The condition of his release for camp this year was that if he doesn\'t make the NHL team out of camp he goes back to play for his Russian team. My bet is he stays.

Scottie Bowman was on the FAN 590 radio station in the morning and among mostly useless nostalgia and one glaring \'have you read the CBA lately\' mistake that shook off my cobwebs let it slip that cap hits will be a consideration in their decisions on which kids on entry-level contracts to keep for opening day active roster.

At this point, if Bolland, Kontiola and Makarov all make the team out of camp, they would be at about 57.6M on 12 Fs, 6 Ds, and 2 Gs, not counting the injured Wisniewski. They would be just under the cap if Versteeg is slotted in instead of Makarov, but then akarov goes back to Russia ... quite the pickle.

They were rumored to have been trying to move Duncan Keith, and that would solve their problem, but this hasn\'t happened so far. I think that\'s still a possibility, though they are thin at D.

Starting Barker in the minors would also solve the problem, but that\'d mean that beyond the top-4 of Campbell, Seabrook, Sopel and Keith they\'d then have 2-3 of Janik, Walker, Hendry, and Hjalmarsson. Not terribly deep.

They may need to sacrifice their planned 3rd line, playing Versteeg on it to start the season and Byfuglien back on D until Barker can be promoted.

Or they can simply send Khabby through waivers and if no one takes him straight up pass him through recall waivers and absorb half his salary.