(updated: Gaborik unavailable tonight. Jumped on Glen Sather conference call, quotes below) 

 TSN is reporting Marian Gaborik has signed a five-year deal with the New York Rangers worth $5.75 million per.

If healthy, absolute bargain for one of the game’s great scorers, one who lit up the Rangers two seasons ago for five goals. Put this in perspective. He made $7.5 million last year with the Wild (17 games played), and averaged $6.33 million the past three years.

MAJOR CORRECTION: TSN NOW REPORTS $7.5 MILLION PER…MAKES A LOT MORE SENSE

I think my source was dead-on of Salcer’s 10 year, $75 million asking price, eh? Same contract, just cut in half.

I’d still give Slats Exec of the Year. Gets Higgins and McDonagh for Gomez, and now Gaborik. Like I said, it all depends on Gaborik’s health, but Gaborik is confident the two hip surgeries solves his years of abdominal problems.

Brian Gionta’s signed with Montreal…

Martin Havlat, Alex Kovalev, Alex Tanguay, Nik Antropov, Saku Koivu left. Ales Kotalik probably on the tier right after that (four 20-goal seasons) and Mikael Samuelsson. Ruslan Fedotenko, I put, in a different category because he’s got skill, but not as big a finisher but a proven winner.

But there’s a lot of pressure to get Havlat done if you’re the Wild now.

Sather on Gaborik:

“[Heatley] didn’t fall apart. It was a complicated scenario that we were dealing with. We needed to have more than one ball in the air. I had a pretty good idea he was interested in coming to New York. It took us a very long time to get a deal done, and I’m very happy to get him signed. … We accepted the deal on our terms.”

“Gaborik was the guy we had targeted from the beginning.”

“He scored 13 goals in 17 games. His health was fine. We don’t expect he’ll have any problems.”

“He had a point a game under Jacques Lemaire. It’ll be very interesting to see what he can do under a John Tortorella system. We’re going to have an up-tempo, speed game, and this guy fits the bill to a T.”

I thought this was up, but now I see it isn’t.

The Wild has signed Nashville defenseman Greg Zanon to a three-year, $5.8 million deal. Zanon, formerly of Nebraska-Omaha.

The 29-year-old played all 82 games last season and was third with 237 blocked shots. Good fit as a fifth-sixth D. Wild still needs another D — and I’d say, a scorer and No. 2 center.

Zanon’s wife is from Hastings. He said he’s learned the defensive game from Todd Richards when he coached him in Milwaukee.

I’m told from inside the Wild that Chuck Fletcher is still working on a number of things. I know for a fact from outside the Wild that he is still very much in on Martin Havlat.

And as far as Marian Gaborik, I am told by an NHL source that agent Ron Salcer was calling teams seeking a 10-year, $75 million deal. 

Gaborik turned down $78.5 million deal from the Wild last fall. Marian Hossa just signed a 12-year deal worth $5.2 million a season.

I think the market’s changed.

4:30 p.m. update: Sportsnet is reporting Mike Cammalleri has signed a five-year, $6 million deal with the Canadiens. If true, Marian Gaborik and Martin Havlat are the two best forwards left on the board, followed by the next wrung of Alexei Kovalev, Alex Tanguay, Brian Gionta, Saku Koivu and Nik Antropov.

Is I’ve alluded to the past week, I’ve long suspected Martin Havlat would be the guy the Wild would target. Now of the upper-echelon guys, he’s the only one left other than Gaborik.

Plenty of Dmen still available, including Francois Beauchemin, Rob Scuderi and Mike Komisarek.

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Ladies and gents, patience, patience. This is how it works. Very few agents sign their guy to the first team that calls (minus Mattias Ohlund, apparently). Agents build a list, accept offers, go to their clients, go over the offers, go over the pros and cons of each team, where the player fits and then goes back to the teams and usually works one against each other.

They create bidding wars. This takes time, especially when the pool is so thin and the same teams are going after the same players.

There’s a reason why Marian Hossa is the only one of the elite forwards to sign so far.

Just because the Wild hasn’t signed anybody yet doesn’t mean they won’t the rest of the day or in subsequent days (Wild signed Johnsson, Parrish and Carney at about 8 p.m. on July 1, 2006). Last year’s news was early because I got wind very early that the Wild traded for Marek Zidlicky.

But as for free agents, usually in the afternoons of July 1, it’s hard to get a ton of info because both sides — the agent and the team — are busy chatting with each other. So that’s why it’s so quiet. That’s why I tried to do as much reporting as possible before July 1. In today’s paper, I informed you of the players I either know or think the Wild’s pursuing. I know on Havlat, Fedotenko, Saku Koivu and Scuderi.

