What's With Sundin?

The biggest prize of the free agent frenzy didn't sign up with a team until midway through the season last year, as Mats Sundin just couldn't pull the trigger on a deal with the Canucks until the middle of December. Sundin only signed a 1-year deal with the club, which made him an unrestricted free agent again this summer and since then, we've heard very little from the 38-year old Swede, other than his wedding, which happened last weekend.

Now that we've hit September, the countdown to NHL training camps is on and it should be high-time for Sundin to make a decision to whether or not he'll return to the NHL for another season. With Sundin's sub-par performance in the regular season with the Canucks (28 points in 41 games), teams will definitely be hesitant to bring him on at a large pay scale, which his reputation may demand. Teams that would be able to pay Sundin in the upper levels in the salary ladder are not likely to be Cup contenders, rather rebuilding teams that are budgeting for a mediocre year. If Sundin wants to play for a contender, he'll have to swallow his pride and take a pretty big pay cut, since a lot of these teams are wondering how they're going to balance the remainder of their cap space.

With Dany Heatley still sitting on the trade block in Ottawa, Phil Kessel in Boston, Petr Sykora unsigned, as is Miroslav Satan, there could be a few names that are remaining on the market before anyone really drops Sundin's name into the fray. This likely won't help Sundin's chances of jumping onto a team before training camp, but if one of those pieces were to quickly move to a team, you just never know how it'll play out.