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Thursday, December 30, 1999
Owner nixes Primeau deal
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- For a few hours this week, NHL center Keith Primeau thought he had a new job.Instead, he remains idled by a contract dispute with the Carolina Hurricanes.
"All I know is that I was close to getting moved Tuesday," Primeau said Wednesday from his home in Cary, a Raleigh suburb. "I got a call from my agent Tuesday saying that the Hurricanes were close to trading me and that the financial terms had been worked out. Then I got another call Tuesday night saying that the deal was off."
The News & Observer of Raleigh said the center would have been traded but according to unnamed sources, Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos blocked the deal.
The trade would have sent Primeau, an unnamed minor-league player and two draft picks to the Phoenix Coyotes for either All-Star center Jeremy Roenick or All-Star left winger Keith Tkachuk.
Roenick, 29, is the Coyotes' leading scorer this season with 46 points in 32 games. He is making $4.2 million this season.
Tkachuk, the Coyotes' 27-year-old captain, has 30 points in 32 games and is being paid $4.3 million this season.
Primeau, 28, would have received $16.9 million over four years from the Coyotes, according to his co-agent, Don Reynolds. Primeau would have made $3 million this season, $5.4 million next season, $4.2 million in 2001-02 and $4.3 million in 2002-03.
"I believe this was the closest I've come to being traded," said Primeau, who became a restricted free agent July 1. "I would hate to think that this trade was killed out of spite or animosity or to hurt me or my family."
Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford neither confirmed nor denied that Karmanos rejected the trade.
"We're not going to comment on deals or rumored deals," Rutherford said Wednesday night. "There were some talks with a couple of teams regarding Keith Primeau at the start of the week."
Karmanos said in a recent interview that he would spike any trade if he thought the team getting Primeau would pay "too much money."
"What another team offers to pay Primeau would affect what I would have to pay a player in arbitration," Karmanos said at the time.
The Hurricanes last week sent Primeau a letter giving him until Dec. 28 either to accept their two-year, $6 million offer or sit out the 1999-2000 season without being traded.
Primeau said he threw the letter away.
His counterproposal of a four-year contract worth $17 million was rejected by the Hurricanes two weeks ago.
Since becoming a restricted free agent, Primeau has rejected Carolina's contract offers of three years at $12 million, five years at $20 million and two years at $7 million.
Primeau, who made $2 million in 1998-99, his third season with the Hurricanes, said he rejected the $20 million deal because he is eligible for unrestricted free agency in four years. After he turned down the $7 million offer, the Hurricanes stripped him of the captaincy and gave it to center Ron Francis.
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