Hey Big Spender.

Holy crap. What a stupid day. I'm not going to even get into the decisions my local team made, but did you notice that all the free agents that were signed on July 1st went for much more than they were worth? The salary cap went up this year to $50 million and that seemed to translate into a GM spending spree.

I enjoy the opening of the free agent hunt, but I this year seemed like a ridiculous spectacle of deep pockets. I can't help but feeling many teams are trying to buy their way to a Stanley Cup victory and the New York Rangers should be the first to tell you how well that works.

This whole off season has been a gong show starting with the Nashville soap opera and, as I write this, I'm becoming more and more confused about the direction the NHL is going in.

The bad taste of the dealings of my hometown team will pass as they always do (the whole "we had to give up a lot to get a lot" excuse), but I thought the "New NHL" was supposed to be bigger and better. There's certainly bigger $$$'s, but after today, I'm not sure the NHL is a lot better.

How much do you want to bet the next move will be to make the nets bigger by changing the shape of them.