We’ll see if they get any of those guys done.

Also, just an fyi, I’m not convinced Koivu will decide on his team today. Mikko made it sound to me like Saku will take his offers and go over them very carefully with his family.

Also, on Gaborik, I hear the Rangers are very interested but don’t want to pull the trigger with Heatley still up in the air. That’s surprising, however, because why give up a bunch of assets when you can simply sign Gaborik?

Pittsburgh Tribune Review’s Rob Rossi hears Minnesota, Dallas and the Rangers are on Rob Scuderi’s list. I heard yesterday Wild was “high” on the list.

TSN’s Darren Dreger is reporting Marian Hossa is close to signing in Chicago. If true, Hawks may need to hire some mathematicians from MIT to get Kane and Toews done next summer. Unless he’s signing another one-year deal.

TSN’s reporting Hossa to Chicago is done. If Marian Hossa gets a $5.2 million cap hit, good luck Gaborik.

Edmonton’s lost Dwayne Roloson. They’ve almost definitely got to sign Nikolai Khabibulin or go back to the Wild and trade for Josh Harding. Oilers still very interested in Harding, a source says, but still looking at free-agent route with Scott Clemmensen.

Free agency starts at 11. A half-hour before, TSN reported that Daniel and Henrik Sedin agreed to duplicate five-year, $6.1 million deals with the Canucks.

This makes a thin free-agent pool thinner.

Vancouver still has the salary-cap room to go after Marian Gaborik perhaps, although the Canucks are aiming to sign Roberto Luongo to an $8 million-a-year extension that would go on the books starting in 2010-11. With the cap coming down, it would seem Gaborik would have to look elsewhere.

The teams that could be looking at him today are Montreal, the Rangers and Los Angeles.

Martin Havlat and Ruslan Fedotenko — two players the Wild’s expected to pursue — to the free-agent market, their agent says.

Team Canada to make Olympic camp roster announcement on July 2.

Seven years for Mattias Ohlund in Tampa Bay. Oh my. Guess teams are giving term.

Alert: TSN reporting Sedins re-sign in Vancouver. As I wrote below, I felt that would happen, which means now Marian Gaborik will likely be sought after by L.A., New York or Montreal.

First, you can keep track with Wild news all day Wednesday (and in the future) and throughout free agency here on www.startribune.com/russo and my Twitter at twitter.com/russostrib

I’ll also be on KFAN on Wednesday morning at 9:35 a.m.

The door swings open to free agency at 11 a.m.

The last time the Koivu Bros. were teammates on Xcel Energy Center’s ice, it was during the 2004 World Cup. Could that happen again starting next season?

Let’s put it this way: It’ll likely be up to the Koivus, or another way of saying it is, if they want to make it happen, it probably can. By the way, here’s a feature I wrote on them last October.

The Wild’s expected to make an offer, but it’s not just a sure-thing Saku Koivu signs a deal to play with Mikko.

I talked to Mikko very early this morning my time. I got him on his boat in Turku. He did voice some concerns that he and Saku have been discussing in recent days. Saku doesn’t want to step on Mikko’s toes because this is his team now, they’ve talked about what it would be like to handle the other being criticized publicly if that were to happen and they talked about the distractions it could create if every city they went to turned into a series of Koivu Bros. stories.

He admitted it’s not a big problem and that they know that stuff would die down, but those are a few of the “cons” on their pros and cons list. On the “pros” side, the fact that it would be special for Saku, 8 1/2 years older, and Mikko to play together and that their parents would absolutely love it. He said it’s a “dream” of theirs. You can read about this in the paper.

So we will see. The Wild needs a No. 2 center, whether it’s through acquisition, or perhaps Pierre-Marc Bouchard moving over to the left one slot. Nik Antropov, I guess, is somebody to pursue, but I’m not a big fan. After that, not much in UFA market. Fletcher would have gone after Vik Kozlov, but he’s signed in Russia.

The Wild has a number of holes to fill, and if you go out and sign Marian Hossa or the Sedin Twins, that severely handicaps doing much else. That’s why I think Mike Cammalleri (he can play center, too) or Martin Havlat may be the most logical players to pursue, although Cammalleri could be Toronto bound and receive a really inflated contract. 

I hear Havlat, if he gets to 11 a.m. unsigned (and contrary to reports, he was not signed tonight), would have great interest in Minnesota. He’s had lots of injury problems in the past, but as he proved last year, when he’s healthy, he’s a tremendously talented and dominant hockey player. He’s also put up solid playoff numbers.

