The Kings’ first on-ice session for training camp will be held Monday, Sept. 10. I’m told that some sort of rookie camp will be held prior to that, although not the usual rookie tournament that has been held the last couple years. The specific training camp schedule should be released soon, and when it does I’ll let everyone know.

I actually thought camp would open sooner, given the trip to Europe, but camp will start on the 10th and the first preseason game will be held just three days later in Anaheim. The North American portion of the preseason concludes with the Sept. 22 game in Las Vegas and then the Kings fly to Europe.

Since there was a question about cap space, I thought I would try to do the numbers myself. I come up with a team cap hit of just over $48.01 million, if you take into account the 23 players who are likely to make the opening-game roster. (plus McCauley’s buyout, which I forgot the first time I added it up!) There are two problems with that. One, we don’t know exactly what the 23-man roster will be and two, I’m not completely certain about how the bonuses figure in. The actual cap number could be slightly higher if I miscalculated the bonuses for guys such as Johnson and Kopitar.

Anyway, I compiled that using Armstrong, Brown, Calder, Cammalleri, Frolov, Handzus, Kopitar, Murray, Nagy, O’Sullivan, Thornton, Willsie, Blake, Johnson, Modry, Preissing, Stuart, Visnovsky, Cloutier and LaBarbera. (Plus McCauley’s buyout)

Kyle…I think the Kings have been counting on losing that $2.5 million all along. I don’t believe there were ever any plans to have Tverdovsky in a Kings uniform this year. But I don’t think any more money will be spent this summer.

Whothepuck…Selling ad space on a page that’s getting great numbers, in a newspaper industry that’s struggling financially? Wow, what a concept! But yet…

Francis…If you, or anyone else, has any comments about the Daily News sports section or its blogs, I would recommend contacting sports editor Kevin Modesti.

Finally, the Kings haven’t heard anything official about Tverdovsky yet. I think we all know where this is headed, but it has yet to become official. I’m told that the Kings would need to “assign” Tverdovsky to the Russian team, which they will do if he really has signed/does sign a contract over there. So hopefully we’ll hear something soon.

A couple things that I don’t want to slip through the cracks:

— As already noted in comments here, Russian publications are reporting that Oleg Tverdovsky has signed to play in Russia. One publication said it was a five-year contract. Of course, that’s the same publication that, in a previous story, referred to Oleg’s current team as the “Los Angeles Clippers.” So…yeah. I asked Lombardi about this at the end of the Cammalleri conference call, and today I’m waiting to see if I’ll receive official word about this. If it’s true (and I believe it is, or at least will be), it will save the Kings $2.5 million next season.

— Mike Weaver has signed a two-way, one-year contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

— Jamie Lundmark has signed a one-year deal to play in Russia. This actually happened a couple weeks ago when I was on vacation, so I wasn’t around to see if it made news then or not!

— And to answer a question I saw in the comments, yes, the Kings can negotiate an extension with Cammalleri starting next July 1. It’s the same situation as with Visnovsky this summer.

From the Canadian Press’ story on the signing, in reference to Mike Gillis, Cammalleri’s agent:

“Contacted Tuesday, Gillis had no comment on the decision.”

I’m a words guy, not a numbers guy, so in terms of arbitration I leave it to others to analyze stats and contract figures. In the case of Cammalleri, I’m going to leave it to Daniel Tolensky, who did an interesting breakdown of Cammalleri’s case and offered some conclusions as to why he thinks it wasn’t a shocking decision.

Cammalleri arbitration analysis

The Kings have put out a press release this morning, so the saga is officially over.

Thanks to everyone for the kind words and support yesterday. They were much appreciated. Hopefully today will be less stressful for everyone!

Here’s the transcript of the conference call we had tonight with Dean Lombardi. I think it’s pretty much self-explanatory, but if there are any questions I’ll be happy to try to answer them.

For the record, as I said before I’ve been trying to contact Cammalleri’s agent for a week and he never returned a call. Mike gave me a number last year but it has since been changed, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to catch up with him sometime soon and get his feelings on the whole situation.

Oh, and there’s a Tverdovsky question at the bottom, following reports that he might soon sign in Russia.

Thanks for your patience today everyone…
Continue reading “Lombardi quotes” »

Dean Lombardi has confirmed the contract numbers, at $3.1 million and $3.6 million. The Kings will accept the award, finalize the paperwork tomorrow and send it in. Only reason it didn’t happen tonight is that they got the figures late in the day…as we all well know.

As for the range, the Kings came in at $2.6 million and Cammalleri came in at $6 million.

I have a conference call to transcribe tonight, so look for that in a couple hours. For now, I asked Lombardi about the possibility of a trade, and he said (I’m paraphrasing) that they would have looked at it had the arbitration award been high. He indicated that this award is well within the budget, so I think the trade talk can calm down.

That’s $3.1 million next season and $3.6 million in ’08-’09 for Cammalleri. Those are the numbers I have, and I have them from a very good source who is confident that they are correct.

There’s a conference call with Lombardi scheduled in about 30 minutes.

The contract numbers for Cammalleri should be released soon. I have dollar amounts that I believe to be correct, but I’m going to keep them to myself for now. I’ll say this much…if they’re correct, they’re lower than most expected.

I’m not trying to tease anyone…I will get the official information out as soon as possible.

Tampa Bay’s Ryan Craig just had his arbitration award announced, and that hearing was on Friday.

Here’s the rundown. The Kings say they don’t know anything. If they do, they’re doing a very good job of keeping it under wraps. Cammalleri’s agent hasn’t returned calls for a week. A NHL representative says he does not have any idea about the timetable. Nobody answers the phone at the NHLPA office and their representative has yet to return a cell-phone call.

If anyone wonders why the NHL struggles to be seen as a “major” pro sports league, the above paragraph is a relatively minor, but highly effective, example.