Bourque scores twice to push Flames past Avs

Hockey Betting Lines

03/17/2010 - Denver, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Rene Bourque tallied twice and Vesa Toskala made 32 saves as Calgary clipped Colorado, 3-2, at Pepsi Center.

Eric Nystrom picked up the other score for the Flames, who snapped a two-game slide and won for the fifth time in seven tilts to move within one point of idle Detroit for eighth place in the Western Conference.

Chris Durno and Milan Hejduk scored for the Avalanche, who had won three in a row. Craig Anderson took the loss despite 31 stops.

Calgary led by two after one period, thanks to a short-handed breakaway score from Bourque at 3:12 and Nystrom's redirection of a Jamal Mayers pass at 7:33.

Bourque pumped in a power-play goal for a 3-0 Flames edge at 6:55 of the second period, before the Avs got on the board with a disputed goal.

In a goal-mouth scramble, Durno managed to sneak his rebound shot between the left post and Toskala's outstretched pad with 6:16 to play in the period. Since the puck settled in an area of the net obscured from plain view, a review found a replay angle which clearly showed the disc over the goal line.

Hejduk's second-chance poke of a Paul Stastny chance pulled Colorado within 3-2 with 32.5 seconds remaining and Anderson on the bench, but the Avs couldn't net an equalizer.

Game Notes

Bourque posted his second multi-goal game of the year, and first since a three-goal game at Edmonton on December 28...Hejduk reached the 20-goal plateau for the 10th time in his 11-year career...All five games in the season series have ended with identical 3-2 scores, with Colorado having won the first four.

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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.

NFL Betting Lines

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