Because of his history, you might be able to get him in the $5 million range, which means it leaves room to sign maybe Saku Koivu, a Ruslan Fedotenko perhaps (still talking to Pittsburgh) and a couple dmen — Rob Scuderi being one guy I hear would be interested in coming to Minnesota. And considering Fletcher’s history with Scuderi, you can bet there’d be interest from the Wild’s point of view.

Fletcher loves Fedotenko, by the way, who just wins Cups in this league. Havlat and Fedotenko have the same agent, too, in Allan Walsh, so maybe you can kill two birds with one stone.  

As for other dmen, if Scuderi’s a no-go, I’d go after Francois Beauchemin. I know there’s a clamoring for Jordan Leopold because of his history here at the U, but I think Fletcher will be looking for more physical dmen than offensive dmen because the Wild is rich in offensive, mobile dmen and as we all know short on the other type.

Some guys that could fit that are Jaroslav Spacek, Karlis Skrastins, Denis Gauthier, Hal Gill and Mikko’s favorite, Mattias Ohlund. Want a Minnesotan? How ’bout Andrew Alberts?

I think Mike Komisarek is too expensive, and man, he did not impress in the playoffs. I see Scuderi’s door being blown over by the Wild. 

It’s going to be a very interesting free-agent market because there’s only about 10 teams that can legimately take on a huge contract.

Even with today’s Scott Gomez pickup, Montreal has tons of cap room. Vancouver, Toronto, the Rangers, Dallas, the Islanders, L.A., and the Wild have the most flexibility in the league. Also, if the Sedins don’t re-sign in Vancouver, they might really be in for a reality check as far as this package deal goes. Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto were the only teams maybe, and now Montreal is likely out because I think they’ll go after a single star now (i.e. Gaborik or Hossa). That’s why I really feel sanity’s going to prevail and Sedins re-sign in Van.

Speaking of that, Marian Gaborik’s heading to free agency obviously. Chuck Fletcher and Ron Salcer had a lengthy conversation today I’m told and it went nowhere. As I mentioned the other day, Gaborik turned down that $78.5 million deal because of several concerns he had about the direction of the team. Even though most those concerns are alleviated with the departures of Lemaire and Risebrough, it was going to be impossible to sign him this close to free agency and it appears as if Salcer made that clear to Fletcher during their initial conversation a few weeks ago.

I think Montreal, LA, Vancouver and the Rangers (unless it acquires Heatley tonight as is rumored in some circles) plan to pursue Gaborik. If the Rangers trade for Heatley and Vancouver re-signs the Sedins, suddenly Gaborik starts to get squeezed a bit. But I’m starting to think Montreal is going to be hot after him, with the Rangers if they don’t get Heatley tonight (Edmonton’s got the inside track, but as of 9:10, it’s been hung up because Heatley hasn’t waived no-trade yet, I’m told).

Fletcher has tried to trade Gaborik’s rights so far to no avail. The Vancouver Province story of the house did not help because why would anybody trade for his rights if there’s an impression he’s already found a home. And at this late juncture, why would you give a roll of tape when you know that Ron Salcer’s not exactly the easiest guy to negotiate with and free agency’s in 14 hours?

This is going to be an interesting market because like they always do, the top guys should get their term and their money. The middle of the range guys could get squeezed because like I’ve said, there’s a lot of money in the system and only so many teams that can sign guys to big contracts. And if all of a sudden the Kessels of the world and one of the San Jose forwards (Clowe or Marleau) are traded, that means fewer spots elsewhere for other players.

And Fletcher today again made mention that it’s not just free agency where he could fill holes. It could be via the trade route.

Asked about Craig Leipold’s comments the other day about wanting to get some top players here, Fletcher said, “He wants to win. He wants to have a team that is a competing team right from the get-go next year. I think what he’s expressed to me is consistent with what he’s expressed to you guys. He wants to win. But in terms of whether we do things through free agency or trades or however we get there, I don’t know if that’s as important as the fact we get there.”

OK, talk to you throughout Wednesday.

Just about to pack up and leave Montreal. The draft here was a tremendous experience. The passionate hockey fans here were in glee with every who’s who in hockey being in town.

I can tell you, I talked with a lot of other team’s scouts out around town last night, and many were very positive about the Wild’s draft, the fact Chuck Fletcher accomplished what he said he’d accomplish with moving down and grabbing draft picks and the picks of Leddy and Hackett specifically.

