap hits at the deadline, so I figured I’d give you a quick tutoring.

Want to know how much money your favorite team can add by Wednesday’s trade deadline? Go to nhlnumbers.com to find out how much your team is under the cap (this is not 100 percent accurate, but they do a good job). Then take a player and prorate his salary-cap hit.
�
For example – and this is only an example, if a team wanted Marian Gaborik. His cap hit is 6.33 million. There are 186 days in a season. On March 4, there is 40 days left in the season. So you take 6,333,333 and divide it by 186. You get roughly $34,050. Multiply that by 40, and a team would have to fit $1.362 under the cap to trade for Gaborik.

Since about half the league’s within the ceiling and $2 million under the cap, now you know why it’s so hard to make trades. Plus, remember, all (OK, most) teams have budgets, too, as in real dollars they can spend.

I love the trade deadline. Almost by the hour, I get text messages from players wanting to know some scoops. Same thing in the locker room this morning. One has to wonder if things are brewing in Vancouver. The Canucks picked up Ossi Vaananen off waivers from Philly. I mean, how many defensemen do you need? Mattias Ohlund anyone?

I wrote a Sunday column on the trade deadline, and I’ll be looking more specifically at the Wild for Monday’s paper. Also, I should have a Gaborik story in Sunday’s paper as well. His big physical has been moved up to that day. But maybe my story will be on the brewing Phaneuf-for-Gaborik trade.

What else? An assistant GM for a certain Minnesota team pointed this out to me, want to see parity to the extreme? As of yesterday, in the NHL, four Western Conference teams were tied with 65 points and four Western Conference teams in the AHL were tied with 65 points. Pretty weird, eh?

Good to see the NHL suspend Brendan Witt five games. Check it out online, but what he did to Niklas Hagman last night was beyond dirty.

By the way, tonight’s the night where Nick Schultz donates $100 for every minute he plays to Right to Play (see notebook I wrote last week).

OK, I know that was quick and all over the map. But I must work, and hopefully get to the exercise room for a little bit before I leave for the rink.

Have a good weekend.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 3:06 pm and is filed under Pregame skate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.