Ready, set, spend: NHL free agency begins.(Sports)

0 Comments | Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL), July, 2007

Byline: Tim Sassone tsassone@@dailyherald.com For those NHL teams looking for a bargain, today's start of the free-agent signing period probably isn't the place for them. The bidding for top-end forwards such as Ryan Smyth, Daniel Briere, Scott Gomez and Chris Drury could reach $7 million a year, particularly for Smyth, with all of them believed to be seeking deals of five years in length.

The best defensemen available such as Scott Hannan and Sheldon Souray could get offers starting at $5 million a year. So much for the salary cap that resulted from the lockout two years ago keeping salaries down. The cap now is $50.3 million, an increase of $11.3 million since the start of the 2005-06 season when it was instituted. "It's going to be nuts," said...