In the New York Post Larry Brooks has some of the stipulations that Donald Fehr, the presumptive head of the NHLPA, wants as part of his contract.

They include an annual salary of $3 million and a job for his brother Steve.

…That is a lot.

Brooks writes that some player representatives have issues with the salary that Fehr is asking for.

…Someone needs to take control of the NHLPA soon, and it should be Fehr, but those are some demands that he has

NYDNRangers

Jesse Spector

@NYDNRangers: "There’s no days off, whether it’s practices or games, or even if it’s a day off getting rest." --Michael Del Zotto

Sep 2, 2010 @ 04:14:41 PM, UTC from HootSuite

…well said

In his blog at Newsday, Steve Zipay decides to fire up some speculation in regards to Marc Savard who has been rumored to be being shopped by the Bruins.

Savard’s contract is also under investigation as Larry Brooks noted this morning.

Zipay throws out names like Matt Gilroy, Sean Avery and a 2011 second round pick as pieces that he speculates Boston could be interested in.

….Again, speculation on his part, but what team is going to want to take on Avery?

…I wonder how Brad Richards feels about Zipay writing about another Center for the Rangers since Richards name always comes up when Zipay writes even though Richards has said he wants to stay in Dallas.

I have been against Savard because of his contract being a bit of a burden, but his style of play would fit a need for the team.

At ESPN.com, Scott Burnside lists a few coaches who could find themselves on the hot seat for this season.

….Again, Burnside neglects to mention Michael Del Zotto as the Rangers powerplay quarterback. Second time he has done this. I mean, that is predominately Del Zotto’s role on the team, to QB the powerplay and he did it all of last season.

As for Tortorella, my feeling is that if the team misses the playoffs again he will probably be out as coach unless they bring him back for next season with the intention of basically starting from scratch, new GM and all, for what could be the lockout season of 2012-13. I think that when Tortorella goes will be when Sather goes and the team will have totally new leadership unless Sather brings in someone from his legendary crew to hold the coaching spot until he is ready to cede his position to Mark Messier.

Unlike many, I like Torts and think that if he learned from his mistakes of last season, he will be a much better coach for this team and be able to lead them to the playoffs and into the future. He needs to roll four lines and not shuffle them around so much. Yes, he shuffled them because the team couldn’t score and he was looking for any spark, but sometimes it was too much.

Just after the season ended, 54% of voters said that Tortorella was not the right choice to lead the Rangers

Late last season, when he was playing his best hockey, Sean Avery suffered a knee injury against the Toronto Maple Leafs and missed the rest of the season.

Yesterday while participating in the Rangers informal workouts before training camp, Avery told Jim Cerny of the Rangers website that he is all healed and ready to go:

“I am all healed up and feeling good,” said Avery. “I am focused now in a different way. I have a different mentality as far as a personal standpoint is concerned and I am ready to go.”

….Avery is a huge wild card for training camp. His spot is on the line more than anyone else’ besides Wade Redden, and he continues to talk of being the old Avery and being focused on this season. But there are many players gunning for his spot this time around and Avery truly needs to play like has in the past, minus penalties, to earn his spot.

I wonder what sort of distraction would come if Avery didn’t make the team and was sent to Hartford. In the best case, Avery proves his worth and somehow fits his way back int o a top nine role that will help the team like he used to do.

Update: 11:25AM:

Tom Gulitti spoke to NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly who says that “No ultimatum has been given to anyone.”

Update: 11:01AM:

Elliotte Friedman of CBC writes about the implications of what could happen with this whole Kovalchuk and contract drama

Update: 10:11AM:

Darren Dreger tweets that according to a source, no ultimatum was given

Update: 9:36AM:

In the New York Post today, Brooks has some more information on the ordeal.

He notes that the league has decided to accept the Chris Pronger contract that was under investigation.

Original Post: September 1st at 11:04PM:

In the New York Post, Larry Brooks writes exclusively that the NHL has given the NHLPA an ultimatum on the Ilya Kovalchuk and other investigated contracts.

If the NHLPA accepts the conditions, which is why the ruling on Kovalchuk was extended until Friday at 5PM, the league will validate the Kovalchuk contract and:

1. That the cap hit on future multi-year contracts will not count any seasons that end with the player over 40 years of age. The cap hit would be calculated on the average of the salary up through age 40 only.

2. That the cap hit on future contracts longer than five years will be calculated under a formula granting additional weight to the five years with the highest salary.

If the NHLPA rejects the proposal:

1. It will reject the Kovalchuk contract.

2. It will move to immediately devoid the Luongo contract.

3. It will move to immediately open proceedings for a formal investigation into the Hossa contract.

….Wow. Sort of a late night wake up call here.

“I don’t look back too much,” said Lundqvist. “It’s more important to look ahead and be on the right side of things. But I do know that we have to be more consistent than we were last season. We played some really good hockey last year, but we were not nearly consistent enough.”

Henrik Lundqvist to Jim Cerny of the Rangers Website

….Keep saying the right things. Eventually you hope that they get put into practice. Knowing the problems going into training camp and the season has to mean something.

Then again, how many games in a row did Ryan Callahan and others say that the team needed to go hard to the net, only for them to not do so. Words are nice and give a nice perspective, but they need to be put into practice

At the National Post, via Beyond the Blueshirts, Michael Traikos writes about Rangers rookie Mats Zuccarello-Aasen who had fellow European players raving about his previous play.

…Won’t lie. Hearing players that he has played against rave about him is nice. The issue though isn’t his past work though, it of course is whether or not he has the skill and/or the size to be able to play at the NHL level. He seems motivated to make an NHL impact at least this season or next and his willingness, at least on the surface, to accepting time in Hartford is also a good sign. I think that if for whatever reason he doesn’t make the opening night roster, he will be up eventually or hopefully develop superb chemistry with the likes of Derek Stepan or Evgeny Grachev.