Tomas Kopecky should send salary cap floor a dozen roses

Tomas Kopecky has agreed to a contact with the Florida Panthers, three days after his free-agent negotiating rights were acquired from the Chicago Blackhawks for a bag of pucks an autographed photo of an ice girl a seventh-round pick in either 2012 or 2013.

And what a contract it is! Kopecky pulled down 4 years and $12 million, after making $1.2 million per season with the Blackhawks from 2009-11.

Overpayment, you say?

The reality of our surroundings in the NHL circa 2011, we say. Consider:

1. Kopecky is 29, had career highs in goals (15) and points (42) last season and has one more Stanley Cup ring than Mike Gartner. He's a player in his prime with championship experience.

2. The unrestricted free-agent market is currently losing more bodies than a scatterbrained mortician. Brooks Laich re-upped with Washington on Tuesday; Adam Hall is back with the Lightning; Chad LaRose stuck with the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday (two years, $3.4 million). While the presumed cap hit for Kopecky on the open market was in the neighborhood of $2.5 million, the lack of options could have driven it closer to $3 million annually

3. But those factors are secondary to the real issue that Ryan Lambert so eloquently spelled out in What We Learned: The salary cap floor is the great salary multiplier for players like Kopecky and teams like the Florida Panthers. If he got a smidgen more than market value from Dale Tallon, it's so Dale Tallon is a smidgen closer to the floor.

Check out Second City Hockey's eulogy for Kopecky's Blackhawks career. "I guess they'll have to find a younger, cheaper Slovak to carry Marian Hossa's bags."

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