Big spending doesn't pay.(NHL)

Of course, it is the labor issues that will hang over the offseason and alter the flee-agent signing season. It is the teams' loss of money--something that didn't occur suddenly but appears to be treated as such--that will chain checkbooks to desks and force some of those who would have been the most coveted players on the market to become the first explorers in the almost-new world order.

But it shouldn't have taken the upcoming work stoppage to stop the insanity. Signing big names to huge deals hasn't brought success since the players won the ability to become true unrestricted free agents after the lockout that took away part of the 1994-95 season. The free-agent era has been a boom for the players but a bust for most teams.

We all know what happened last year after the big signings of Paul Kariya, Teemu Selanne, Derian Hatcher. Their teams, and the others who plunged into the flee-agent pool, failed. The current Stanley Cup champion Lightning made its flee-agent splash (without causing so much as a ripple across the league) in the summer of 2000, when it signed the too-small-to-make-it Martin St. Louis, and in the summer of 2001, when it brought in long-past-his-prime Dave Andreychuk.

Building works, not buying.

Look at the NHL's Summer of Love--2002--when huge, long-term deals with big names sent fans into a frenzy. The Rangers signed Bobby Holik and Darius Kasparaitis. The Stars signed Bill Guerin. The Capitals went for Robert Lang, the Red Wings brought in Curtis Joseph and the Maple Leafs replaced him with Ed Belfour. Not one of those teams went on to win the Stanley Cup.

The Devils won that Cup. General manager Lou Lamoriello's unrestricted free-agent activity in that crazy, ego-driven summer of contracts went almost unnoticed: The Devils signed goaltender Corey Schwab to back up Martin Brodeur. It was the kind of small move that filled a necessary hole.

That's what owners and G.M.s need to look for on the flee-agent market. First, they need a realistic view of their teams. How close are they? What do they need? If the answer is one scoring forward, then dipping into the bigger names available would be prudent. Kariya, Alexei Kovalev, Ziggy Palffy and Eric Lindros became available after the clock struck midnight and June became July.