Assistant GM Tommy Thompson raved about the move Fletcher made because he so wanted Hackett.

“[Goalie coach] Bob [Mason] was saying of Hackett, ‘You think we have any chance to get him?’ and I said, ‘Don’t get your hopes up,’” Thompson said. “That shows the benefit of the trade that Chuck Fletcher made. Without that pick, we don’t get Hackett. If he turns into an NHL goalie, look how important that is. It was nice to have some picks; that allowed us to take some risks later on.”

Real quick, the only bit of news right now is agent Allan Walsh is on his way to Minnesota to meet with new client Stephane Veilleux, a pending free agent. Remember, Veilleux acted as his own agent last summer but as I reported in April, he hired Walsh for this summer.

“I’ve had several conversations with Chuck Fletcher. Stephane’s first priority is exploring all options with Minnesota and we have expressed those feelings to Chuck,” Walsh said.

Free agency is Wednesday and Fletcher planned to take a lot of today and think about free agency and whether he plans to make offers to Veilleux, Marian Gaborik (he will here, I’m told), Martin Skoula, Kurtis Foster and Marc-Andre Bergeron.

There will be news Monday as the Wild must tender qualifying offers to its restricted free agents by 4 p.m. The Wild’s RFA’s are Josh Harding, Kyle Brodziak, Dan Fritsche, Peter Olvecky, Benoit Pouliot, Danny Irmen, Robbie Earl, Clayton Stoner, Riley Emmerson and Paul Albers.

As I mentioned yesterday, it certainly seems a possibility that Fritsche could be out in Minnesota.

OK, I’ll be back on later tonight to clean out the draft notebook. Assistant GM hiring and assistant coaches should be in a matter of days, too.

Ha. There are always people unhappy. Open my email box now and subject “Wild cave in to Gophers pressure.” Next one: “Wild take wrong Gopher.”

First, I genuinely believe the Wild did not do the P.R. thing here and take the Minnesotan because some alienated Minnesotans wanted them to. That’d be absolutely absurd, and if something like that did happen, everybody should be fired tonight. Thompson did say other Minnesotans are in their “gun sights” Saturday, but it’s only because they’re very, very good…Guys Thompson mentioned are Budish, Mike Lee and Birkholz are available.

First-round picks are too precious, as proven by the steps back the Wild took when it blew its 2004 and 2005 first-rounders.

As I’ve been telling you for a few days, the Wild absolutely love Nick Leddy. They’ve seen him more than any draft-eligible player arguably — Tommy Thompson alone 12 times — and they wanted this dynamic player whom Chuck Fletcher called the typical “new-rules defenseman.”

I knew they valued him more than Jordan Schroeder, who as I think I mentioned yesterday, another team’s scout predicted this because they “already have Pierre-Marc Bouchard.” Unfortunately Schroeder’s size (5-8) clearly hurt as he slipped to 22.

But, there is no doubt, taking Leddy over Schroeder will create years of comparisons of their development and debates, ESPECIALLY now that Schroeder landed with the bitter Vancouver Canucks. Oh my, if Schroeder goes there and develops into a star, …

In hope you enjoyed the Twitters tonight. It was actually fun, although I probably went overboard. But it was kind of cool to break the Pronger story, predict Leddy coming to the Wild and give you play by play of the trade being made. Chuck Fletcher was working hard to trade 16, too, but he wouldn’t take the risk to drop more than five spots and everybody that offered him something was too far. As I mentioned on Twitter, Columbus GM Scott Howson sprinted to Fletcher because the Jackets wanted John Moore, but Fletcher didn’t want to drop 10 spots and risk losing Leddy.

The Jackets got Moore anyway.

Fletcher did say he was offered a player at one point for 12, but the team called back when the guy they wanted was taken. Only one trade was made in the entire league, showing it is awfully difficult making trades in this salary-cap world. A lot of teams are in lots and lots of trouble, although Fletcher hopes to commit highway robbery this summer when these overstuffed teams with cap issues look to dump guys.

Fletcher did achieve one thing. He added a third-rounder and another seventh, giving the Wild eight picks Saturday and nine total — the amount of picks the Wild had the previous two drafts.

Does this change free agency strategy now that the Wild didn’t pick up any NHLers? I’ll write about that Sunday. By the way, Fletcher would not comment on Marian Gaborik’s situation.

You can read more on Leddy in Saturday’s paper. His uncle actually was Todd Richards’ defense partner at Armstrong. I talked to Steve Leddy, whose brother Mike is Steve’s brother, and I’ll put those quotes up tomorrow.

Here’s some quotes:

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