Salary Cap

With two visits to doctors, the Flyers' long-awaited roster issues disappeared yesterday with physicians' signatures. At least for the time being. Three moves, with varying salary-cap implications, were made. Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren activated a healthy Michael Leighton to the 23-man roster, but in order to do that, he moved defenseman Matt Walker to injured reserve to make roster space and officially added Ian Laperriere's salary to the long-term injured reserve to create enough cap space for Leighton's $1.55 million salary.

General manager Bob Clarke, an old-school hockey person, isn't wasting any time leading the Flyers into the NHL's new salary-cap era. Clarke, speaking yesterday at a news conference at the Wachovia Center, said what had been long expected - that he had placed longtime team member John LeClair and Tony Amonte on waivers for the purpose of buying out the final year of their contracts. Clarke announced that defensemen Mattias Timander and Marcus Ragnarsson will stay in Sweden instead of joining the team.

The National Hockey League is shutting down for the second time in 10 years. Yesterday, the league's Board of Governors unanimously endorsed commissioner Gary Bettman's proposal to lock the players out of training camp this morning because the league had not reached a new collective bargaining agreement with the NHL Players' Association. The major sticking point has been the league's desire to cut losses by instituting "cost certainty" - a cap on player salaries. The union has steadfastly rejected a salary cap. The NHL "will not play again until there is a new economic system," Bettman said at the Westin Times Square hotel.

You can't sell air conditioners to Nanook of the North. You can't sell elevator shoes to Shawn Bradley. But yesterday, Richard Ravitch undertook a selling job of similar proportions. By trying to sell a salary cap to the baseball's players union. Wish him luck. Ravitch, the owners' chief labor negotiator, finally made it to the negotiating table yesterday to present his side's long-awaited salary-cap proposal - a proposal he described as "critical for the game of baseball.

NEW YORK - The NBA players' association, not Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, proposed the elimination of the salary cap during negotiations aimed at ending months of labor strife, a league official said yesterday. NBA senior vice president Mike Bass said union executive director Billy Hunter made "several misstatements" during an hourlong podcast with ESPN.com on Monday. Among them was the revelation of the salary-cap plan, which Bass said was actually an exception to the cap, not the elimination of it. Hunter said that, during a meeting last week, Cuban proposed what he called a "game changer" - a plan to replace the salary cap with a heavy tax for teams that spent to a certain level.

A reported deal that would have made ex-Eagle offensive lineman Antone Davis an Atlanta Falcon never was, said his agent, Jim Solano. Solano has been working on a deal most of this week, but yesterday the Falcons rejected a new proposal because its structure is not agreeable with Atlanta's salary-cap allotment for this season. Solano has been seeking an average of $1 million per year for Davis, the Eagles' No. 1 draft pick in 1991, who is an unrestricted free agent. The Falcons' offer was reported to be a two-year package worth approximately $1.8 million.

The talk on the day 32-year-old Raleigh McKenzie officially jumped from the Washington Redskins to the Eagles was about creating competition along the offensive line. Sure. The Eagles have been shopping veteran center David Alexander around the NFL for about a month now. Alexander knows it, the Eagles' coaches know it, agents know it, the Eagles' personnel types know it, management knows it. Alexander read coach Ray Rhodes's handwriting during the Eagles' unsuccessful courtship of ex-Cowboys center Mark Stepnoski.

The Flyers' courtship of star free-agent goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov officially got under way in style yesterday, as they fueled up Ed Snider's private jet and sent it to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport to ferry Bryzgalov to Philadelphia after his 9-hour flight from Moscow. The Flyers acquired Bryzgalov's exclusive negotiating rights in a June 7 trade with Phoenix that cost them a third-round pick in 2012, the rights to Phantoms forward Matt Clackson, and a conditional pick if Bryzgalov inks a deal.

The NHL is going to a $39 million salary cap. And, as they have in the NFL, teams are designating personnel to fill the role of capologist. Barry Hanrahan, assistant to general manager Bob Clarke, has been given that task for the Flyers. Hanrahan met with Eagles president Joe Banner late in the 2003-04 NHL season, getting a four-hour crash course in managing a salary cap. Banner has been the Eagles' cap wizard for a decade and is considered one of the sharpest cap managers in pro football.

First-year captain Mike Richards blamed himself yesterday for the Flyers' late-season doldrums and suggested he is learning the requirements of that role - just as general manager Paul Holmgren is learning to manage the salary cap. "I can take responsibility for not preparing the team," Richards said. "But it's a learning process, and I'm going through a lot of this for the first time. Next year, hopefully, I improve on it. " The Flyers were 11-10-2 in the last six weeks of the season and lost home-ice advantage in the playoffs on the last day of the regular season, when a point would have meant starting at home.

