Bryzgalov, Coyotes shut out Hurricanes

Hockey Betting Lines

03/13/2010 - Raleigh, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Ilya Bryzgalov made 29 saves to record his NHL- leading eighth shutout, and the Phoenix Coyotes won their fourth straight game with a 4-0 rout of the Carolina Hurricanes.

Lee Stempniak and Martin Hanzal each scored a pair of goals for the Coyotes, who began a four-game road trip on a winning note. Adrian Aucoin netted a pair of assists in the victory.

Stempniak continued to provide a spark since being acquired by Phoenix from Toronto at the trade deadline. The Coyotes are 4-0-0 with him in the lineup, and Stepmniak has five goals in that span, including consecutive multi-goal contests.

Justin Peters allowed all four goals on only 20 shots in the defeat, only Carolina's third in 12 games.

Stempniak's goal four minutes into the game proved to be all Phoenix needed. He caught a loose puck by the left post after several players battled behind the net and stuffed it past Peters before the netminder located the disc.

Exactly 12 minutes after the first goal, Stempniak netted a power-play marker when he took a feed at the top of the left circle, skated to the slot and fired a wrister past Peters.

Bryzgalov made nine saves in the first, and Hanzal made it 3-0 at the 13:50 mark of the second. Shane Doan's pass toward the middle caught a stick and was deflected high into the air; Hanzal settled it right in front of the crease and fired it past Peters.

Carolina's best chance to score came early in the third on a 5-on-3 opportunity, but Bryzgalov made several spectacular glove saves to keep his whitewash intact. Hanzal's accurate one-timer to the lower right corner immediately following the successful penalty kill made it 4-0 to account for the final margin.

Game Notes

Carolina had swept the season series in 2008-09, 2-0...Phoenix finishes its schedule with 10 out of 14 games on the road...Stempniak had only 14 goals in 62 games with the Leafs this season and has a five-game point streak...Hanzal had his first multi-goal game of the season...Bryzgalov's eight shutouts are a single-season career-high. He has 16 for his career.

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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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