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There was more backstroke than backpedal when the question was asked.
So, your roster Wednesday is not your lineup Saturday?
Then Alain Vigneault put on his wry smile, and began a kind of backward shoulder shrug with his arms extended at the elbows and hands paddling the air like a juggler.
The Vancouver Canuck coach was either channeling Barney-The-Dinosaur or doing the gopher dance from Caddyshack. Or he was confirming without saying so.
The 23-man roster the Canucks must declare Wednesday for the National Hockey League will not necessarily include the full 20-man lineup that Vancouver uses Saturday in its season-opener against the Los Angeles Kings.
The Canucks will be going into the greyest, most obscure sub-passages of the Collective Bargaining Agreement to limbo under the NHL's $59.4-million-US salary cap.
It will be an epic contortion for a franchise that knows its way around the CBA well enough that goalie Roberto Luongo is being paid $10 million this season but counting only $5.33-million against the cap.
Luongo will be on both the initial roster and opening-night lineup. But backup goalie Cory Schneider may not.
Vancouver still has in camp rookie third-string netminder Eddie Lack and centre prospect Cody Hodgson, who practised Monday at UBC as the eighth defenceman and certainly has not been one of the best 25 players since the Canucks' opened training camp 18 days ago.
It's believed they're still here, however briefly, so the Canucks can manipulate their cap number and possibly take advantage of a CBA provision pertaining to bonuses. Canuck assistant general manager Laurence Gilman, the numbers guru who oversees the team's cap, won't say why Hodgson and Lack are here or how Vancouver will meet the $59.4-million threshold.
And given the NHL's renewed interest in "the spirit of the CBA," sparked by the Ilya Kovalchuk contract fiasco, the Canucks' secrecy is understandable.
Before Vigneault's unspoken answer to the cap-related question, he gave this oral one: "Certain things need to happen; I'll let you figure that one out."
Vigneault has been taking tutorials from Gilman on salary-cap implications for a team that, as of Monday, remained more than $1.8-million over the cap even after the $2.4-million waiver dump of Shane O'Brien and Darcy Hordichuk.
"I've had a crash course the last couple of days," Vigneault admitted. "I don't think I can explain it, but I understand it."
If he understands all facets of the salary cap, Vigneault is ahead of every reporter in hockey and – truth be told – some NHL general managers.
As for the Canucks, this is what we know: Hodgson will not be playing defence this season; the 13th forward will be either Jeff Tambellini or Peter Schaefer, who hasn't yet a contract; and Lack isn't playing goal anytime soon, although backup Schneider, who is not subject to waivers, may have to make a whirlwind trip to minor-league Manitoba for a day. Lack and Hodgson also do not require waivers to shuffle between the NHL and American League.
Importantly, it seems almost impossible the Canucks will be able to fully maximize CBA injury relief by squeezing both Sami Salo ($3.5 million) and Alex Burrows ($2 million) onto their "active" 23-man roster for the first day of the season.
A year ago, the Canucks opened in Calgary with injured players Mathieu Schneider and Pavol Demitra on their roster, then immediately reclassified them as long-term injured to harvest some cap savings. This week, the Canucks will probably have to start the season with either Salo or Burrows on LTI, which means Vancouver will be walking a salary-cap tightrope without much of a safety net.
Two seasons ago, the Flames flopped spectacularly from the high wire when general manager Darryl Sutter managed his salary cap so that his coach could dress only 15 skaters in the game that cost Calgary first place. Naturally, Sutter fired the coach, Mike Keenan.
The Flames' crash is a cautionary tale for all teams.
"The salary cap doesn't determine our roster," Gilman insisted Monday. "The performance of the players determines our roster. It's incumbent upon us to make the numbers work once the players have done their job. It falls into the category of problems you don't mind having."
And yet, many decisions are made with the salary cap in mind. True, Shane O'Brien was beaten fair and square by Andrew Alberts for the sixth defenceman spot. But O'Brien is still considerably better than seventh man Aaron Rome. Rome costs $750,000, O'Brien $1.6 million. Who was cut?
"I'm aware of the salary-cap situation," defenceman Kevin Bieksa, whose $3.75-million cap hit endangered him, said after Monday's practice. "I know we're over. I had an idea what they were going to do about it, but I didn't really care, plain and simple. If you ask me where I think guys fit into the salary cap, I don't care. It's not my job. I figured if they wanted me on this team, they'd have me on this team regardless. For some reason, I'm still here and I'm happy to be here."
