An excerpt from the Boston Globe (Kevin Paul Dupont):
The Canucks remain hopeful that Mats Sundin will take the two-year, $20 million deal they’ve left on the table. Great spot, Vancouver, but the Canucks aren’t winning the Cup with Sundin, this year or next. If he wants to win, his only real option is to sign with the Red Wings, and take the kind of “championship discount” Marian Hossa accepted ($7.45 million per year). “Marian made it clear that he wanted to be with an elite team,” said one of the 29 NHL general managers who didn’t land the elite right wing. “And right now, it looks like there is only one elite team in the league.”
Habster:
Look anything is possible in life so it wouldn’t be shocking if Mats Sundin decided to take a huge salary cut to play for an elite team like the Red Wings.
The addition of Sundin to an already incredibly potent offense would be the icing on the cake for the Red Wings repeating as Stanley Cup champions, something Mats must be thinking deeply about before he decides to hang up his skates.
The other enticing factor for Sundin would be that Detroit is “little Sweden” with no less than seven Swedes on the current NHL roster.
What it all boils down to is whether Sundin is willing to take a pay cut of approximately $2.5-$3 million (Sundin made $5.5 million last season) and leaving offers anywhere between $7-$10 million on the table from Montreal and Vancouver.
Sundin has a history of taking big pay cuts to remain in Toronto. He took a $2.1 million pay deduction after the 2006-07 season (from $7.6 million to $5.5 million) to help the Maple Leafs re-sign players and pursue UFA so taking another reduction to pursue his dream of a Stanley Cup wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibilities.
The Detroit Red Wings have approximately $3.3 million cap space left and could potentially re-arrange things to bump it up to $4 million but do the Red Wings want to leave themselves with no cap space flexibility for any injury problems during the upcoming season. The Red Wings already have an elite team and are set at the center position where they will have Pavel Datsyuk back at the center positon with Henrik Zetterberg, Kris Draper, Valtteri Filppula, Darren Helm.
Mats Sundin is a classy guy on and off the ice but with that being said, trying to predict what he will do is like trying to predict the weather…….when there is a 20% chance of rain on a sunny day, anything can happen!!!