[icehog3]

From ESPN.com:

Marian Gaborik's agent, Ron Salcer, has gone to great lengths in recent days, including talking to ESPN.com's Pierre LeBrun, to dispel what he says are misconceptions about how much money his client is looking for and/or been offered by the Minnesota Wild.


Fair enough. But who cares?


The issue isn't whether Gaborik is looking for $9 million or $10 million annually over six or seven or eight years; the bottom line is, he isn't worth a fraction of that. He's not worth it to the Wild, and unless another GM takes leave of his senses (hey, it happens more than one might imagine), no one will come close to giving Gaborik that kind of money.


Although immensely talented, Gaborik is injury-prone and has a history of disappearing come playoff time. Witness his spectacular fade last spring when he tallied just one assist in six games of the Wild's first-round loss to the Colorado Avalanche. In this salary-cap world, few teams can afford to pay a franchise player to perform at less than a franchise-player level, and they certainly can't afford to do that over seven or eight years.


As attractive as Gaborik's skills might be, his inability to lead the Minnesota Wild anywhere close to contention will be a giant red flag to every other team in the NHL. Or it should be. The good news for Minnesota GM Doug Risebrough is that his team has yet to lose in regulation while playing mostly without Gaborik, who is hurt again. That means there's little external pressure to move Gaborik in the near future. The bad news: At some point, Risebrough may end up having to dump the gimpy Slovak forward for far less than one might have imagined. Gaborik can become an unrestricted free agent in July.