Shedding Some Light on Biron

More news has come down about why exactly Martin Biron chose to sign with the New York Islanders. Here is what we know according to a beat reporter out of Long Island...

1) The Islanders have some concern that DiPietro won't be available for the start of the season and wanted a better one-two punch than Dwayne Roloson and Scott Munroe. This was the original tandem set to start the Islanders season and GM Garth Snow, knowing they hadn't done much else in free agency to add toughness, defense or offense besides Tavares, thought a more reliable start/backup core made sense.

2) The big reason for Biron's addition however isn't the one-two punch we referenced in item #1, but more that Snow is looking into the future knowing that somewhere at some time in the regular season a team will come knocking for a more established goalie. Biron's $1.4 million price tag is extremely attractive and this gives the NYI some leverage in a trade for either Biron or Roloson at some point later.

3) Biron and Roloson share the same agent. When Biron was unable to aquire the long term big time payday he was hoping for, they contacted Garth Snow and put this whole deal together. Long story short, this deal was not available to any other team besides the NYI. Biron is hoping to land somewhere else and prove he's worth the dollar value he's asking, thus resigning a long term deal with whatever team picks him up in a trade.

4) The NYI have no intention of keeping Biron around for the long haul. Both the Islanders and Biron understand this and was a principal factor of the deal. New York has approximately 5 goalies in their system they intend not to move excluding Biron. They drafted two this year. This is nothing but a temporary stop gap while DiPietro is out.

For Oiler fans, perhaps a small sigh of relief is worth breathing. Tambellini was not comparing salaries to goaltenders, nor apples to oranges when he signed Khabibulin instead of Biron.

We can all still argue that Biron is better than Khabibulin or visa versa, but we now seem to know for certain that is wasn't $1.4 million (Biron) vs $3.75 million (Khabibulin). It sounds like Khabibulin was the cheaper of the two options when the Oilers inquired.