Sens welcome Fisher back to Ottawa

Hockey Betting Lines

02/09/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Ottawa Senators were already burned by one former teammate this week. They hope that same thing doesn't happen this evening against the Nashville Predators in Mike Fisher's return to Scotiabank Place.

The 31-year-old Fisher was a second-round selection by the Senators in the 1998 Entry Draft and amassed 167 goals and 181 assists in 675 games with Ottawa. His stint with the club came to an end nearly a year ago when the Sens shipped him to the Predators on Feb. 10 for a pair of draft picks, including a 2011 first rounder as they looked to begin a rebuilding process.

Fisher had five goals and seven assists in 27 games with the Predators after the deal and added seven points in 12 playoff games.

"I've been looking forward to it for a long time, but I'm sure it is going to be a little strange going into the visiting locker room," Fisher told Nashville's website. "But that being said, as an athlete you get ready for playoff games and there are different emotions, excitement and you have to learn to just channel it. I'm sure (Thursday night) will be a little like that. But you know what, when the puck drops it is all business and it is all the same."

Fisher's return comes just two days after former starting Ottawa goaltender Brian Elliott came back to town as a member of the St. Louis Blues. Elliott haunted his former club by making 28 saves in dealing the Senators a 3-1 loss, Ottawa's season-high seventh in a row.

Elliott was traded to Colorado last season for Craig Anderson, who was pulled less than four minutes into Tuesday's game after allowing a pair of goals on four shots. Alex Auld made 13 saves in relief.

Daniel Alfredsson had the lone goal for the Senators, who are on their longest losing streak since an 0-9-2 drought from Jan. 14-Feb. 9 of last year.

"The first 10 minutes, they forced a lot of turnovers and capitalized on a couple of them, and we put ourselves in a tough hole again," Alfredsson said.

Ottawa's skid, which includes losses in the first three of a five-game homestand, has dropped the club to the eighth overall spot in the Eastern Conference and just two points ahead of ninth-place Florida.

Senators defenseman Chris Phillips is expected to reach a milestone tonight after skating in his 999th career game on Tuesday. He will join Alfredsson as the only players to skate in 1,000 games with Ottawa.

Fisher will look to dampen that celebration and help his club get back on track following a 4-3 shootout loss to the Canucks on Tuesday. The loss dropped Nashville to 14-3-1 in its past 18 games and the club sits in a tie with St. Louis for second place in the Central Division, five points behind first-place Detroit.

Fisher had a goal on Tuesday to give him nine tallies and 17 points over his past 16 games. He also has eight goals in his past eight contests, while Sergei Kostitsyn and Colin Wilson lit the lamp as well.

Pekka Rinne carried a club-record 11-game win streak into Tuesday's start, but allowed three first-period goals en route to his first defeat since Jan. 5. He had allowed more than two goals just once over his run of victories.

"That's a fast team over there and we tried to match it," said Nashville defenseman Roman Josi. "I thought we played pretty well and a got a point out of it, just couldn't get that extra point."

The Predators had a six-game home winning streak snapped. They play four of their next five on the road.

Nashville posted a 6-5 overtime win when these clubs last met in Ottawa on Oct. 22, 2009, with captain Shea Weber logging the game-winner as part of his two-goal effort.

The Sens, though, have sandwiched that loss with a pair of wins in Nashville, including a 2-1 victory in the lone encounter last season.

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

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