JAROMIR JAGR is a scholar. At Tuesday's morning skate, Jagr twirled around the Wells Fargo Center ice for the first time since leaving Philadelphia last summer and took up his familiar post at the Bruins' white board. There, he diagrammed plays for linemates Chris Kelly and Carl Soderberg, something that was a welcomed staple during his 1-year stint with the Flyers. "Everything in his life revolves around hockey," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. Jaromir Jagr is also an economist.

HAVE ANY of the professional sports teams in Philadelphia suffered the fast free fall that the 76ers have over the past 11 months? During that time, the team came within one win of advancing to the Eastern Conference final, blew up the roster via buyout, free agency and trade, acquired a player whom many considered one of the top two centers in the NBA, lost that player for the season because of injury, failed to make the playoffs and now lost...

THE PLAYER who cost the organization much of its future in a trade last summer didn't play one game and recently had surgery on two deteriorating knees. He becomes an unrestricted free agent on July 1. There is not much room under the salary cap, perhaps about $12-13 million, to try to make a splash in free agency. The draft pick will be just out of the top 10, in a draft that is filled with players who appear to be peripheral pieces, not ones to build a team around. There could be some front-office moves and now, as of Thursday morning, 76ers owner Josh Harris is heading a group to find a new head coach.

SIMON GAGNE is not old - by sport or society standards - at age 33. Yet, after 794 NHL games and 109 Stanley Cup playoff games, there are days when his body betrays him. He has endured at least four career concussions, groin injuries, a double hernia repair and a scary surgery to remove a 2-inch bony mass in his neck. "You wake up and you feel it," Gagne said. "You look at all of the stuff you have gone through - the playoffs, all the games you've had to play, all of the injuries, the surgeries.

DANNY BRIERE was not back in the Flyers lineup Thursday night against his hometown Ottawa Senators, still hampered by a concussion that caused him to miss his 10th consecutive game. Briere, 35, is likely to return Saturday in Buffalo, where he will have eight games remaining to salvage a career-worst season. They may be the last eight games of his tenure in Philadelphia. Briere has five goals and eight assists in 26 games. He missed time at the start of the season with a hairline fracture in his wrist, suffered in Germany during the NHL lockout.

It was exciting to see the Eagles make a big splash on the first day of NFL free agency, especially since it was Nnamdi Asomugha being thrown overboard. Hey, at least he made contact. The Eagles will pay Asomugha $4 million not to play for them in 2013 and that is the best bargain general manager Howie Roseman could have made. There are two ways to make your team better, and subtraction is the easy one. It is the addition part that gets tricky, as Asomugha's two-year display of ineffectiveness demonstrated.

A DAY BEFORE Tuesday's start of free agency, two of the NFL's top wide receivers were traded. Baltimore sent Anquan Boldin to San Francisco, and Minnesota shipped Percy Harvin to Seattle. The 49ers acquired Boldin for a sixth-round draft pick. Boldin, a star in Baltimore's run to the Super Bowl title, must pass a physical to complete the deal. Boldin, 32, had six catches for 104 yards and a touchdown in the Ravens' 34-31 Super Bowl victory over the 49ers. Meanwhile, Harvin, 24, will join the Seahawks for a package of draft picks that includes Seattle's first-round selection next month, No. 25 overall.

The San Francisco 49ers have acquired wide receiver Anquan Boldin from the Baltimore Ravens for a sixth-round draft pick. Boldin, a star in Baltimore's run to the Super Bowl title last season, must pass a physical to complete the deal. The Ravens announced the trade Monday. Boldin had six catches for 104 yards and a touchdown in the Ravens' 34-31 Super Bowl victory over the 49ers. The 32-year-old Boldin had said he'd consider retirement rather than leave Baltimore. But going to the NFC champions might change his mind.

The NFL salary cap for the 2013 season will rise to $123 million from $120.6 million in 2012, an NFL Players Association official familiar with negotiations over the figure told the Associated Press on Thursday. The increase, which is larger than some in the NFL had anticipated, is a result of greater-than-expected revenues last season - primarily from NFL Properties - and a jump in projected league revenues, according to the official. The league and the union work together to establish a cap number, based on parameters established under their collective bargaining agreement.

THE DALLAS COWBOYS have reworked the contracts of five starters, including DeMarcus Ware , Jason Witten and Miles Austin , to save salary-cap space. Meanwhile, it also was reported Thursday that the NFL's salary cap for the 2013 season will rise to $123 million from $120.6 million in 2012. Dallas, which was penalized $5 million off its cap in both 2012 and '13, needed to scramble to free up space. By restructuring the deals of star linebacker Ware, tight end Witten, wide receiver Austin, cornerback Brandon Carr and center Ryan Cook , the Cowboys wiped out the $20 million they were projected to be over the cap this year.