Some educated guesses for the 2009-10 NHL Awards

Hockey Betting Lines

06/22/2010 - Toronto, Canada (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The National Hockey League's annual silverware party is set to go on Wednesday in Las Vegas, which is a city familiar with shiny, pretty things.

Below are some predictions on who will claim the sparkling hardware. Keep in mind that the voting for the awards takes place at the end of the regular season, so playoff heroics don't count, which might not be a bad thing for Hart finalist Alexander Ovechkin.

HART TROPHY (Most Valuable Player) - Alexander Ovechkin, Washington

Ovechkin joins Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby and Vancouver's Henrik Sedin as the finalists for the Hart Trophy, which goes to the player judged to be most valuable to his team.

Although Sedin had a breakout year, notching 112 points, which gives him the Art Ross Trophy as the league's top point getter, it's impossible to ignore Ovechkin's contribution to the Capitals' massive regular season, which saw them notch 121 points to take the President's Trophy and 318 goals. Nobody else was even close in goals.

Ovechkin finished with 109 points, tied for second with Crosby, but played 10 fewer games than Sedin. And, of course, Ovechkin brings buzz, electricity and a physicality that neither Crosby nor Sedin are capable of.

Look for Ovie to take home his third consecutive Hart Trophy, tying him with Mario Lemieux, Bobby Clarke, Bobby Orr and Howie Morenz.

CALDER TROPHY (Top rookie) - Tyler Myers, Buffalo

Myers, Colorado's Matt Duchene and Detroit's Jimmy Howard all had terrific seasons, but given that it usually takes defensemen a little longer to mature, Myers' maturity, size, composure and numbers - 11 goals, 48 points - are more compelling.

VEZINA TROPHY (Top goalie) - Ilya Bryzgalov, Phoenix

That Marty Brodeur can rack up 45 wins at the age of 38 should qualify him for a special award, and Buffalo's Ryan Miller will one day win this trophy, but for this year it will belong to Bryzgalov, who racked up 42 wins for a Phoenix team that was expected to go nowhere and which had major ownership problems.

NORRIS TROPHY (Top defenseman) - Duncan Keith, Chicago

Keith finished with 69 points - seven fewer points than fellow finalist Mike Green - but he was a more complete player. There are still questions about Green's defensive capabilities. Nobody is a better skater than Keith at the moment. Drew Doughty had a fantastic season, but this one's Keith's.

SELKE TROPHY (Defensive forward) - Ryan Kesler, Vancouver

Best defensive forward is always a tricky award because it involves so many little things that go unseen, including scoring chances thwarted. Bob Gainey, of course, was the master of the Selke, winning it the first four times it was awarded. Guy Carbonneau, another Montreal Canadien, won it three times. Jordan Staal had a solid season as did defending Selke winner Pavel Datsyuk, but Kesler had a breakout year with 75 points . The 25-year-old also spent four minutes a game - about six shifts - killing penalties, though his candidacy could be hurt by the fact that Vancouver's penalty-killing was an unspectacular 18th in the NHL last season.

JACK ADAMS AWARD (Top coach) - Dave Tippett, Phoenix

Joe Sacco did a great job coaching in Colorado last season with a young, rebuilding team, and Barry Trotz quietly makes the Nashville Predators competitive year after year. Tippett, however, took a Phoenix Coyotes team that had major ownership problems and that had been abandoned by coach Wayne Gretzky and won 50 games with it. The Coyotes' 107 points in 2009-10 were third-most in the Western Conference and fourth best in the league; a 28-point improvement over 2008-09. This should be an easy call.

MASTERTON TROPHY (awarded for perseverance and dedication) - You decide.

Washington's Jose Theodore had a terrific season, notching 30 wins. How he did so following the death last summer of his two-month-old son from respiratory complications is difficult to comprehend. Kurtis Foster came back from a horrific broken leg - one of those terrible races to the puck on an icing call where one of the players trips or is pushed and crumples into the end boards - to post eight goals and 42 points for the Tampa Bay Lightning. San Jose's Jed Ortmeyer has torn his ACL twice in his career, suffered a pulmonary embolism and blood clots and missed 41, 31 and 28 games in 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09 respectively. This season, he was back in full health, notching eight goals and 19 points, but more importantly, 76 games played. Don't want to even predict this one. They're all worthy.

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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.

NFL Betting Lines

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