Buffalo halts Carolina's nine-game win streak

Hockey Betting Lines

04/09/2009 - Raleigh, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jason Pominville scored twice as the Buffalo Sabres routed the Hurricanes, 5-1, ending Carolina's nine-game winning streak.

Matt Ellis, Jochen Hecht and Derek Roy also tallied for the Sabres, who were coming off a 3-1 win at Toronto on Wednesday. Despite the win, Buffalo was eliminated from the playoff picture after the New York Rangers edged Philadelphia, 2-1, on Thursday. The Sabres have has split their last six overall.

Tim Connolly, Daniel Paille and Jaroslav Spacek each registered two assists in the win.

Ryan Miller was solid, turning aside 26-of-27 shots for the Sabres, who will host Boston in its season finale on Saturday.

Eric Staal tallied for Carolina, which tied the club's longest winning streak after routing the New York Islanders on Tuesday.

The Hurricanes, who will wrap up their regular season at New Jersey on Saturday, are tied with Philadelphia for fourth place in the Eastern Conference standings with 97 points.

Carolina also saw its franchise-record 12-game winning streak at home come to an end.

Cam Ward allowed four goals on 13 shots for Carolina, before being replaced by Michael Leighton at the midway point of the second period. Leighton stopped 11-of-12 shots.

Pominville opened the scoring 5:34 into the first period when he took a feed from Connolly and put it home from in close to give the Sabres the early lead.

Ellis' wrap around tally 3:15 into the second put Buffalo ahead by a 2-0 margin. Hecht then lit the lamp three minutes later when he beat Ward after taking a pass from Paille to stretch the visitors advantage to three.

It got worse for the Hurricanes, as Connolly won a clean faceoff and backhanded a pass toward the net that Pominville tapped in for his second of the contest near the midway point of the stanza.

The goal signaled the end of the night for Ward, as he was pulled in favor of Leighton. Roy's short-handed penalty shot goal at 9:39 of the third stanza stretched the Sabres lead to 5-0.

Staal's power-play marker with 28 seconds remaining spoiled Miller's bid for a shutout.

Game Notes

Buffalo improved to 18-17-6 as the guest this season...The Hurricanes dropped to 26-14-1 as the host...Both teams split four matchups this year, but the Sabres have won nine of the last 13 against Carolina...Spacek was playing in his 700th career game and registered his 300th career assist on Ellis' goal.

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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.

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