Eyes On The Prize, a Montreal Canadiens community

There’s been concern...that the Panthers are under a time crunch to sign 2008 draft pick Jacob Markstrom so they won’t lose his rights. That’s not an issue.

NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly responded back to me in an email that "actually, they have until next June (2011) to sign him. He is subject to the terms of our Player Transfer Agreement with the Swedish Federation/League."

"I don’t expect that publicly reported loss numbers will have any impact whatsoever on our ability to sell the club," Daly said in an e-mail yesterday. The "losses in the short term don’t seem to be factoring into the interest of potential buyers. They have much bigger, longer-term vision of the investment."

Daly added the league has fielded a number of inquiries about the club. "Lots of calls and discussions [i.e., more than six]. Not sure I would classify them all as interested bidders."

In an email last night, deputy NHL commissioner Bill Daly made it clear he believes Baum made the right call saying that Peddie is "not even close" to being behind Balsillie's rejection as an owner. Daly called the suggestion "a joke."

"The whole Balsillie 'campaign' is a joke," wrote Daly. "Mr. Balsillie obviously doesn't have a good sense of how NHL governors perceive him. Which is very negatively."

Daly said the league owners took Balsillie to task Wednesday and accused him of turning his back "on commitments and representations he has made to the owners." He said Balsillie's disregard for league rules, policies and procedures "have caused significant damage to the league and to many of our clubs.

"These are facts that were pointed out to Jim frequently (Wednesday) by our owners during the course of the interview. At the end of the day, as is their absolute right to do, the owners simply decided they could not trust Jim and they didn't want him as their business partner.

"Hamilton is a great hockey town with passionate fans. But it may be time for the city to come to the realization that it married the wrong spouse," Daly wrote.

"If I didn't know any better, I would think I was living in a time warp. It's as if the complaint was drafted 30 years ago. Since that time, case after case after case has established a sports league's right to control the location of its franchises. Maybe they haven't been paying attention."

"There was no need to put the team in bankruptcy. The sole purpose of putting the team in bankruptcy was to try to avoid their lease which isn't at all certain and an effort to relocate the franchise. So it's really an abuse of process; a sham bankruptcy in our view.

"The only person who generates additional cash out of the Balsillie bid for relocation to Hamilton would be Jerry Moyes. None of the creditors would get any additional money from that bid."