I Know You Are, But What Am I?

Well, Flyers fans, our GM Extraordinaire is at it again. In response to the declaration by left wing Simon Gagne and his agent Tuesday that there was some agreement on at least the length of a contract, Bob Clarke has decided to let it all air out. For the first time since things really soured between the team and Eric Lindros, Clarke has gone public with some details of contract negotiations. "We offered Simon $5 million a year for four years and $5 million a year for five years," Clarke said. "We haven't been unfair to Simon Gagne. The statistics and everything else back it up. We didn't just pull these numbers out of the air. We did it professionally." The last time Clarke went public during a difficult contract negotiation for an unsigned player was the summer of 1998, with Eric Lindros. Sauve said Tuesday he would prefer three years and indicated there was mutual agreement there. Clarke said otherwise. "We have not talked three years," Clarke said. "Would we go three? We might but not for $5 million. If we're going to go that high [in dollars], we need to get some years out of it." This is a genius move. I mean, really, why wouldn't you air the dirty laundry between you and the agent for your team's best goal scorer? I can't see any reason not to do it. It's not like something like this hasn't already happened for Clarke to draw some experience from.