Oh my what a mess Mr's Lamoriello & Kovalchuk have created…

Yesterday's ruling by Richard Bloch on the Kovalchuk contract has opened a SERIOUS can of worms. In his ruling Bloch also mentioned four other contracts that would be open to revisiting – Roberto Luongo, Chris Pronger, Marion Hossa and Marc Savard's. And here it starts to get really muddy.

Technically if the league and the PA head to arbitration on any or all of these four it would be with an arbitrator appointed by mutual consent. Given that the PA has had their peepee whacked by Mr. Bloch chances are there will be some serious in-fighting before the next arbitrator is picked.

But Gary Bettman has another option that would be EXTREMELY gory for the 2009 – 2010 season!

Under Article 26 of the league constitiution Bettman could piggy-back on yesterday's ruling and fine any of these four teams up to $5 MILLION, as well as forfeiture of an unspecified number of draft picks; AND  “a forfeiture of any NHL Game(s) determined to have been affected by a Circumvention.”

The last one is a the real kicker. If the Blackhawks were to forfeit any game affected by Marion Hossa that might actually mean they did NOT qualify for the Stanley Cup final (or perhaps even the playoffs?). So would they lose the Cup over this?

Well, you couldn't give the cup to the Flyers! They made the playoffs on the last day of the season – with Chris Pronger in the lineup!  Can you say WHOOPSIE?

So we step back a bit… the two Cup finalists then would be… Montreal and San Jose. But which one would they give the Cup to? By their regular season record? Or would they simply replay the Cup final?

The latter would seem to be the logical solution in this illogical situation. But if they replayed the final would it represent the two top teams in the league? San Jose's starting goaltender is now playing in the KHL and Montreal, as we all know, committed the *BOOF* of the decade by trading Halak to St. Louis.

So a final series with Nittimaki vs. Price? Ouch!

Quick! San Jose! Sign Anti Niemi!

…before Montreal does…

Personally I am wondering whether the league is going to declare Vancouver's captain a free agent or not…

TUMS PLEASE!…