So, your roster Wednesday is not your lineup Saturday?
Then Alain Vigneault put on his wry smile, and began a kind of backward shoulder shrug with his arms extended at the elbows and hands paddling the air like a juggler.
The Vancouver Canuck coach was either channeling Barney-The-Dinosaur or doing the gopher dance from Caddyshack. Or he was confirming without saying so.
The 23-man roster the Canucks must declare Wednesday for the National Hockey League will not necessarily include the full 20-man lineup that Vancouver uses Saturday in its season-opener against the Los Angeles Kings.
The Canucks will be going into the greyest, most obscure sub-passages of the Collective Bargaining Agreement to limbo under the NHL's $59.4-million-US salary cap.
It will be an epic contortion for a franchise that knows its way around the CBA well enough that goalie Roberto Luongo is being paid $10 million this season but counting only $5.33-million against the cap.
Luongo will be on both the initial roster and opening-night lineup. But backup goalie Cory Schneider may not.
Vancouver still has in camp rookie third-string netminder Eddie Lack and centre prospect Cody Hodgson, who practised Monday at UBC as the eighth defenceman and certainly has not been one of the best 25 players since the Canucks' opened training camp 18 days ago.
It's believed they're still here, however briefly, so the Canucks can manipulate their cap number and possibly take advantage of a CBA provision pertaining to bonuses. Canuck assistant general manager Laurence Gilman, the numbers guru who oversees the team's cap, won't say why Hodgson and Lack are here or how Vancouver will meet the $59.4-million threshold.
And given the NHL's renewed interest in "the spirit of the CBA," sparked by the Ilya Kovalchuk contract fiasco, the Canucks' secrecy is understandable.
Before Vigneault's unspoken answer to the cap-related question, he gave this oral one: "Certain things need to happen; I'll let you figure that one out."
Vigneault has been taking tutorials from Gilman on salary-cap implications for a team that, as of Monday, remained more than $1.8-million over the cap even after the $2.4-million waiver dump of Shane O'Brien and Darcy Hordichuk.
"I've had a crash course the last couple of days," Vigneault admitted. "I don't think I can explain it, but I understand it."
If he understands all facets of the salary cap, Vigneault is ahead of every reporter in hockey and – truth be told – some NHL general managers.
As for the Canucks, this is what we know: Hodgson will not be playing defence this season; the 13th forward will be either Jeff Tambellini or Peter Schaefer, who hasn't yet a contract; and Lack isn't playing goal anytime soon, although backup Schneider, who is not subject to waivers, may have to make a whirlwind trip to minor-league Manitoba for a day. Lack and Hodgson also do not require waivers to shuffle between the NHL and American League.
Importantly, it seems almost impossible the Canucks will be able to fully maximize CBA injury relief by squeezing both Sami Salo ($3.5 million) and Alex Burrows ($2 million) onto their "active" 23-man roster for the first day of the season.
A year ago, the Canucks opened in Calgary with injured players Mathieu Schneider and Pavol Demitra on their roster, then immediately reclassified them as long-term injured to harvest some cap savings. This week, the Canucks will probably have to start the season with either Salo or Burrows on LTI, which means Vancouver will be walking a salary-cap tightrope without much of a safety net.
Two seasons ago, the Flames flopped spectacularly from the high wire when general manager Darryl Sutter managed his salary cap so that his coach could dress only 15 skaters in the game that cost Calgary first place. Naturally, Sutter fired the coach, Mike Keenan.
The Flames' crash is a cautionary tale for all teams.
"The salary cap doesn't determine our roster," Gilman insisted Monday. "The performance of the players determines our roster. It's incumbent upon us to make the numbers work once the players have done their job. It falls into the category of problems you don't mind having."
And yet, many decisions are made with the salary cap in mind. True, Shane O'Brien was beaten fair and square by Andrew Alberts for the sixth defenceman spot. But O'Brien is still considerably better than seventh man Aaron Rome. Rome costs $750,000, O'Brien $1.6 million. Who was cut?
"I'm aware of the salary-cap situation," defenceman Kevin Bieksa, whose $3.75-million cap hit endangered him, said after Monday's practice. "I know we're over. I had an idea what they were going to do about it, but I didn't really care, plain and simple. If you ask me where I think guys fit into the salary cap, I don't care. It's not my job. I figured if they wanted me on this team, they'd have me on this team regardless. For some reason, I'm still here and I'm happy to be here."
