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Carter Gaddis/The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 16, 2007

SILLY SEASON

Trade rumors always seem to run rampant this time of year, with the holiday roster freeze (Wednesday-Dec. 27) on the horizon. How do the rumors get started? It could be that word of a preliminary or "touching-base" conversation between general managers or other members of the front office gets leaked, or an agent catches wind that his client might be being shopped and wants the world to know it, or an intrepid reporter surveys a team's situation and throws out a logical name or two for public consideration.

Quite often, though, many of the most intriguing rumors seem merely to be wishful thinking on the part of fans who post their "trade proposals" on message boards. Here is a sampling of some of those "proposals," found on the large (and largely entertaining) hockey message board, hfboards.com. As with all such rumors, it helps keep things in perspective to consider them utter fantasy until proven otherwise:

-Three-way deal among Tampa Bay, Montreal and Anaheim sends Vinny Lecavalier to the Canadiens, Chris Higgins to the Ducks and G Cristobal Huet, RW Corey Perry, D Francois Beauchemin and D Michael Komisarek to the Lightning. Comment: A standard item on any NHL message board worth its salt is the fantasy most Canadiens fans harbor of seeing Lecavalier in a Montreal uniform.

-Buffalo sends D Brian Campbell to Carolina for RW Justin Williams. Comment: The person who posted this one, code-named GetLostQuinn, has a pair of striking pink high-heeled sandals for an avatar.

-Anaheim sends Francois Beauchemin, Andy MacDonald and Sean O'Donnell to Ottawa for Andrei Meszaros, Antoine Vermette and Chris Neil. Comment: Well, this one, posted Dec. 6, did have some grain of truth, after all. MacDonald was traded. But to St. Louis, not Ottawa.

-Vancouver sends D Sami Salo, G prospect Cory Schneider and a third-round pick to Tampa Bay for RW Marty St. Louis. Comment: Um … no.

-Buffalo sends D Dmitri Kalinin to Philadelphia for RW Mike Knuble. Comment: We include this decidedly dull proposal only because the poster's avatar is a shot of Jeff Bridges as The Dude in the movie "The Big Lebowski."

IN THE YEAR ... 2020

It's only a matter of time before some clever NHL GM tries to fit a player under the salary cap forever by negotiating the first 20-year contract. The 12-year, $69-million deal signed this week by Flyers F Mike Richards will spread his salary out in affordable, cap-friendly increments until the 2019-20 season.

It's not quite as long as the 15-year deal signed by Islanders G Rick DiPietro last year, but it's the second-longest contract in NHL history, and more mega-deals like it could be on the way. Meanwhile, Richards will be 34 when his deal expires. Here are a few historical milestones that will come and go between now and then:

-Three U.S. presidential elections.
-The 50th Daytona 500. And the 60th.
-The 200th anniversary of the Missouri Compromise (1820).
-The 100th anniversary of U.S. involvement in World War I (April 6, 1917).
-The 100th anniversary of the Versailles Treaty, officially ending World War I (1919).
-The 50th anniversary of the admission of Hawaii and Alaska as U.S. states (1959).
-The 40th anniversary of the "Miracle on Ice" U.S. Olympic hockey gold medal.
-The 25th anniversary season of the Tampa Bay Lightning (1992-93).

NOT SO SPECIAL

Through Friday's games, here are the bottom five teams in power play and penalty killing, two prime indicators of a team's chance to win (or, in this case, lose) over the long haul. By contrast, Montreal leads in power play at 24.7 percent and San Jose leads in penalty killing at 88.7 percent:

Power Play
26. Phoenix (14.4 percent)
27. Toronto (13.9 percent)
28. St. Louis (13.2 percent)
29. Nashville (12.6 percent)
30. Edmonton (12.2 percent)

Penalty Killing
26. Montreal (78.2 percent)
27. Atlanta (77.9 percent)
28. Los Angeles (77.2 percent)
29. Carolina (75.7 percent)
30. Boston (75.6 percent).

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