Coyotes Capitulate, Sign Tverdovsky for $3.1 Million

The Phoenix Coyotes signed Oleg Tverdovsky to a two-year, $3.1-million contract Friday, giving the disgruntled defenseman almost what he demanded when his holdout began in August.

The Coyotes’ weak power play and eight-game winless streak going into their game Friday against the Mighty Ducks were considerations in raising the ante, General Manager Bobby Smith said at a hastily called news conference.

Tverdovsky, 21, will practice with the Coyotes this morning and play tonight against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Even without Tverdovsky on the ice, Phoenix ended its losing streak in emphatic fashion Friday night with a 6-2 victory at the Pond.

The two-year contract calls for a $1.4-million salary this season, pro-rated to about $820,000 because Tverdovsky missed 35 games, including Friday’s. He will earn $1.7 million next season, and could earn an additional $700,000 in performance bonuses over both seasons.

Although slightly built for a defenseman at 6 feet and 195 pounds, Tverdovsky has the offensive skills (20 goals, 77 assists in 200 career games) that should help the Coyotes’ slumping power play.

The Coyotes traded Teemu Selanne, a prospect and a draft pick to the Ducks on Feb. 7, 1996, for Chad Kilger, a draft pick and Tverdovsky, who skated for Russia at the World Championships that summer.

The signing leaves Sergei Fedorov of Detroit and Petr Nedved of Pittsburgh as the only restricted free agents holding out.

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New Jersey Devil owner John McMullen pledged in Hoboken, N.J., to bring hockey to the cradle of baseball, saying the fans deserve better than the team’s current “antiquated” Meadowlands home.

“We need a first-class facility for our team and our fans,” McMullen said during a news conference with Mayor Anthony Russo, architects and a host of consultants. “I’m just tired of always being second best.”

McMullen said he would move the team from the Meadowlands, a complex overseen by a state agency, to a $175-million, privately financed arena on top of Hoboken’s train station.

He said he wouldn’t break his lease with the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which runs through 2007, but expected the state to let him out of it.

“Obviously they’re going to give us permission” to leave, McMullen said. “Logic would cause them to give us permission.”

But Raymond Bateman, chairman of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, didn’t see it that way.

“The simple reality is that the New Jersey Devils will be playing a minimum of 35 home games at Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford through the 2006-07 NHL season,” he said Friday. “There are no foreseeable circumstances under which that would change.”

McMullen also said he had informally talked with the New Jersey Nets of the NBA, a team he unsuccessfully tried to buy last year, about moving to Hoboken. The Nets’ lease at the Meadowlands runs out in 2000, but the team said in a statement Friday it has no plans to leave.

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The Washington Capitals recalled forward Benoit Gratton from Portland and reassigned forward Brad Church to the AHL affiliate.